Books like Troilus and Cressida

When I was young and naive, I loved Troilus and Cressida for its brave cynicism, but now that I am older--and my outlook is bleaker--I appreciate it for its realism and compassion. Shakespeare shows us a world in which lovers yearn to be true and warriors strive to be brave, but both inevitably fail, betrayed by human nature and the adventitious provocations of time. Here, as in Romeo and Juliet, passion and violence are inextricably linked. Indeed, this later play often seems to be a dark parody of the earlier, with Pandarus--a debased version of both Nurse and Friar--pimping the two young lovers, and the final "tragedy" resolving itself in the death--not of two brave lovers--but of love and bravery themselves.