• Born: ca. 496 B.C.
• Birthplace: Colonus (now Kolonos), Greece
• Died: ca. 406 B.C.
• Best Known As: Greek dramatist who wrote Oedipus Tyrannus

Sophocles was a Greek dramatist whose long career came between his contemporaries Aeschylus and Euripides. A respected public figure of Athens, he was both a priest and a general (an elected position), but he is best known for the many dramatic prizes he won after 468 B.C. Like the elder Aeschylus, Sophocles was known as an innovator. He is credited with introducing a third actor, expanding the chorus from 12 to 15 players and replacing the trilogy form with self-contained tragedies. It is estimated he wrote more than 120 plays, of which only seven are extant (hundreds of fragments survived also). His most famous play, Oedipus Tyrannus (also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King), is considered by many to be the apex of Greek dramatic irony. His other plays include Antigone, Electra, Trachiniae (The Women of Trachis) and Oedipus at Colonus (produced after his death).

Sophocles was also an actor and performed in many of his early works... Reliable sources for the dates of his plays are scarce, other than for Oedipus at Colonus, produced in 401 B.C.... Because they involve themes associated with Thebes, the plays Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus and Oedipus at Colonus are sometimes referred to as the "Theban plays" or "Theban trilogy" (though scholars are quick to point out the plays are not, in fact, a trilogy).

The Greek tragedian Sophocles (496-406 B.C.) ranks foremost among Greek classical dramatists and has been called the poet of Greek humanism par excellence.

The son of Sophilus, a well-to-do industrialist, Sophocles was born in Colonus near Athens and grew up in the most brilliant intellectual period of Athens. Nothing concrete is known about his education, though it is known that he had a reputation for learning and esthetic taste. He was well versed in Homer and the Greek lyric poets, and because of his industriousness he was known as the "Attic Bee." His music teacher was a great man of the old school, Lamprus. Tradition says that because of his beauty and talent Sophocles was chosen to lead the male chorus at the celebration of the Greek victory at Salamis.

In 468 B.C., at age 28, Sophocles defeated Aeschylus in one of the drama contests that were then fashionable. During the remainder of his career he never won less than second prize and gained first prize more than any other Greek tragedian. He was also known for his amiability and sociability which epitomized the ideal Athenian gentleman (kaloskagathos). In public life he distinguished himself as a man of affairs. In 443-442 he held the post of Hellenotamias, or imperial treasurer, and was elected general at least twice. His religious activities included service as priest of the healing divinity, and he turned over his house for the worship of Asclepius until a proper temple could be built. For this he was honored with the title Dexion as a hero after his death. He is reported to have written a paean in honor of Asclepius. Sophocles had two sons, lophon and Sophocles, by his first wife, Nicostrata, and he had a third son, Ariston, by his second wife, Theoris.

Style and Contributions to Theater

Of approximately 125 tragedies that Sophocles is said to have written, only 7 have survived. Since we have but a fraction of the plays he wrote, general comments on Sophoclean drama are based on the extant plays. However, Plutarch tells us that there were three periods in Sophocles's literary development: imitation of the grand style of Aeschylus, use of artificial and incisive style, and use of the best style and that which is most expressive of character. It is only from the third period that we have examples.

It is often asserted that Sophocles found tragedy up in the clouds and brought it down to earth. For Aeschylus, myth was an important vehicle for ideas, for highlighting man's relation to the gods. Sophocles dealt with men and showed how a character reacts under stress. The tragedy of Sophocles has been described as a tragedy of character as contrasted to Aeschylus's tragedy of situation. Sophocles's principal subject is man, and his hero is suffering man. The protagonist is subjected to a series of tests which he usually surmounts.

It was Sophocles who raised the number of the chorus from 12 to 15 members and initiated other technical improvements, such as scene painting and better tragic masks. He abandoned the tetralogy and presented three plays on different subjects and a satyr play. A supreme master in the delineation of character, he is credited with the invention of the heroic maiden (Antigone, Electra) and the ingenuous young man (Haemon). Sophocles's choral songs are excellent and structurally, as well as situationally, beautiful.

The Plays

The dates of the seven extant plays of Sophocles are not all certain. Three are known: Antigone, 442/441; Philoctetes, 409; and Oedipus at Colonus, 401 (posthumously). C. H. Whitman has argued for 447 for the Ajax, about 437-432 for the Trachiniae, about 429 for the Oedipus Rex, and 418-414 for the Electra.

