The Complete Plays of Sophocles

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Summary: The seven plays of the Greek tragic poet Sophocles
Review: "The Complete Plays of Sophocles" presents a fundamental tradeoff: the translations of the seven extant plays of Sophocles were done by Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb at the end of the 19th century, which means the translations are rather stilted. But on the other hand you get the seven extant plays of Sophocles in a single standard sized paperback volume. The formalism of Jebb's translations does provide a sense of the inherent dignity of Greek tragedy; besides, editor Moses Hadas has substituted moderate for extreme archaism in vocabulary, syntax, and word order regarding the dialogue (the choral poetry remains essentially intact).

Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays, only seven of which have survived intact. If we were left with a similar ratio of the plays of William Shakespeare we would be reducing the Bard down to four plays (go ahead, pick your four favorite Shakespeare plays and then think of what would then be lost). Obviously the big plays here are "Oedipus the King" and "Antigone," which comprise two-thirds of the Theban trilogy along with "Oedipus at Colonus," and Sophocles' version of the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes in "Electra," the only mythological story for which we have tragedies by all three of the Greek tragic playwrights. "Ajax," "Trachinian Women," and "Philoctetes" are lesser plays but have in common the Sophocles ideal of the Greek hero.

The ancients considered Sophocles to be the greatest master of tragedy, although today modern critics show a preference for Euripides. Aristotle cited "Oedipus the King" as the ideal tragedy, and the play remains the perfect choice for explicating the Aristotlean elements of tragedy such as hubris, anagnorisis, harmartia, et al. Consequently, for teaching the basics of Greek tragedy it remains the first and most obvious choice. From a contemporary perspective, it is the development of character in the plays of Sophocles that warrants the most attention, as evidenced by Freud's development of the Oedipus and Electra complexes off of these plays. Contemporary readers are stille enthralled by such protagonists as Oedipus and Antigone, individuals who are doomed by the very qualities that made them heroic. Even in defeat such characters achieve a moral victory of sorts.

There is a corresponding volume containing the complete tragedies of Euripides, which would make for some interesting pedagogical possibilities for classroom study. Hadas also edited a collection of Greek plays that features three from Sophocles in addition to works by Aeschylus and Euripides. I still think there is great value today in the formal study of Greek tragedies and "The Complete Plays of Sophocles" is one way to doing so with some degree of depth.

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Summary: What Bad Thing Could One Say About The Greatest Tragedian?
Review: This is a most accessible tome of the seven extant plays of the Sophocles .
The editor's comments also illumine the reader. If you've never read Sophocles, this inexpensive paperback is all you need to enter the realm of ancient Greece.