Although one of his lesser known plays, Shakespeare's considerable abilities as a playwright are readily apparent in "Troilus and Cressida." This historical and tragic 'problem play', thought to be inspired by Chaucer, Homer, and some of Shakespeare's history-recording contemporaries, is initially a tale of a man and woman in love during the Trojan War. When Cressida is given to the Greeks in exchange for a prisoner of war, Troilus is determined to...

"King Lear, one of Shakespeare's darkest and most savage plays, tells the story of the foolish and purblind Lear, who divides his kingdom, as he does his affections, according to vanity and whim. Lear's failure as a father engulfs himself and his world in turmoil and tragedy." "Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary, pronunciation, and prosody and provides alternative readings of phrases and lines. His on-page...

A small boy longed to roll and play in the grass like his father had when he was a child. But the boy lived in a concrete city without any grass or trees. Then, one day the boy and his friend discovered a sapling hiding behind a low wall. The boy had never seen a tree before. He was so amazed, he dreamed about the tree. ?I imagined it tall. When they heard that a condominium was being built right on the spot where their tree was growing, the boy and...