Sophocles was a Greek playwright born in 496 BC in Attica. He wrote over 120 plays and won 18 first prizes at the annual City of Dionysia festival. Some of his most famous works include Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Women of Trachis. In addition to writing, Sophocles also served as a priest and held roles on the Board of Generals and as the Director of the Treasury in Athens. He died in 405 BC after producing his final play, Oedipus at Colonus.
22. OEDIPUS THE KING
• greatest work of Sophocles
• explores the depths of modern
psycho analysis as Oedipus
unwittingly kills his father and
marries his mother in an attempt
to avoid the very prophecy he
ultimately fulfills.
23. Antigone
• the first surviving plays to have
been written
• story of a passionate young
woman who refuses to submit to
earthly authority
• illustrating the rival claims of the
state and individual conscience.
24. Women of Trachis
• Sophocles presents another well
rounded female character
• this drama does offer a powerful
and touching story of a jealous
woman.
• Sophocles’ greatest character
drama.
25. Other works of Sophocles
1.Oedipus at Colonus
2.Electra
3.Ajax
4.Philoctetes
26. Sophocles
• he was the first to add a third actor.
• he also abolished the trilogic form.
Aeschylus, for example, had used
three tragedies to tell a single story.
Sophocles choose to make each
tragedy a complete entity in itself.
27. • invention of scene-painting
and periaktoi (painted prisms).
• Periaktoi
-ancient device still used for
stage scene changes.
28.
29. • Death
-after the production of
Oedipus at Colonus in 405
-joined Aeschylus and
Euripides in the underworld.
Thus the first great
age of tragedy