The Three Theban Plays: Sophocles
- ISBN-10
- 1517506891
- ISBN-13
- 9781517506896
- Series
- The Three Theban Plays
- Pages
- 186
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2015-09-24
- Publisher
- CreateSpace
- Author
- Sophocles
Description
The Three Theban Plays - Oedipus the King - Oedipus at Colonus - Antigone - Sophocles - The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and also Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus. To Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found the babe and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him to his master, the King of Corinth. Polybus being childless adopted the boy, who grew up believing that he was indeed the King's son. Afterwards doubting his parentage he inquired of the Delphic god and heard himself the word declared before to Laius. Wherefore he fled from what he deemed his father's house and in his flight he encountered and unwillingly slew his father Laius. Arriving at Thebes he answered the riddle of the Sphinx and the grateful Thebans made their deliverer king. So he reigned in the room of Laius, and espoused the widowed queen. Children were born to them and Thebes prospered under his rule, but again a grievous plague fell upon the city. Again the oracle was consulted and it bade them purge themselves of blood-guiltiness. Oedipus denounces the crime of which he is unaware, and undertakes to track out the criminal. Step by step it is brought home to him that he is the man. The closing scene reveals Jocasta slain by her own hand and Oedipus blinded by his own act and praying for death or exile.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2015-02-06
- 252 pages
- Paperback
- CreateSpace
Similar books
-
The Theban Plays
By SophoclesKing 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 ...
-
Three Theban Plays: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone
By Sophocles"The tyrant is a child of PrideWho drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity,Until from his high crest headlongHe plummets to the dust of hope.
-
The Three Theban Plays
By SophoclesDetailed notes accompany modern translations of the stories of Oedipus, a king who is unable to escape his tragic fate and ends his days in exile Three Theban Plays entitled Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus.
-
The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus (Translated by Francis Storr with Introductions by Richard...
By SophoclesIn this edition are included the three "Theban" plays, which are widely considered his most important works.
-
Three Theban Plays
By SophoclesThree Theban Plays
-
Oedipus the King and Antigone
By SophoclesEd. Jonas A. Barish Racine: Phaedra. Trans. and ed. Oreste F. Pucciani Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus and Electra. Trans. and ed. Peter D. Arnott Sophocles: Oedipus the King and Antigone. Trans. and ed.
-
Three Theban Plays
By SophoclesThe story of Oedipus has captured the human imagination as few others. It is the story of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother, a man who by a cruel irony brings these things to pass by his very efforts to avoid them.
-
Three Other Theban Plays: Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes; Euripides' Suppliants; Euripides' Phoenician Women
By Euripides, AeschylusThough now associated mainly with Sophocles' Theban Plays and Euripides' Bacchae, the theme of Thebes and its royalty was a favorite of ancient Greek poets, one explored in a now lost epic cycle, as well as several other surviving tragedies ...
-
The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus
By SophoclesIn antiquity, the term "tyrant" referred to a ruler, but it did not necessarily have a negative connotation. Of his three Theban plays that have survived, and that deal with the story of Oedipus, Oedipus Rex was the second to be written.
-
The Theban Plays: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone
By SophoclesThe stirring tale of a legendary royal family's fall and ultimate redemption, the Theban trilogy endures as the crowning achievement of Greek drama.