In the Ajax, the hero, whom the Iliad describes as second only to Achilles, is humiliated by Agamemnon and Menelaus when they award the arms of Achilles to Odysseus through intrigue. He vows vengeance on the Greek commanders as well as on Odysseus, but the goddess Athena makes him believe that he is attacking the Greeks when he is in fact attacking sheep. When he realizes his folly, he is so appalled that he commits suicide. Menelaus and Agamemnon try to prevent a proper burial, but Odysseus intercedes to make it possible. In the Ajax, Sophocles is pointing up the tragedy that may result from an insult to a man's arete (Homeric recognition of a man's excellence).

The Antigone is one of three plays on the Oedipus theme written over a period of some 40 years. Antigone is the young princess who pits herself against her uncle, King Creon. She defies his cruel edict forbidding burial of her brother Polyneices who, in attempting to invade Thebes and seize the throne from his brother Eteocles, slew him in mortal combat and, in turn, was slain. Against the pleas of her sister Ismene and fiancé Haemon, Antigone goes to her death holding to her defiance.

The Antigone has been interpreted as depicting the conflict between divine and secular law, between devotion to family and to the state, and between the arete of the heroine and the inadequacy of society represented by an illegal tyrant.

In the Trachiniae, Heracles's wife, Deianira, worries about the 15-month absence of her husband, who has acquired a new love, Princess Iole, and is bringing her home. In her sincere attempt to regain her husband's love, Deianira sends him a poisoned robe which she falsely believes has magical powers to restore lost love. Her son Hyllus and her husband, before dying, denounce Deianira, who commits suicide.

In this play Sophocles poignantly raises the question, "Why can knowledge hurt?" He stresses the dilemma of the person who unintentionally hurts those whom he loves. The question of the role of knowledge in human affairs prepares us for the Oedipus, his greatest play and the work that Aristotle considered the perfect Greek play and many have considered the greatest play of all time.

Oedipus Rex is a superb example of dramatic irony. It is not a play about sex or murder; it is a play about the inadequacy of human knowledge and man's capacity to survive almost intolerable suffering. The worst of all things happens to Oedipus: unknowingly he kills his own father, Laius, and is given his own mother, Jocasta, in marriage for slaying the Sphinx. When a plague at Thebes compels him to consult the oracle, he finds that he himself is the cause of the affliction.

No summary can do this amazing play justice. Sophocles brings up the question of justice. Why is there irrational evil in the world? Why does the very man who is basically good suffer intolerably? The answer is found in the concept of dikē - balance, order, justice. The world is orderly and follows natural laws. No matter how good or how well intentioned man may be, if he violates a natural law, he will be punished and he will suffer. Human knowledge is limited, but there is nobility in human suffering.

The Electra is Sophocles's only play that can be compared thematically with works of Aeschylus (Libation Bearers) and Euripides (Electra). Again Sophocles concentrates on a character under stress. Described as the most grim of all Greek tragedies, Electra suggests a flaw in the universe. It is less concerned with moral issues than the other two Electra plays. An oppressed and harassed Electra anxiously awaits the return of her avenging brother, Orestes. He returns secretly, first spreading the news that Orestes was killed in a chariot accident. Electra is constantly at the tomb of her father but is warned by her sister, Chrysothemis, about her constant wailing. Clytemnestra, disturbed by an ominous dream, sends Chrysothemis to offer libations at the tomb. A quarrel between Clytemnestra and Electra demonstrates the impossibility of reconciliation between mother and daughter. A messenger announcing the death of Orestes and carrying an urn with his ashes stirs up maternal feelings in Clytemnestra, despair in Chrysothemis, and determination to wreak vengeance on her mother and Aegisthus, her mother's consort, in Electra. The appearance of Orestes rejuvenates Electra, and together they do away with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The chorus rejoices that justice has triumphed.

The Electra of Sophocles may have been written as an answer to Euripides's Electra. Matricide and murder are fully justified, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are completely and utterly evil, and Electra avenges her father's death relentlessly and almost psychopathically.

In the Philoctetes, Odysseus is sent with young Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, from Troy to the allegedly uninhabited island of Lemnos to bring back Philoctetes with his bow and his arrows to effect the capture of Troy. Urged by Odysseus to do his assignment, Neoptolemus, after gaining Philoctetes's confidence suffers pangs of conscience over the old man and refuses to deceive him. He returns Philoctetes's weapons and promises to take him home. A deus ex machina finally convinces Philoctetes to return to Troy voluntarily. The Philoctetes clearly shows how man and society can come into conflict, how society can discard an individual when it does not need him, and how the individual with technological knowhow can bring society to its knees.

