Book description
The legends surrounding the royal house of Thebes inspired Sophocles
to create a powerful trilogy of mankind's struggle aginst fate.
KING OEDIPUS tells of a man who brings pestilence to Thebes for
crimes he doesn't realise he has committed, and then inflicts a brutal
punishment on himself. It is a devastating portrayl of a ruler brought
down by his own oath. OEDIPUS AT COLONUS provides a fitting conclusion
to the life of the aged and blinded king, while ANTIGONE depicts the
fall of the next generation through the conflict between a young woman
ruled by her conscience and a king too confident in his own authority.
Sophocles was born in 496 BC. His long life spanned the rise and
decline of the Athenian Empire. He wrote over a hundred plays, many of
which are published as Penguin Classics, drawing on a wide and varied
range of themes.
E. F. Watling translated a range of Greek and Roman plays for
Penguin, including the seven plays of Sophocles and the tragedies of Seneca.
