The Theban Plays

Sophocles, E. Watling, E. Watling

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Penguin
31 December 1963

Literature, Poetry & Criticism; Plays & playscripts; Penguin Black Classics

The legends surrounding the royal house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create a powerful trilogy of mankind's struggle aginst fate.

KING OEDIPUS tells of a man who brings pestilence to Thebes for crimes he doesn't realise he has committed, and then inflicts a brutal punishment on himself. It is a devastating portrayl of a ruler brought down by his own oath. OEDIPUS AT COLONUS provides a fitting conclusion to the life of the aged and blinded king, while ANTIGONE depicts the fall of the next generation through the conflict between a young woman ruled by her conscience and a king too confident in his own authority.

By: Sophocles
Introduction by: E. Watling
Translated by: E. Watling
Imprint: Penguin
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 134g
ISBN: 9780140440034
ISBN 10: 0140440038
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 31 December 1963
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

"The Theban legend; ""King Oedipus""; the legend continued; ""Oedipus at Colonus""; the legend continued; ""Antigone""; notes to ""King Oedipus""; notes to ""Oedipus at Colonus""; notes to ""Antigone""."

Sophocles was born in 496 BC. His long life spanned the rise and decline of the Athenian Empire. He wrote over a hundred plays, many of which are published as Penguin Classics, drawing on a wide and varied range of themes. E.F. Watling translated a range of Greek and Roman plays for Penguin, including the seven plays of Sophocles and the tragedies of Seneca.

Reviews for The Theban Plays

[Oedipus the King] is Sophocles' most famous play and the most celebrated play of Greek drama . . . Aristotle cites it as the best model for a tragic plot . . . Freud recognized the play's power to dramatize the process by which we uncover hidden truths about ourselves . . . Sophocles is more interested in how Oedipus pieces together the isolated fragments of his past to discover who and what he is and in tracing the hero's response to this new vision of himself. --from the Introduction by Charles Segal