An overview of Classic Drama
A catch-all designation for public-domain plays whose authorship or date sits outside the better-defined eras — anonymous early dramas, lesser-attributed translations, and one-off works that don't fit cleanly elsewhere. Don't let the bland category fool you; some of the most idiosyncratic and rewarding scripts in the archive end up here.
Plays from this era (24)
- Shakspeare's Mental Photographs — by Anonymous
- Writing for Vaudeville — by Brett Page
- Athaliah: A Tragedy Intended for Reading Only, Translated Into English Blank Verse, From Racine (A. Gombert's Edition, 1825) — by J. Donkersley
- Sakoontala; Or, The Lost Ring: An Indian Drama — by Kālidāsa
- Apocolocyntosis — by Lucius Annaeus, 5? BCE-65 Seneca
- The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 07, May 14, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 32, November 5, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 35, November 26, 1870 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, August 22, 1917 — by Various
- Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 38, December 17, 1870. — by Various
- The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 359, March 7, 1829 — by Various
- The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 280, October 27, 1827 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, November 14, 1917 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, July 12, 1890 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, August 8, 1917 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, May 28, 1919 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 146, January 7, 1914 — by Various
- Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, August 2, 1890 — by Various
Legacy & influence
Plays from Classic Drama continue to define what working theatre artists assume a play is. Drama-school curricula are built around them; regional theatres programme at least one of them every season; high-school English departments teach them year after year because students respond to the structural clarity and the language. What looks at first like pious veneration of the canon is, on closer inspection, a working consensus among practitioners that these plays still teach us how the form actually works.