Out of all the famous Greek playwrights, Sophocles has to be one of the most well known of all. All seven of Sophocles’ plays “are often considered the most perfect achievement of ancient Athens” His plays make the audience think about the character’s actions, such as asking who was in the right and who was in the wrong. Sophocles’ plays ‘are just as relevant today as they were in the fifth century B.C.E.” (“Ancient Athenian Drama” 701). There are some connections between events in Sophocles’ life and his plays Oedipus and Antigone.
Not much is known about this known about this brilliant playwright, but what is known about him is that he “had an unusually long, successful, productive, and apparently happy life” (Ancient Athenian Drama” 701).Sophocles was born in the village of Colonus, near Athens, around 496 B.C.E (“Ancient Athenian Drama” 701). It is believed that his father made armor, which reeled in a good amount of income for his family during the war. Throughout all of his life, “Sophocles worked in the Athenian Theater all of his life” Sophocles would often star in his own plays, but due to his voice weakening over time, he was forced to give up acting (Denault “The Glory that was Greece”). Not only did Sophocles participate in theater, he was also politically active “ under Pericles as a treasurer in 443 and 442, and was elected as a general under him in 441” (“Ancient Athenian Drama” 703). “Sophocles married, had five sons, and died at the ripe old age of 90 in 406 B.C.E.(“Ancient Athenian Drama”, Denault).It is sad to say, unfortunately, that only seven plays by Sophocles have survived out of the 120 plays he wrote over the course of his life (“Ancient Athenian Drama” 702). Two of those surviving plays, Oedipus the Kin...
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...gree on is his contributions to theatre have changed the way theatre is written and performed. Oedipus the King will race towards its gruesome conclusion like a messed up murder mystery, and leaving the audience to decide what Oedipus is like(“Ancient Athenian Drama” 705). Antigone’s plot line has the ability to split a room into two sides over who, Antigone or Kreon, did the right thing. Even though Sophocles’ work is ancient, his works have surpassed the test of time, and his works continue to be read and performed to this day.
Works Cited
"Ancient Athenian Drama." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 701-05. Print. Beginnings to 1650.
Denault, Leigh T. "The Glory That Was Greece." The Glory That Was Greece. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. .
Antigone is a play written by Sophocles around 442 BC. Sophocles is known for his modern techniques. Sophocles’ work is known as the pinnacle of the Greek tragedy. Sophocles was very popular in his era. He served as treasurer of the Delian League and also General of Athenian army. Because Sophocles was widely known, his play were very popular. He received first prize at the drama festival when he was only twenty- eight. He wrote about one hundred and twenty- three plays for Aten's theater using tragedy and major conflicts (The Greek Theatre.) These techniques are used in the play, Antigone, to display the conflict between
In his lecture Oedipus at the Crossroads, Simon Goldhill addresses the idea that the incest between mother and son results in the collapse not only of the characters, but of language itself: or rather, of the language the characters use to express their despair. The fact that Oedipus stumbles on the words “Daughter, sister…” reflects this breakdown of language. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes, there is a similar sense of shattered language, but here it is more a case of being abandoned by language, of language and civilisation being so intrinsic to each other that being left behind by one implies being left behind by both. The Chorus’s description of what they imagine Philoctetes’s solitary existence to be like reflects this: “He cries out in his wretchedness;/there is only a blabbering echo,/that comes from the distance speeding/from his bitter crying”(187), using lack of dialogue to represent his solitude. Similarly, it is significant that it is not distinct words that announce Philoctetes’s approach the first time he comes on stage, but rather “the voice of a man wounded” and “a bitter cry” (209,210). And it is no coincidence that upon meeting Neoptolemus, Philoctetes’ greeting becomes an insistent, repetitive cry: “Take pity on me; speak to me; speak/ speak if you come as friends. / No—answer me/ If this is all/ that we can have from one another, speech, this, at least, we should have” (230). Just as, when Odysseus’ plan has been revealed and the men are preparing to leave, Philoctetes’ supplication is “Your voice has no word for me, son of Achilles? / Will you go away in silence?”(1065). Speech is equated with pity, di...
