Bertolt Brecht

A full understanding of Bertolt Brecht’s dramatic background needs to look at the socio-political context in which he was writing such as the structure of the state, and the class struggle. Bertolt Brecht’s aggressive political idealism and determination in using art to pose challenging questions about the conflicts between society and morality generated intense controversy throughout his lifetime.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is acclaimed as the most significant British dramatist of the modern era. Though he is best known as a playwright, Shaw was also a respected critic, journalist, novelist, and essayist. A famous social reformer, Shaw wrote plays which dramatized social commentaries, and in 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his achievements. Today, his works are studied in literature classes worldwide and are considered classics of modern drama.

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828-1906) was an important Norwegian dramatist, social critic and agitator for women’s rights. He is known to be the father of realism and has been a pioneer in the transformation and revolution of modern drama. Ibsen was a leader in the campaign for a modern radical and realistic literature in the cultural life of Scandinavia of this age, and challenged the values of middle-class society and formulated the basic rights and liberties of the individual

Gods, Heroes, and Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain

Elegant contributions to the vast literature on mythology, these well-informed and thoroughly documented studies enhance our understanding of this elusive topic. Originally a series of lectures, Leeming's Myth is divided into four complementary essays covering myths and religious faith, creation stories, gender, and hero stories. The essays investigate the role of ancient beliefs in modern culture, clarifying the relationship between myth and fact and showing how myths evolve and endure in the works of noted authors  

Sacrifice Your Love: Psychoanalysis, Historicism, Chaucer (Medieval Cultures)

Historicism and its discontents have long been central to the work of Louise Fradenburg, one of the world's most original and provocative literary medievalists.
Sacrifice Your Love develops the idea that sacrifice is a mode of enjoyment-that our willingness to sacrifice our desire is actually a way of pursuing it. Fradenburg considers the implications of this idea for various problems important in medieval studies today-how to understand the religiosity of cultural forms, particularly chivalry, in the later Middle Ages and how to understand the ethics of Chaucer's famously nondidactic poetry-as well as in other fields of inquiry.