Electra

by Sophocles, Nicholas Rudall

Genres: Classics

Synopsis

Electra (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Sophocles
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Release date: January 29, 2017

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 80

Sample

Sophocles was born in 495 BC in Colonus, a village a mile north of Athens. His father was a man of wealth and stature and
was, accordingly, able to provide his son with the benefit of a rounded and far-reaching education. That education included
instruction in the arts of poetry, music, and dance. Sophocles's education produced immediate results; at the age of sixteen,
he was chosen to lead with dance and lyre the chorus that celebrated the Greek victory at Salamis. Then, at twenty-eight,
in his first competition, his play took first prize, defeating even the renowned dramatist Aeschylus, who was thirty years
his senior. This victory marked the commencement of a dramatic career that produced one hundred eighty plays, of which only
seven have survived intact.


Sophocles proved himself one of the great innovators of theatre, adding to the improvements that Aeschylus had already made
in the field of tragedy. He introduced a third actor to the stage, abbreviated the choral components of Greek drama, and more
fully developed the tragedy's moments of dialogue. Importantly, Sophocles was the first to abandon the trilogy form. Other
dramatists, such as Aeschylus, had previously used three tragedies to tell a single story. Sophocles, however, chose to make
each tragedy its own entity. As a result, he had to pack the complete action of a story into a compressed form, which afforded
new and uncharted dramatic possibilities.


Sophocles was a deeply sensual dramatist. His language, though sometimes characterized by harsh words or complicated syntax,
was for the most part grand and majestic. He was careful to avoid both the colossal phraseology that typified the work of
Aeschylus and the ordinary diction of Euripides. He paid unprecedented attention to the spectacular effects of the play, insisting
upon inlcuding meticulously painted scenery that was to be properly and purposefully placed. Sophocles was also of a profoundly
religious temperament, filled with a deep reverence for his country's gods, but without any strains of crude superstition.
In many of his plays, he grapples with his country's sacred myths, examining them from the point of view of the diligent artist
and pondering their relation to the struggles of humanity.


Electra is widely considered to be Sophocles's best character drama due to the thoroughness of its examination of the morals and
motives of Electra herself. After Electra's father, King Agamemnon, returns from the Trojan War, his wife, Clytemnestra, and
her lover, Aegisthus, murder him. Sophocles's play deals with Electra's intense desire for revenge in the years following
her father's murder.


Sophocles's version of the Electra story was written around 410 BCE, and it is difficult to read it without thinking of Euripides's
Electra and the middle portion of Aeschylus's trilogy, the Oresteia, which recounts the same events. When Aeschylus told the story, he did so with an eye to the ethical issues associated with
a blood feud. Sophocles, however, addresses the problem of character—namely, he questions what kind of woman would want so
keenly to kill her mother. Euripides similarly focuses on the issue of character, but Euripides's Electra is ultimately destroyed
by her situation, whereas Sophocles's Electra prevails and triumphs, rendering his play both a highly satisfactory revenge
drama and an interesting study of the psychology of Electra herself. The play is considered one of Sophocles' most successful
dramas.


Sophocles devoted his life not exclusively to drama. He was, in addition, one of ten generals responsible for waging the country's
war against Samos. He was an ordained priest in the service of Alcon and Ascelpius, god of medicine. He was for a time the
director of the Treasury, responsible for the funds of a group of states known as the Delian Confederacy, and he served of
the Board of Generals in ad. . .