Sophocles I: Ajax / Electra / Oedipus Tyrannus
by Sophocles
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Sophocles (497/6-406 BCE), with Aeschylus and Euripides, was one of the three great tragic poets of Athens, and is considered one of the world's greatest poets. The subjects of his plays were drawn from mythology and legend. Each play contains at least one heroic figure, a character whose strength, courage, or intelligence exceeds the human norm-but who also has more than ordinary pride and self-assurance. These qualities combine to lead to a tragic end. Hugh Lloyd-Jones gives us, in two show more volumes, a new translation of the seven surviving plays. Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus (which tells the famous Oedipus story), Ajax (a heroic tragedy of wounded self-esteem), and Electra (the story of siblings who seek revenge on their mother and her lover for killing their father). Volume II contains Oedipus at Colonus (the climax of the fallen hero's life), Antigone (a conflict between public authority and an individual woman's conscience), The Women of Trachis (a fatal attempt by Heracles' wife to regain her husband's love), and Philoctetes (Odysseus's intrigue to bring an unwilling hero to the Trojan War). Of his other plays, only fragments remain; but from these much can be learned about Sophocles' language and dramatic art. The major fragments-ranging in length from two lines to a very substantial portion of the satyr play The Searchers-are collected in Volume III of this edition. In prefatory notes Lloyd-Jones provides frameworks for the fragments of known plays. show lessTags
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I haven't got this copy I've got the penguin one but I have to say really good stuff. like how the charecters are single minded or two dimensional I find it refreshingly different and more honest compared to the plot twists and hidden depths that pretty much all other literature uses to create plot and tension. Really clear readable and poetic
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812+ Works 45,707 Members
Sophocles was born around 496 B.C. in Colonus (near Athens), Greece. In 480, he was selected to lead the paean (choral chant to a god) celebrating the decisive Greek sea victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. He served as a treasurer and general for Athens when it was expanding its empire and influence. He wrote approximately 123 show more plays including Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, Trachiniae, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. His last recorded act was to lead a chorus in public mourning for Euripides. He died in 406 B. C. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- Sophocles I: Ajax / Electra / Oedipus Tyrannus
- Original title
- Αἴας; Ἠλέκτρα; Οἰδίπους Τύραννος
- Original publication date
- 1994
- People/Characters
- Ajax; Odysseus; Tecmessa; Teucer; Menelaus; Agamemnon (show all 16); Orestes; Electra; Chrysothemis; Clytaemnestra; Clytemnestra; Aegisthus; Oedipus; Creon; Tiresias; Jocasta
- First words
- PREFACE
By kind permission of the Oxford University Press, the text of Sophocles printed in these volumes is virtually the same as that of the text edited by me in collaboration with N. G. Wilson, which was published as an... (show all) Oxford Classical Text in 1990, and reprinted, with a few corrections, in 1992.
INTRODUCTION
Many modern readers of Greek tragedy seem to feel a special affinity with Sophocles, and it is worth while to endeavor to account for this.
ΑΙΑΣ
ΑΘΗΝΑ
Αει μεν, ω παι Λαρτιου, δεδορκα σε
πειραν τιν εχθρων αρπασαι θηρωμενον - Disambiguation notice
- This is the first volume of Sophocles in the Loeb Classical Library, containing: Ajax; Electra; Oedipus Tyrannus. Do not combine it with the Grene and Lattimore's The Complete Greek Tragedies Sophocles I - Also be aware that ... (show all)Loeb renumbered and there is another Sophocles volume 1 series number 20 with different plays. Do not combine them.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Poetry
- DDC/MDS
- 882.01 — Literature & rhetoric Classical & modern Greek literatures Classical Greek dramatic poetry and drama standard subdivisions; collections; history, description, critical appraisal; Specific periods Ancient period to ca. 499
- LCC
- PA4414 .A1 .L56 — Language and Literature Greek language and literature. Latin language and literature Greek literature Individual authors Sophocles
- BISAC
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- Reviews
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- Rating
- (4.19)
- Languages
- English, French, Greek (Ancient)
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