The Oedipus at Colonus, produced posthumously, is the most loosely structured, most lyrical, and longest of Sophoclean dramas. It brings to a conclusion Sophocles's concern with the Oedipus theme. Exiled by Creon, in concurrence with Eteocles and Polyneices, Oedipus becomes a wandering beggar accompanied by his daughter Antigone. He stumbles into a sacred grove of the Eumenides at Colonus, and the chorus of Elders is shocked to discover his identity. Oedipus justifies his past and asks that Theseus be summoned. Theseus arrives and promises him asylum, but Creon, first deceitfully, then by force, tries to remove Oedipus. Theseus comes to the rescue and thwarts Creon. The arrival of his son Polyneices produces thunderous rage in Oedipus, who curses both him and Eteocles. Oedipus soon senses his impending death and allows only Theseus to witness the event by which he is transfigured into a hero and a saint.

"Many are the wonders of the world," says Sophocles in the first stasimon of the Antigone, "but none is more wonderful than man." Sophocles's humanism is nowhere more concisely manifest than in this famous quotation. Man is able to overcome all kinds of obstacles and is able to be remarkably inventive and creative, but he is mortal and hence limited, despite an optimistic, progressive outlook. Suffering is an inherent part of the nature of things, but learning can be gained, and through suffering man can achieve nobility and dignity.

Further Reading

The bibliography on Sophocles is extensive, and in recent years some very stimulating and imaginative interpretations have appeared. Among the most significant works are C.M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (1944); Robert F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles' Antigone (1951); Cedric H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (1951); Sinclair M. Adams, Sophocles the Playwright (1957); Bernard M.W. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes (1957); George M. Kirkwood, A Study of Sophoclean Drama (1958); H.D.F. Kitto, Sophocles, Dramatist and Philosopher (1958); and Michael J. O'Brien, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Oedipus Rex (1968).

For more information on Sophocles, visit Britannica.com.

Sophoclēs (c.496–406/5 BC), one of the great Athenian tragedians, born at Colōnus near Athens, the son of Sophilus, a wealthy manufacturer of armour. The anonymous ancient biography of the poet gives a great deal of information about him, no doubt much of it unreliable. His beauty and his skill in music and dancing early attracted attention; as a boy he led the chorus which sang the paean in honour of the Greek victory over the Persian invaders at Salamis in 480 BC. His first victory in the tragic competitions was at the Great Dionysia in 468 BC, at his first attempt it is said, when he defeated Aeschylus. His early life coincided with the expansion of the Athenian empire, and though he took no active part in politics as far as is known, he was twice elected strategos (‘general’). After the failure of the Sicilian Expedition in 413 he was made one of the probouloi (‘commissioners’) to deal with the crisis. Amiable and popular, he was a good citizen who lived and died in Athens; he is said to have refused invitations to visit the courts of kings (unlike Aeschylus and Euripides). Aristophanes in the Frogs, writing a year after Sophocles' death, summed up his character in the line (82), ‘contented among the living, contented among the dead’; only a few months before his death Sophocles presented his chorus and actors at the proagon in mourning garb for the death of Euripides. He left two sons: by Nicostratē, Iophon the tragedian; and by Theōris of Sicyon, Agathon, father of the younger Sophocles, also a tragedian.

He is said to have composed 130 plays, of which seven were later judged to be spurious, and to have won twenty-four dramatic competitions with his tetralogies (i.e. ninety-six plays were successful); with the rest he came second, never third. Seven tragedies are extant; the suggested dates seem likely but (except for Philoctētēs and Oedipus Coloneus) by no means certain: Antigonē 441; Trachiniae and Ajax probably earlier; Oedipus Tyrannus soon after 430; Electra between 418 and 410; Philoctetes 409; Oedipus Coloneus probably written 406/5, produced posthumously in 401 by the younger Sophocles. For the plots of these plays see their individual titles. A large fragment of his satyr-play Ichneutae (‘trackers’; see SATYRIC DRAMA) has been recovered from a papyrus found in modern times. Its plot concerned the theft of Apollo's cattle by Hermes soon after the latter's birth. As well as writing tragedies he was the author of a prose treatise, ‘On the Chorus’.

