Sophocles's Oedipus Rex (c. 425 b.c.e.), also translated as Oedipus the King, follows the doomed Oedipus as he unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, then realizes his fate and tears out his own eyes and banishes himself.

Aristotle's brilliant work of aesthetic philosophy, The Poetics, was probably written between 335 and 322 b.c.e.. Setting out to account for the poetic arts, it uses Sophoclean tragedy as a model, arguing that tragedy is the highest form of poetic representation. The rules and conventions by which Aristotle defined tragedy have remained extremely influential since they were rediscovered during the Renaissance.

Lysistrata (411 b.c.e.) is Aristophanes's witty play that voices opposition to the Peloponnesian War. In an insightful attack on male politicians who neglect the advice of wiser women, its female characters refuse to have sex with their husbands...