Sophocles (ca 495 – ca 405)
Wrote 120 dramas
7 recoverable tragedies available today
Antigone ca 442
Oedipus the King ca 429
Dionysian festivals honoring the God of human and agricultural fertility began around
1200 BC
Were an annual Spring religious ritual by 600 BC
534 BC A drama competition was added, leading to the tragedies, comedies, and satyrs of
Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles
Tragedy: Signature Cultural Symbol of Athenian Democracy (under Pericles) – A Duty to
attend
 Helped involved all citizens in active political participation (an essential goal of
the Athenians) helped highlight political and moral themes
 Helped in the process of lifelong education for the tremendous responsibility of
democracy (“ruling and being ruled”)
 Tragedy for the Greeks was a religious and moral undertaking
 For Aristotle, “the imitation of an action that is complete and noble”
 Wisdom is learned through suffering. How else is it learned?
 Fear, pity, empathy all processed through catharsis
 First great play: Aeschylus’s The Persians (472); last great tragedies appear at
the end of the Peloponnesian War around 404.
Sophocles plays were based on themes found in ancient lore, unlike Aeschylus &
Euripides, but this safe distance from contemporary events allowed him to comment all
the more powerfully on 5th Century Athenian politics and morals.
Sophocles’ audiences were all too familiar with the Oedipus legend
Sophocles renders the legend so as to expose essential questions in the emergent
Athenian democracy.
 Critique of Pericles’ leadership in the Peloponnesian War and to show the
importance for establishing civil law in harmony with divine law
 Warning to the Athenians – and Pericles -- at the height of their power
 The stories work on 4 levels: Mythology (History), Moral Dimension: Actions
have consequences, Contemporary Meaning, Timeless
Oedipus the King
Performed in 429 during a great plague in Athens
Pericles declared war on Sparta, & refused the Spartans negotiations. Plague was partly
induced by the bodies left by the fighting.
Pericles was confident and saw the war as ineluctable. Sophocles is commenting on
Pericles’ hubris in the tragedy.
Oedipus: Valorizes human agency
Chorus: Traditional or conventional wisdom
Oedipus – A commanding figure – Periclean in nature, insofar as he was the only one to
solve the Sphinx
He tells the Sphinx, “It is man who speaks with one voice, crawls in the morning, walks
on 2 legs at noon, and walks on three legs at night.”
Oedipus, at the top of his power, send Creon to determine the cause of plague. He, like
Pericles, is supremely confident in his ability to determine, and solve the causes of the
plague.
Oedipus: Pursue truth, in the open.
Direct reference to Pericles: The blind soothsayer declares Oedipus to be the pollution.
Oedipus responds that it must be a plot by Teriesias and Creon to take his throne.
At every turn, Oedipus insists on using reason and disavowing the Gods. His tragic flaw:
A hubristic belief in the power of his own mind.
One moral: Problem of stubborn belief in one’s own reason and abilities
There is a higher morality than earthly law
Oedipus refusal of divine wisdom causes absolute ruin upon his house.
Might not have married Jocasta in Thebes – who was old enough to be his mother
Might have immediately removed himself from Thebes upon Teriesias’s identification of
him as the source of the plague.
Does Oedipus redeem himself? How? What further morals might we glean?
Antigone
Unlike Euripedes, Sophocles begins his plays with 2 or 3 characters in dialogue
Derives further from Oedipus myth; the former King’s crimes are still polluting the city
Creon – also certain that the laws of men are superior to the laws of the gods.
How do we learn wisdom: Through the sufferings of Creon, whose hubris brings
disaster upon his house.
How does Antigone refer to her uncle? How does this characterize Creon’s rule for the
audience?
What is Ismene’s position vis-à-vis the decree? What is her justification? (49-68)
What is the central conflict of the play? (69-77)
Compare Antigone’s attitude towards Ismene with Creon’s attitude towards Polyneices?
With whom do you sympathize, Antigone, Ismene, both?
-----------------------------What is the effect of the first choral ode starting with 100? Why are they feeling
buoyant?
Why is there a chorus of elders, rather than youth or women?
How does Creon characterize his own rule in 160-195? (p. 8)
_______________________
What sort of political regime is suggested in the dialogue between the King and the
unlucky bearer (Guard) of the bad news (of the partial burial) 210-330?
_______________________
The sentry who tells of the 2nd burial – what is the effect of a simple character here?
(383-408) (pp. 14-15)
Why did Antigone return; indeed she had already buried Polyneices, as divine law
requires of the closest near relative?
How does Antigone defend the divine law over the rule of man? (450-470)
Does political action – even today -- require any of the ancient preference for infamy?
Why doesn’t Antigone take a more sympathetic attitude towards her sister?
Why does Ismene have a change of heart after line 535?
Antigone represents changing, or at least fluid, mores in democratic Thebes.
How effective is Creon’s argument to Haemon in his long speech (after 630)?
does he ultimately make recourse in 675-680? (p. 24)
To what
What is Sophocles trying to do through the character of Haemon here?
Death Sentence at 775.
______________________________________________________________________
1:03:50 (Line 815) Characterize Antigone’s response from 856 (p. 30) (1:07:22)
758-908 How is the chorus responding to Antigone?
Has the audience’s feelings of her changed?
______________________________________________________________________
1:14:00
Teiresias uses the same verb (eiken) to recommend that Creon “yield” on pp. 35.
Is Teiresias’s case stronger than Haemon’s?
Why does Creon finally yield in 1102-115, after resisting Teiresias at first?
How has Creon’s character changed?
What is Creon’s tragic flaw?
The Messenger’s speech in 1156-1171 highlights the tragic dimension of the Antigone:
Aristotle described the best kind of tragic plot one where “a man enjoying great
reputation and prosperity, but not especially virtuous and just, suffers misfortune, not
through vice and wickedness, but because of some error of judgement.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Alternative interpretations of Antigone’s rejection of Creon’s decree to leave Polyneices
unburied?
1. A valiant defense of divine law as superior to – and more timeless than -- civil law
2. The importance of remaining true to one’s conscience in the face of a tyrannous or
totalitarian state. This requires dramatic political action, or living in truth, consequences
be damned.
3. A valiant defense of familial bonds over the authority of the state
4. The historical emergence of the individual: Antigone valorizes the interests of the
individual over the interests of the state.
5. A feminist prototype who evinces changing mores & the agency and strength of
women
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oedipus at Colunus
A different interpretation of the legend that found in Rex: Rather than his inglorious
death at Thebes (Rex), King Theseus gives Oedipus sanctuary in Athens (406) (at
Colunnus).
Moral: Athenians will never know defeat if they are generous and great of mind,
Still hope in 404 that the Athenians can find a suitable piece or win the war.