Sophocles

The stirring tale of a legendary royal family's fall and ultimate redemption, the Theban trilogy endures as the crowning achievement of Greek drama. Sophocles' 3-play cycle, chronicling Oedipus's search for the truth and its tragic results, remains essential reading for English and classical studies majors as well as for all students of Western civilization.

Antigone, defying her uncle Creon's decree that her brother should remain unburied, challenges the morality of man's law overruling the laws of the gods. The clash between her and Creon with its tragic consequences have inspired continual reinterpretation. This translation by Don Taylor, accurate yet poetic, was made for a BBC TV production of the Theban Plays in 1986, which he directed.

The famed Athenian tragedy in which Oedipus’s own faults contribute to his tragic downfall. A great masterpiece on which Aristotle based his aesthetic theory of drama in the Poetics and from which Freud derived the Oedipus complex, King Oedipus puts out a sentence on the unknown murderer of his father Laius. By a gradual unfolding of incidents, Oedipus learns that he was the assassin and that Jocasta, his wife, is also his mother. This Enriched Classic Edition includes: -A concise introduction that gives readers important background information -Timelines of significant events in Greek history and theater that provide the book’s historical context -An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations -Detailed explanatory notes -Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work -Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction -A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience Enriched Classics offers readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson

The first drama in the Oedipus Trilogy, "Oedipus Rex," is the tragic tale of Oedipus who has accidentally killed his father and married his mother. One of the most widely read of all Greek tragedies, "Oedipus Rex," stands as one of not only the greatest dramas from classical antiquity but as one of the greatest dramas of all time. Its influence on literature and theatre cannot be overstated and it is as compelling today as when it was first performed.

Vivid translations of three masterworks of Western literature; With this volume, poet Robert Bagg completes his translation of the three plays in which Sophocles dra matized the agony and destruction inflicted on Oedipus and his family, the royal house of Thebes. To the newly revised Oedipus the King, first published in 1982, Bagg adds Antigone and Oedipus at Kolonos. Composed decades apart in the fifth century bce, these tragedies hold a central place in Western literature - not only because of the formal beauty and dramatic power of their poetry, but because of the shocking ironies that convey Sophocles' understanding of divine malice and human vulnerability. Bagg's goal has been to make accurate but idiomatic renderings of the Greek originals that are suitable for reading, teaching, or performing. What makes his versions ""leaner, tauter, more luminous and Sophoclean than other transitions,"" writes classicist Richard P. Martin, is Bagg's ""decision to follow the American poetic tradition of Stevens, Pound, and Frost rather than the English tradition"" of most other contemporary translators. Readers and actors alike will find these translations loyal to Sophocles' characteristic directness and concision, his pervasive irony, his unsparing descriptions of physical violence, and the music of his choral songs. Each character speaks with a distinctive voice; each play possesses a tone expressive of the issues that preoccupied Sophocles during the stages of his long engagement with the fate of Oedipus, his wife/mother Jocasta, and their children. In the introductions, Bagg and his wife Mary discuss factors in ancient Greek social and cultural life that are likely to be unfamiliar to the general reader but are central to interpreting Sophocles' meaning. They have also annotated each play to clarify mythological references and points of interpretation and translation. In their general introduction they explore the origins of Greek theater, the nature of the Athenian festival of Dionysos at which Sophocles' plays were first performed, and the characteristic ingredients of Greek drama in performance. They conclude with a discussion of the known facts and surviving anecdotes of the playwright's life.

This is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R. C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P. E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.

This is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R. C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P. E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.

In this edition of Sophocles' Electra, one of the greatest tragedies in Greek or any literature, Mr Keels presents the play as a study in revenge, but a subtle whose meaning depends upon the continuous use of dramatic irony. He relates the confrontations of principle and character depicted to the social and political controversies of the period in which Sophocles was writing. The introduction describes the background to the play, explains some of the main features of Sophocles' style, and outlines an interpretation which is fully worked out in the detailed commentary. There are appendices on metre and the text. The edition is intended for use by senior school and undergraduate students, and all those concerned to read and appreciate the play in the original.

This is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R. C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P. E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.

This is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R. C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P. E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.

This is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R. C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P. E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.

This is one of the seven plays of Sophocles in the full editions by R. C. Jebb, all of which will be reissued under the BCP imprint. They have occasionally been reprinted but never before in affordable paperback versions. In this set, each volume contains a foreword by P. E. Easterling, concerned with Jebb and his contribution to Sophoclean scholarship; there follows an introduction by a noted Sophoclean scholar dealing with Jebb's treatment of the individual play and its value for - and contrast with - subsequent interpretations, for which a select bibliography is included.