1. Some Eros–Thanatos interfaces in Attic Tragedy by David Rudkin
2. Dying for love: the tragicomedy of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra by Robert Wilcher
3. Desire and destruction in the drama of Georg Büchner by Karoline Gritzner
4. Labyrinths of the taboo: theatrical journeys of eroticism and death in Parisian culture by Richard J. Hand
5. The kiss of love and death: Eros and Thanatos in the opera by Dieter Borchmeyer
6. Eros/sex, death/murder: sensuality, homicide and culture in Musil, Brecht and the Neue Sachlichkeit by George Hunka
7. The living corpse: a metaphysic for theatre by Dic Edwards
8. Flirting with disaster by David Ian Rabey
9. Howard Barker’s ‘monstrous assaults’: eroticism, death and the antique text by Graham Saunders
10. ‘Welcome to the house of fun’: Eros, Thanatos, and the uncanny in grand illusions by Michael Mangan
11. Visions of Xs: experiencing La Fura dels Baus’s XXX and Ron Athey’s Solar Anus by Roberta Mock
12. Afterword: The corpse and its sexuality by Howard Barker

Exploring a range of topics, including Greek tragedy, Shakespearean theater, contemporary British plays, opera, and the theatricality of Parisian culture, this compilation provides new perspectives on the relationship between Eros and Death in a series of dramatic texts, theatrical practices, and cultural performances. Detailed and analytical, these informative essays demonstrate how changing attitudes towards sexuality and death—opposed but entangled passions—were reflected in theater throughout the course of history. Psychoanalytical and philosophical models are also referenced in this work that features essays from dramatists Dic Edwards, David Ian Rabey, and David Rudkin.