III.

Sophocles as Dramatist

Sophocles composed more than 120 plays. Of these, 7 complete tragedies and fragments of 80 or 90 others are preserved. The seven surviving plays are Antigone, Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus (Oedipus the King), Electra, Ajax, Trachiniae (Maidens of Trachis), Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. Also preserved is a large fragment of the Ichneutae (Investigators), a satiric drama discovered on papyrus in Egypt in 1907. The earliest of the surviving tragedies is thought to be Ajax (approximately 451-444 bc). The next are probably Antigone and Trachiniae (both after 441). Oedipus Rex is generally dated shortly after 430 because of a probable reference to a plague in Athens that year. Most experts consider Electra a late play, dating as late as 410 bc. Philoctetes is known to date from 409 bc. Oedipus at Colonus was first produced posthumously in 401 bc.

A.

Technique

All seven of the surviving Sophoclean tragedies are considered outstanding for their powerful, intricate plots and dramatic style. At least three—Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus—are generally regarded as masterpieces. Sophocles introduced a major innovation when he abandoned the trilogy format of his predecessor Aeschylus, who presented at dramatic festivals three plays united by plot, characters, and theme. Sophocles, by contrast, presented plays that, so far as we know, were unconnected. By turning away from the trilogy, Sophocles could create tighter, more concentrated plots.

By abandoning the trilogy, Sophocles also reduced the importance of the chorus in Greek tragedy. In Aeschylus the chorus constantly relates the actions and suffering of individuals to an overall framework of divine purpose; the chorus also relates the present to the past and the future. Sophocles continues to use the chorus in most of his plays, but it serves primarily to suggest the larger moral and religious dilemmas posed by human actions.

Another technical innovation for which Sophocles was famous was the introduction of a third character. Previous plays had been built around two characters. The high points of Sophoclean drama are scenes of revelation that feature three actors.

B.

Thought

The plays of Sophocles reduce the emphasis on divine will—or relegate the will of the gods to the background—and stress instead the importance of human will. In Aeschylus, Sophocles’s most important predecessor, the will of the gods moves in and above human motives. This shift in emphasis enables Sophocles to concentrate on human character, and he produces an astonishing variety of unique, unforgettable individuals. His tragedies present a particular movement of crisis and revelation.

Many Sophoclean tragedies present us with a human being suddenly faced, during a crisis, with the mystery of a universe that imposes failure, agony, and death, defying human ingenuity and understanding. Antigone, for example, develops a main Sophoclean theme: the pain and suffering caused when an individual obstinately defies divine will or political authority, or refuses to yield to destiny and circumstance. The person’s obedience instead to some inner compulsion leads to agonizing revelation and, ultimately, to a mysterious vindication of that person’s behavior and life. Antigone defies the decree of Creon, the ruler of Thebes, and instead bestows the rites of burial upon her battle-slain brother Polynices. Creon has declared Polynices a traitor and ordered that his body be left to rot. In defying Creon, Antigone brings about her own death; the death of her lover Haemon, who is Creon’s son; and that of Eurydice, Creon’s wife.

Human ignorance is another Sophoclean theme. The characteristic Sophoclean hero is someone who begins with a confident assumption of knowledge and ends admitting ignorance or doubt. Even the heroic confidence of Antigone dissolves in doubt in her final speech. This theme is presented in its classic and most terrifying form in Oedipus Rex. The plot of Oedipus Rex turns on the gradual revelation to the mythological hero Oedipus of the dreadful truth that he has become ruler of Thebes by first unwittingly slaying his father and then marrying his mother, the queen Jocasta.

The mystery of the divine stands opposed to human suffering and ignorance. The divine has knowledge—its prophecies are always correct—and it seems to stand, in terms that the human mind can scarcely comprehend, for some pattern of order and perhaps even justice. In a universe so conceived, the human will to action might be expected to wither and disappear. However, Sophoclean heroes are remarkable for their stubborn insistence on action or understanding and for their fierce maintenance of independence. Oedipus stubbornly pursues the search for the truth about himself to the point where he sacrifices his reputation, his kingdom, and finally his eyes. Antigone defies the force of public opinion and the decrees of the state. The balance between the omniscient design of the gods and the heroic force of human will produces the dramatic tension that has kept the plays of Sophocles alive.

C.

Achievement

Sophocles is considered by many modern scholars the greatest of the Greek tragedians and the perfect mean between the titanic symbolism of Aeschylus and the rhetorical realism of Euripides. The contributions made by Sophocles to dramatic technique were numerous, and two of his innovations were especially important. He increased the number of actors from two to three, thus lessening the influence of the chorus and making possible greater complication of the plot and the more effective portrayal of character by contrast and juxtaposition; and he changed the Aeschylean fashion of composing plays in groups of three, each of them part of a central myth or theme, and made each play an independent psychological and dramatic unity. Sophocles also effected a transformation in the spirit and significance of a tragedy; thereafter, although problems of religion and morality still provided the themes, the nature of individuals, their problems, and their struggles became the chief interest of Greek tragedy.