According to Aristotle in the Poetics, Sophocles was an innovator in tragedy: he added a third to the previously accepted two actors, introduced ‘scene painting’, and increased the chorus from twelve to fifteen; he also abandoned the Aeschylean practice of writing trilogies on related events (see TRAGEDY 1), instead giving each play a self-contained plot. Since the actors in Greek tragedy might play more than one part, the introduction of the third actor enabled Sophocles to make plot, dialogue, and the relationship of characters much more complex. His characters were admired by Aristotle for being ‘like ourselves only nobler’; Sophocles is said to have remarked that he depicted people as they ought to be, Euripides as they are; nevertheless his characters are not wholly idealized but remain manifestly human. His heroes and heroines are placed in circumstances in which they must act, and by their actions, which often have tragic consequences, they show their heroic stature. More than those of the other tragedians, Sophocles' heroes and heroines give the impression that it is their innate characters that initiate the action, and that they could not have behaved otherwise. When, as in Ajax, Antigone, and Trachiniae, the main character dies well before the end of the play and the plot takes a turn in another direction, some slackening of the tension is inevitably felt; but even so, the concluding part still seems to follow necessarily from what has preceded. In the other plays the unity is complete; in particular, the tightknit plot of Oedipus Tyrannus (which for Aristotle represented Greek tragedy at its greatest) is handled with amazing dexterity and at a rapid pace.

Sophocles rarely introduces into the self-contained world of the play ideas that relate more to contemporary affairs, a factor that makes dating the plays on internal evidence difficult. He was a master of dialogue, both in speeches and in stichomythia. One feature for which he became famous is dramatic irony, of the kind where the speaker's words have an underlying significance for the audience, already familiar with the outlines of a story drawn from a well-known body of myth (see TRAGEDY 1). The language of Sophocles is dignified, avoiding the grandiose and over-naturalistic, and often dense, rather in aid of economy than at the expense of clarity. Some of the lyric odes are outstanding, moving the action on to a different plane. According to Plutarch, Sophocles distinguished three periods in his own style: the first, when he imitated the ‘high-flown’ style of Aeschylus; the second, when his style was ‘harsh and artificial’; and the third, when it was ‘most suitable for expressing characters and best for drama’. All his extant plays seem to belong to the third period.

The plays show a conventional but deeply felt piety: that the gods enforce their justice upon human life, and the wise act as best they may in accordance with divine will. In this connection Matthew Arnold's judgement of Sophocles (in his sonnet, To a Friend) as one ‘who saw life steadily and saw it whole’ is often quoted. The poet Shelley had a volume of Sophocles in his pocket when he was drowned in 1822.

(sŏf'əklēz) , c.496 B.C.–406 B.C., Greek tragic dramatist, younger contemporary of Aeschylus and older contemporary of Euripides, b. Colonus, near Athens. A man of wealth, charm, and genius, Sophocles was given posts of responsibility in peace and in war by the Athenians. He was a general and a priest; after his death he was worshiped as a hero. At the age of 16 he led the chorus in a paean on the victory of Salamis. He won his first dramatic triumph in 468, over Aeschylus, and thenceforth wrote copiously (he composed about 123 dramas), winning first place about 20 times and never falling lower than second. A definitive innovator in the drama, he added a third actor—thereby tremendously increasing the dramatic possibilities of the medium—increased the size of the chorus, abandoned the trilogy of plays for the self-contained tragedy, and introduced scene painting. Seven complete tragedies (difficult to date), part of a satyr play, and over 1,000 fragments survive. Ajax is perhaps the earliest tragedy; three actors are used but the form is handled imperfectly. In his other plays, whether with two or three actors, the dialogue is polished and smooth. Antigone (c.441) contains extraordinarily fine characterization. The most famous of his tragedies (cited by Aristotle as a perfect example of tragedy) is Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus (c.429), in which Greek dramatic irony reaches an apex. The plot is based on the Oedipus legend. Electra (date uncertain), the Trachiniae (date uncertain; on the death of Hercules by the blood of Nessus), and Philoctetes (409) followed. Oedipus at Colonus was written shortly before Sophocles' death and was produced in 401. A sequel to Oedipus Rex, it tells of the last days and death of Oedipus; it is a quiet, simple play of great beauty and power. There is also extant about half of a satyr play (Ichneutae or The Trackers, written perhaps c.460) on Hermes' theft of Apollo's cattle. The characters in Sophocles are governed in their fate more by their own faults than by the actions of the gods as in the tragedies of Aeschylus. Sophocles is supposed to have said that Aeschylus composed correctly without knowing it; Euripides portrayed people as they were; and he painted people as they ought to be. The translation by Richmond Lattimore and David Grene, The Complete Greek Tragedies (1959) is one of the many English translations of Sophocles.

Bibliography

See studies by C. H. Whitman (1951), A. J. A. Waldock (1966), R. P. Winnington-Ingram (1980), and C. Segal (1981).

Quotes:

"For the dead there are no more toils."

"To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task."

"I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating."

"To him who is in fear everything rustles."

"There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?"

"The dice of Zeus always fall luckily."

See more famous quotes by Sophocles

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