Book description
Sophocles innovative plays transformed Greek myths into dramas
featuring complex human characters, through which he explored profound
moral issues.
Electra
portrays the grief of a young woman for her father Agamemnon, who has
been killed by her mother s lover. Aeschylus and Euripides also
dramatized this story, but the objectivity and humanity of Sophocles
version provides a new perspective. Depicting the fall of a great hero, Ajax
examines the enigma of power and weakness combined in one being, while
the Women of Trachis
portrays the tragic love and error of Heracles deserted wife
Deianeira, and Philoctetes
deals with the conflict between physical force and moral strength.
Sophocles was born just outside Athens, in 496 BC, and lived ninety
years. His long life spanned the rise and decline of the Athenian
Empire; he was a friend of Pericles, and though not an active
politician he held several public offices, both military and civil.
Sophocles wrote over a hundred plays for the Athenian theater, and is
said to have come first in twenty-four contests. Only seven of his
tragedies are now extant, these being Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus the
King, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, and the posthumous
Oedipus at Colonus. He died in 406 BC.
Pat Easterling was Regius Professor of Greek in Cambridge from 1994
until her retirement in 2001; before that she taught in Manchester,
Cambridge and London (UCL). Her main field of research is Greek
literature, particularly tragedy; she also has a special interest in
the survival of ancient texts and the history of performance; her most
recent book is Greek and Roman Actors: aspects of an ancient
profession (Cambridge 2002), which she co-edited with Edith Hall.
She is currently writing a commentary on Sophocles' for the series
Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, of which she is a general editor.
