Explores the philosophic nature of the art of drama. Through Nietzsche's thinking in Birth of Tragedy and Good and Evil, drama is examined in Greek tragedy with Euripides, Shakespeare's tragedies in the Renaissance, O'Neill's dark plays in the modern world and contemporary works of playwrights like Ed Bond. Horace's Ars Poetica tells us drama must "instruct and delight." In this course both the joy and the illumination of the plays take center stage. [ 3 credits ]