This major study reconstructs the vast history of European Drama from Greek tragedy through to 20th century theatre, focusing on the subject of identity. Throughout history, drama has performed and represented political, religious, national, ethnic, class-related, gendered, and individual concepts of identity. Erika Fischer-Lichte's topics include: ancient Greek theatre Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre * the classicaal age of French theatre, Corneille, Racine and Moliere *the Italian commedia dell'arte and its transformations into 18th century drama the German Enlightenment - Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, and Lenz Romanticism by Kleist, Byron, Shelley, Hugo, de Vigny, Musset, Buchner, and Nestroy the turn of the century - Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Stanislavski the 20th century - Craig, Meyerhold, Artaud, O'Neill, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, Muller.