Electra and Other Plays : Electra, Ajax, Women of Trachis, Philoctetes

by Sophocles (Author); Raeburn, David (Translator); Raeburn, David (Preface by)

• ISBN13: 9780140449785
• ISBN10: 0140449787
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-06-24
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Four seminal tragedies by the master Greek dramatist, in sparkling new translations Of the more than one hundred plays Sophocles wrote over the course of his long life, only seven survive. This volume collects four of them, all newly translated. Electra portrays the grief of a young woman for her father, Agamemnon, who has been killed by her mother’s lover. Ajaxdepicts the enigma of power and weakness vis-àvis the fall of the great hero. Women of Trachisdramatizes the tragic love and error of Heracles’s deserted wife, Deianeira; Philoctetesexamines the conflict between physical force and moral strength.

Author Biography

Sophocles (496 BC-û406 BC) wrote more than a hundred plays for the Athenian theater, including Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus. His life spanned the rise and decline of the Athenian Empire. David Raeburn is a lecturer in classics at Oxford and the translator of the Penguin Classics edition of Ovid-'s Metamorphoses. Pat Easterling is a former Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Chronology
General Introduction
Further Reading
A Note on the Translation
Preface to Women of Trachis	p. 3
Women of Trachis	p. 14
Preface to Ajax	p. 63
Ajax	p. 73
Preface to Electra	p. 127
Electra	p. 135
Preface to Philoctetes	p. 193
Philoctetes	p. 202
Notes	p. 257
The Ancient Greek Theatre and the Tragic Poet's Task	p. 300
Glossary of Proper Names	p. 304
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