Aeschylus can be called the creator of the art of tragedy in the Western tradition. Author of the first dramas that have survived in their entirety, he was also one of the world's greatest lyric and imaginative poets. This book by John Herington is designed to introduce all aspects of his majestic achievement to the general reader.
Herington begins by sketching the background to Aeschylus' plays. He first explains the very ancient mythical conception of our universe in which Aeschylus was brought up and which continued to shape his dramaturgy and poetic expression throughout his career....

Of all the poets of ancient Rome Ovid had perhaps the most influence on the art and literature of Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Even today he is probably the most accessible of all classical poets to the non-specialist, both in his subject matter and in his style. Ovid is no less fascinated than we are by the human psyche and by the ways men and women relate to each other, and many of his views on these questions seem centuries ahead of his time.

Ovid's interest in narrative technique is so much like ours that modern critical terms such as "reader-response" could have been coined...