Electra and Other Plays

A new translation by David Raeburn, with introduction and notes by Pat Easterling

Demonstrating Sophocles' aptitude for humanising figures from Greek myth and transforming simple fables into complex high tragedy, Electra and Other Plays is translated by David Raeburn with an introduction and notes by Pat Easterling. 
 
The plays collected in this volume show Sophocles' ability to create complex human characters struggling with profound moral issues. In Women of Trachis the agonizing death of the mighty Heracles is brought about by a tragic mistake made by his jealous wife Deianeira, as she attempts to regain his love. Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, Ajax depicts a warrior driven into a homicidal rage that leads to his undoing, and Electra shows the grief-stricken children of the murdered Agamemnon and their plot to avenge him, while Philoctetes portrays the cunning Odysseus' attempt to convince a famed archer to rejoin the Greek expedition against Troy, undermined by the honesty of his young comrade Neoptolemus. 
 
David Raeburn's translation captures the rhythms of the original Greek, while remaining accessible to modern readers. Pat Easterling's general introduction discusses Athenian dramatic festivals, and the structure and tensions of the plays and their characters. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, prefaces to each play and notes. 
 
Sophocles (496-405 BC) was born at Colonus, just outside Athens. 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. The leader of a literary circle and friend of Herodotus, Sophocles wrote over a hundred plays, drawing on a wide and varied range of themes, and winning the City Dionysia eighteen times; though only seven of his tragedies have survived, among them Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Ajax and Oedipus at Colonus. 
 
If you enjoyed Electra and Other Plays, you might like Sophocles' The Three Theban Plays, also available in Penguin Classics.

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.

Sophocles&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s lover. Aeschylus and Euripides also dramatized this story, but the objectivity and humanity of Sophocles&rsquo; 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&rsquo; deserted wife Deianeira, and Philoctetes deals with the conflict between physical force and moral strength.

Greek Tragedy

Bringing together the masterpieces of classical tragedy in one volume, this is the ideal single-volume introduction for theatre goers, actors, general readers, and students of Classics, English Literature, and Drama.

AESOP probably lived in the middle part of the sixth century BC. A statement in Herodotus gives grounds for thinking that he was a slave. 
 
 
Simon Goldhill (introducer) is Professor of Greek at Cambridge University and a Fellow of King's College where he is Director of Studies in Classics. He has published widely on many aspects of Greek literature, especially tragedy. He is in great demand as a lecturer all over the world, and is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television on classical matters. 
 
Shomit Dutta (editor) was educated at University College Oxford, and King's College London, and has taught classics at Radley College and Harrow School, and Oxford. He is also a freelance arts reviewer, and has published a translation of Sophocles' Ajax (Cambridge).

Agememnon is the first part of the Aeschylus's Orestian trilogy in which the leader of the Greek army returns from the Trojan war to be murdered by his treacherous wife Clytemnestra. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex the king sets out to uncover the cause of the plague that has struck his city, only to disover the devastating truth about his relationship with his mother and his father. 
Medea is the terrible story of a woman's bloody revenge on her adulterous husband through the murder of her own children.

The Theban Plays

King Oedipus/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone 
 
Three towering works of Greek tragedy depicting the inexorable downfall of a doomed royal dynasty 
 
The legends surrounding the house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create this powerful trilogy about humanity's struggle against fate. King Oedipus is the devastating portrayal of a ruler who brings pestilence to Thebes for crimes he does not realize he has committed and then inflicts a brutal punishment upon himself. 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 of his own authority. 
 
Translated with an Introduction by E. F. WATLING

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.

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.

Oedipus the King,Oedipus at Colonus, JACKET LO D2K

Ancient Athens produced three great tragic writers - Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Of the three Sophocles has in many ways remained the most accessible and may have had the most extensive influence on Western Culture, not least because Freud took from the Theban Plays the name and the idea of the Oedipus complex. Of Sophocles' hundred odd plays only seven have survived, of which three are printed here. The Theban Plays make up a trilogy as was common at the time, in which the story of Oedipus' downfall and its aftermath is explored in three stages.

Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus

The Three Theban Plays

Towering over the rest of Greek tragedy, Sophocles' The Three Theban Plays are among the most enduring and timeless dramas ever written. This Penguin Classics edition is translated by Robert Fagles with introductions and notes by Bernard Knox. 
 
Collected here are Antigone, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, in a translation by Robert Fagles which retains all of Sophocles' lucidity and power: the cut and thrust of his dialogue, his ironic edge, the surge and majesty of his choruses and, above all, the agonies and triumphs of his characters. Oedipus in exile, searching for his identity, desperately trying to avoid his fate, seeking the truth of his origins and achieving immortality; his daughter, Antigone, defending her integrity and ideals to the death - these heroic, tragic figures have captivated theatregoers and readers since the fifth century BC. It is Sophocles' characterisation of Oedipus that would, in the nineteenth century, inspire Sigmund Freud to a revolutionary conception of the human mind, and the tragedies in this volume continue to move and inspire us to this day. 
 
Sophocles (496-405 BC) was born at Colonus, just outside Athens. 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. The leader of a literary circle and friend of Herodotus, Sophocles wrote over a hundred plays, drawing on a wide and varied range of themes, and winning the City Dionysia eighteen times; though only seven of his tragedies have survived, among them Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Ajax and Oedipus at Colonus. 
 
If you enjoyed The Three Theban Plays, you might like Aeschylus' The Oresteia, also available in Penguin Classics. 
 
'I know of no better English version' 
Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Oxford University 
 
'The most impressive verse translations of Sophocles that have been made' 
Stephen Spender

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.

Antigone defending her integrity and ideals to the death, Oedipus questing for his identity and achieving immortality&mdash;these heroic figures have moved playgoers and readers since the fifth century BC.Towering over the rest of Greek tragedy, these three plays are among the most enduring and timeless dramas ever written. Robert Fagles' translation conveys all of Sophocles' lucidity and power: the cut and thrust of his dialogue, his ironic edge, the surge and majesty of his choruses and, above all, the agonies and triumphs of his characters.

Sophocles

'It's a dreadful thing to yield...but resist now? 
Lay my pride bare to the blows of ruin? 
That's dreadful too.'

Sophocles

Antigone

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