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
A Greek drama is a series of actions within a literary presentation in which the chief character has a disastrous fate. Many Greek dramas fall under the theatrical category of a tragedy due to the tragic events and unhappy ending that cause the downfall of the main character. During the famous play “Antigone” the Greek author Sophocles incorporated several features of a tragedy. These features include a morally significant dilemma and the presence of a tragic hero. The grand debate over which character can hold the title of the tragic hero has been discussed in the literary world for ages.
Woodard, Thomas. Introduction. In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Sophocles, like Antigone, was born to a privileged family in 496 B. C. in Colonus, a small town near Athens. His life was full of war stories and heroism. When he was a young boy, the Athenians defeated the Persians at Marathon. Later on, he was subjected to watching the burning of his home and the Parthenon by the Persians as well as the building of a new Parthenon. During the last years of his life, the Peloponnesian War raged on full-scale. Sophocles was a general and war hero during some of this time, but also on t...
Woodard, Thomas. Introduction. In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Tiresias, from “Oedipus the King” by the Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles, is a blind prophet and whilst he is only on the stage for a little time he plays a major role by what he does and what he represents. Tiresias enters the play after being summoned by Oedipus to tell him of the murderer of Laius, the recent King. Tiresias for the sake of Oedipus does not tell him the truth at the start saying that “what will come will come. Even if I shroud it all in silence”. In is conversation, Sophocles, uses Tiresias as a turning point in the plot as it is the beginning of Oedipus’ downfall. As well as that Sophocles uses Tiresias to represent many of the key ideas in the play. Tiresias represents the idea of fate and how
With this in mind, many believe that King Oedipus in Sophocles’ play, Oedipus the King, is the perfect example of Aristotle’s tragic hero. Does he, however, truly fulfill all the “requirements” described in Poetics or is there something we miss in the depths of his fascinating and multi-faceted character that does not fit into Aristotle’s template? Without a doubt, Oe...
The play “Antigone” by Sophocles displays many qualities that make it a great tragedy. A tragedy is defined as a dramatic or literary work in which the principal character engages in a morally significant struggle ending in ruin or profound disappointment. In creating his tragedy “Antigone”, Sophocles uses many techniques to create the feelings of fear and pity in his readers. This in turn creates an excellent tragedy.
Sophocles. Four Plays by Sophocles. Trans. Thomas H. Banks. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.
This paper aims to study two significant playwrights, Sophocles and Euripides, and compare their respective attitudes by examining their plays in respect to plot and character structures. To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into two main sections. In the first section, we provide a brief biography of both Sophocles and Euripides. The second and last section includes summaries of Sophocles’ Electra and Euripides’ Electra which were based on same essentials and give an opportunity to observe the differences of the playwrights. This section also includes the comparisons that are made by our observations about the plays.
The ineffaceable impression which Sophocles makes on us today and his imperishable position in the literature of the world are both due to his character-drawing. If we ask which of the men and women ofGreek tragedy have an independent life in the imagination apart from the stage and from the actual plot in which they appear, we must answer, ‘those created by Sophocles, above all others’ (36).
In Greek tragedy the natural forces are destructive. These forces might be nature, gods or fate. Man is helpless in facing these powers.
Sophocles, a Greek author and philosopher, created a magnificent work of literature, Oedipus Rex. Oedipus Rex describes the legendary tales that King Oedipus of Thebes took in order to confirm that his biological parents were King Polybus of Corinth and his wife Merope. This tragedy of fate explores the depths of modern psychoanalysis as Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother in an attempt to avoid the very prophecy he ultimately fulfills. The play was created by Sophocles, an intellectual philosopher that was born in 495 B.C. about a mile northwest of Athens. Sophocles has become one of the most prominent playwrights of the golden age. He was a son of a wealthy merchant, therefore, he enjoyed all the benefits of a thriving Greek empire. As an accomplished actor, Sophocles performed in many of his own plays, such as Oedipus Rex. The famous Sophocles is known as one of the greatest innovators of the theatre. The Theatre of Dionysus is where the greatest playwrights performed their infamous tales, it was a major open-air theatre build in Athens, the theatre was dedicated to the god of wine and fertility, it hosted the City Dionysia festival. The Theatre of Dionysus is where Oedipus Rex is first acknowledged to the world. Oedipus Rex embodies the nature of life and society in ancient Greece.