In most versions of the Hippolytos myth, Phaidra is depicted as an utterly debauched character, a woman reduced to shamelessness by the power of Aphrodite. In Euripides' Hippolytos, however--informed by the playwright's moral and religious fascination--we find a Phaidra resisting the goddess of love with all her strength, though in the end unsuccessfully. Phaidra becomes a tragic foil for Hippolytos, making his superhuman virtue at once believable and understandable.

Robert Bagg's profound translation of this Euripidean masterpiece is idiomatic, natural, and intensely lyrical, designed not only to be read but performed. Unlike most versions, Bagg's Hippolytos sustains the dramatic tome and dynamics to the very end--even after Phaidra's death--and the moving scenes between Hippolytos and Theseus, and later Hippolytos' death-scene with Artemis, receive here unprecedented plausibility and power.

THE TANDEM RIDE is a book that follows the poet, teacher and translator Robert Bagg on various outdoor, deskbound, and romantic adventures, from boyhood through adolescence and maturity into old age. The poems are often composed in narrative blank verse or traditional forms, including Spenserian stanzas and sonnet sequences. Bagg's comfort zone has remained since his college days within the heady precincts of Greek myth, while writing about contemporary subjects in colloquial American speech.

Patronage studies are an important part of modern Italian Rnaissance art history. This book looks at how and why the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinit was made. What induced the patron to have it decorated, why did he choose the particular church and why as his chosen painter did he choose Domenico Ghirlandaio. The patrons interest in promoting his image both on earth and in heaven are important factors in any Renaissance patronage study none more so given the bitter rivalry for the favour of Lorenzo de Medici between Francesco Sassetti and his banking rival Giovanni Tornabuoni. These two conducted and extensive campaign for the right to have decorated the main chapel in Santa Maria Novella. Sassetti having failed in his bid, not least as he wanted his chapel dedicated to his name saint then had Ghirlandaio create one of the great Florentine fresco cycles.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur (b. 1921) is part of a notable literary cohort, American poets who came to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. Wilbur's verse is esteemed for its fluency, wit, and optimism; his ingeniously rhymed translations of French drama by Moliere, Racine, and Corneille remain the most often staged in the English-speaking world; his essays possess a scope and acumen equal to the era's best criticism. This biography examines the philosophical and visionary depth of his world-renowned poetry and traces achievements spanning seventy years, from political editorials about World War II to war poems written during his service to his theatrical career, including a contentious collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman.Wilbur's life has been mistakenly seen as blessed, lacking the drama of his troubled contemporaries. Let Us Watch Richard Wilbur corrects that view and explores how Wilbur's perceived ""normality"" both enhanced and limited his achievement. The authors augment the life story with details gleaned from access to his unpublished journals, family archives, candid interviews they conducted with Wilbur and his wife, Charlee, and his correspondence with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, John Malcolm Brinnin, James Merrill, and others.