'and So Ad Infinitum‪'‬

The Life of the Insects turns the insect world into a brilliant, savage mirror of human society, where appetite, vanity, love, labor, and greed are exposed as comic instincts with deadly consequences. A drunken Tramp and a zealous Lepidopterist frame the play's satirical vision, setting observation against participation and hinting that nature's absurdities are really our own. In the butterfly world, Felix the poet, Iris the coquettish beauty, Victor, Clytie, and Otto spin through flirtation, rivalry, and lyrical posturing, testing the difference between true feeling and empty charm. Their sparkling courtship gives way to a harsher realm of beetles, crickets, and parasites, where a Chrysalis dreams of greatness, the Beetles worship their "pile," and the Crickets' warm domestic hopes are shattered by predation. As the Ichneumon Fly justifies killing as useful work, the Tramp and Parasite confront a universe in which exploitation hides behind respectability and survival is always under threat. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.