Book Description
This volume contains three masterpieces by the Greek playwright Sophocles, widely regarded since antiquity as the greatest of all the tragic poets. The vivid translations, which combine elegance and modernity, are remarkable for their lucidity and accuracy, and are equally suitable for reading for pleasure, study, or theatrical performance. The selection of Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra not only offers the reader the most influential and famous of Sophocles' works, it also presents in one volume the two plays dominated by a female heroic figure, and the experience of the two great dynasties featured in Greek tragedy--the houses of Oedipus and Agamemnon.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

SYNOPSIS

Love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, fear, deprivation, and political ambition drive the characters portrayed in these masterpieces towards catastrophe.

Recognized in his own day as perhaps the greatest Greek tragedian, Sophocles' reputation has remained undimmed for two and a half thousand years. His greatest innovation was his development of a central tragic figure, faced with a test of will and character, risking obloquy and death rather than compromise his or her principles: it is striking that Antigone and Electra both have a woman as their intransigent 'hero'. Antigone dies rather than neglect her family duty, Oedipus' determination to save his city results in the horrific discovery that he has committed both incest and patricide, and Electra's unremitting anger at her mother and her lover keeps her in servitude and dispair.