Sophocles and Tragedy

Sophocles added a great deal to the theatre experience:

• He was the first playwright to abandon the practice of acting in his own plays.

• He added a third actor.

• He raised the number of men in the chorus from 12 to 15.

• He began skenographia, the decorating of the skene to represent the actual setting.

The skene was a wooden box or hut that likely emerged as a place for actors to change. Eventually, it came to represent theinterior of a palace or temple – whatever the play required. InOedipus the King, it would represent the palace of Jocasta and Oedipus.

Certainly there were ways Sophocles was typical. His actors would wearmasks representing gender and stature. The masks in this picture suggesta chorus of women (played by men) in a tragedy.

Masks were made of stiffened linen, carved wood and leather.There were stereotypical forms: long flowing hair for a youth, apale face and curled hair for age, horns for a satyr, and variousgrotesque masks for supernatural or monstrous figures. Masks were more easily deciphered by an audience too far removed tosee facial features clearly. Some say the mouths of masks werefashioned to amplify sound.

Sophocles was born in 496 b.c., and he died in 406 b.c. He was consideredhandsome, he was popular, and he was well-born. Throughout his life he was deeply involved in religion.

Aristotle, the greatest of philosophers, considered Sophocles the greatest of playwrights, and Oedipus the King the greatest of plays.

Sophocles was considered “the norm” by many.

Compared to him, Aeschylus was primitive and Euripides was decadent.

Aristotle

Aristotle wrote Poetics, a work that lays out the basics of tragedy.He constantly refers to the work of Sophocles when he describesthe highest form of the art.

In Poetics, we come across a number of key terms, and it is importantthat you become familiar with them. The first is “hubris”.

Hubris:

An ancient Greek term usually defined as "excessive pride" or arrogance and cited as a common tragic flaw.

Hamartia

An ancient Greek term usually translated as "tragic flaw." The term literally translates as "missing the mark," which has suggested to some scholars that hamartia is not so much a character flaw as an error in judgment made by the protagonist. During our study of theplay, we will accept the “error in judgement” definition

Peripetia

A reversal of fortune, for better or worse, for the protagonist. Used especially to describe the main character's fall in Greek tragedy.

This term is usually used in combination with the next:

Anagnorisis

Term for a character's discovery or recognition of someone or something previously unknown. Anagnorisis often paves the way for a reversal of fortune (see peripeteia). An example in Oedipus Rex is Oedipus's discovery of his true identity.

Sophocles investigates the role of fate in the lives of human beings.The Fates (or Moirae) are the three sisters, robed in white, who decide on human fate. Lachesis sings of the things that were, Clotho those that are, and Atropos (or Atropus) the things that are to be. Of the three, Atropos is the smallest in stature, but the most terrible and feared.

Even though the Fates are often depicted as old, ugly and unmerciful, they are most honored among the gods because they distribute justly and have a share in every home. They give men at their birth their share of evil and good, and equally they punish the transgressions of both men and of gods.

Clotho is the "spinner" and Lachesis the apportioner of lots. The thread of life is spun upon Clotho's spindle, measured by the rod of Lachesis and finally snipped by the shears of Atropos, the inevitable one. Their priests and ministers were always oracles, seers and soothsayers.

Fate is not assigned by the Gods, though they often know what thatfate might be. As they are immortal, they exist outside of time.

Humans,of course,are trapped in time.

Among the greatest of the Gods is Apollo.

Apollo

Apollo takes many roles, but among them is God of Prophecy. The Oracle at Delphi was dedicated to him. Dating back to 1400 BC, the Oracle of Delphi was the most important shrine in all Greece, and in theory all Greeks respected its independence. Built around a sacred spring, Delphi was considered to be the omphalos - the center (literally navel) of the world.

The oracle at Delphi

The picture below is an artist’s reconstruction of the Oracle atDelphi.

One major character in the play, Tiresias, is a seer, and as such, heis able to know the future or fate of other human beings. How hegot that power makes an hilarious story.

The most famous account of the origin of his blindness and his prophetic talent is as follows. When Tiresias was walking in the woods one day, he came upon two great serpents copulating; he struck them with his staff, and was thereupon transformed into a woman. Seven years later, she/he passed by the same place and came upon the same two serpents copulating; she/he struck them again with the staff and was turned back into a man. Some time later, Zeus and Hera were arguing over who had more pleasure in sex, the man or the woman: Zeus said it was the woman, while Hera claimed men got more pleasure from the act. To settle the argument, they consulted Tiresias, since he had experienced life as both sexes, and Tiresias sided with Zeus. In her anger, Hera struck Tiresias blind. Since Zeus could not undo the act of another deity, he gave Tiresias the gift of prophecy in compensation.

Now you know whatnot to do should youhappen to come across two serpentswho might be about to… well … you know!

Thus, theatre goers in ancient Greece were well prepared tosee any story that explored the relationship between a great man and the inevitable power of fate. And Oedipus was a great man, asthis family tree shoulddemonstrate!

Oedipus, whose name means “swollen foot”, is a figure of myth.Other than the story we are about to study, his greatest feat issolving the riddle of the Sphinx.

The guardian of Thebes, she prevented travelers from passing by strangling them if they could not answer a mysterious riddle.

"What," the Sphinx would ask, "walked on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Finally one traveler, who would become King Oedipus of Thebes, answered her: Human beings, who crawl as children, walk upright as adults, and rely upon canes in age. Her reason for existence having been destroyed, the Sphinx destroyed herself.

The Sphinx

Well, as much as I’ve enjoyed putting this together, I think it’stime to bring it to an end. Too much of this and the powers-that-bemight think that teachers can be replaced. That, of course, wouldmean that my act of creating this would be hamartia springingfrom my hubris, right?

Hehehe! Bye for now!