Tyrtaeus: A Tragedy

Written in the early 1940s under the Nazi reign of terror and set in ancient Sparta during the Second Messenean War in the 7th century BCE, "Tyrtaeus" dramatizes contemporary ethical and political concerns—the brutality of totalitarianism, the precariousness of democracy and human rights, and the sociopolitical role of poetry and art more generally—through the prism of Greek elegiac poet Tyrtaeus’ involvement in the conflict: first as a prisoner of war and, subsequently, as a newly-minted Spartan general who—as decreed by the Delphic Oracle—is ironically destined to lead Sparta to victory. A perennial play that speaks to all ages.