This course examines plays from the four great ancient Greek dramatists, all exploring the role of reason in human life: Aeschylus' Oresteia (a trilogy consisting of the Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides), Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Aristophanes' Clouds, and Euripides' Bacchae. Dr. Mayhew discusses these plays in the context of the rise and fall of the Classical Greek period. He begins with Aeschylus' optimistic, pro-reason trilogy, when so much seemed possible to the Greeks, and ends with Euripides' irrationalist prelude to the end of the Greek Enlightenment and to man's withdrawal from reason and this world.