Sophocles: 133 books

Sophocles' Philoctetes begins with their arrival on the island. Odysseus explains to Neoptolemus that he must perform a shameful action in order to garner future glory - to take Philoctetes by tricking him with a false story while Odysseus hides. Neoptolemus is portrayed as an honorable boy, and so it...

Sophocles addresses themes of civil disobedience, fidelity, and love for family; and questions which law is greater: the gods' or man's—in this play that challenged many established mores of Ancient Greece.

The Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles.

The oldest surviving play of the great Greek tragedian Sophocles, "Aias" or "Ajax" unfolds the destiny of the warrior Aias after the Trojan War. He is infuriated with the Greek leaders for awarding the armor of Achilles to Odysseus, and he vows to kill them in his vengeance. When he attempts to seek...

Torn between army politics and the love of his soldiers on the front line, a legendary leader spirals out of control. Inspired by Sophocles' classical play, Our Ajax draws on interviews with contemporary servicemen and women to create a modern epic of heroism, love and homeland. Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Ajax premiered at the Southwark Playhouse, London, in November 2014.

*‘Who here can tell what law we owe the dead?’ Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, is a child of war. Thousands of years ago she asked a question: What do we do with the body of the enemy when this enemy is our brother? Damien Ryan’s new adaptation of Sophocles’ classic takes the...

The gods never move faster than when punishing men with the consequences of their own actions. Desperate to gain control over a city ravaged by civil war, Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone's rebellious brother. Outraged, she defies his edict. Creon condemns the young woman, his niece,...

Sophocles' play is a famous retelling of Aias's (Ajax's) demise. After the armor is awarded to Odysseus, Aias feels so insulted that he wants to kill Agamemnon and Menelaus. Athena intervenes and clouds his mind and vision, and he goes to a flock of sheep and slaughters them, imagining they are the...

The gods never move faster than when punishing men with the consequences of their own actions. Desperate to gain control over a city ravaged by civil war, Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone's rebellious brother. Outraged, she defies his edict. Creon condemns the young woman, his niece,...

This outstanding drama of classical antiquity, part of the Cadmean trilogy that includes Oedipus Rex and Antigone, was first presented in 405 B.C. Thought to be among Sophocles' last works, it represents the great playwright's crowning achievement in depicting the painful quest for truth and self-knowledge...

A muscular version of Sophocles' timeless masterpiece, offering a profound reflection on the nature of power, democracy and human rights. The war has ended, but with peace comes conflict. Antigone's brother Polyneices lies on the battlefield where he fell, his burial outlawed by Creon, the...

The sun rises on Thebes the morning after a war. The new king takes the first decisive step of his government, and a young woman slips out of the city to find her brother’s body on the battlefield. By the next sunrise, her act of devotion will have destroyed the ruling family and brought the state...

‘The Trachinian Maidens’ (also ‘Women of Trachis’ or ‘The Trachiniae’) is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, in which Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, is distraught over her husband's neglect of her family. Unable to cope with the thought of losing him, she decides to use a love charm on him, a magic potion that will win him back.

I mean, what is Thebes? A theocracy? No. A meritocracy? Certainly not. A monarchy? Kind of. A patriarchy? Less and less so. Thebes is many things, and to revolutionise that? Well, how? From Oedipus to Antigone, the story of Thebes remains a fascinating exploration of fate, morality and chaos,...