The New Lifetime Reading Plan

various ways the relatively primitive techniques of Aeschylus [5]; he lived long and, it appears, happily; and he was one of the greatest ornaments of the Periclean Age. Of his more than one hundred twenty plays, we possess seven. But these suffice to place him among the few great dramatists of ali time.

Formulas are treacherous. But it is not entirely untrue to say that the beginning reader may best see Aeschylus as a dra- matic theologian, obsessed with God and his stern edicts. Sophocles may be seen as a dramatic artist, concerned with human suffering. Euripides [7] may be seen as a playwright- critic, using the legends as a vehicle for ideas current in his skeptical and disillusioned era.

The three recommended plays of Sophocles are ali about the same family, that of King Oedipus, but they were not writ- ten as a trilogy. The order of their composition is Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus. (The last, written by a very old man of undiminished powers, was produced in 401 b.c.e. after Sophocles's death.) If you wish, you may read them in the order of the chronology suggested by their action: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. Together they are often called the Oedipus Cycle or the Theban Plays.

In his Poetics, Aristotle [13] tells us that Sophocles said he portrayed people as they ought to be, Euripides portrayed them as they are. He might have added that Aeschylus portrayed peo­ple as demigods driven by single outsize passions. Sophocles is particularly noted for the lyrical beauty of his choruses.

Aristotle considers Oedipus Rex the ideal play, admiring it especially for its plot and construction. Today we might stress other qualities. There is no doubt, however, that it is the most influential Greek tragedy in existence, the one most often revived, the one most universally studied. Its basic myth, that of a man who killed his father and married his mother, sug­gested to Freud [98] the name for the Oedipus complex. (Max Beerbohm called the Oedipuses "a tense and peculiar family.^,>)

After reading Oedipus Rex, you may find yourself asking two profound questions that continue to be asked down to our own day: First, Is man free or bound? Second, If the intelli- gence brings tragedy, to what degree is it good? Technically the effect of the play depends in large part on the masterly use of dramatic irony—the device whereby the audience is in pos- session of crucial facts hidden from the protagonist.

Oedipus at Colonus is a difficult play, even for the learned reader. Unlike Oedipus Rex, it is not well knit; its interest does not lie in its plot. Perhaps it should be approached as a kind of miracle or mystery play, a study of a man more heavily bur- dened with guilt and knowledge than is normal, whose life is at last vindicated and given meaning by both the gods and the city of Athens. In the end Oedipus becomes a kind of transcendent hero, like King Arthur, and, also like him, comes to a mysteri- ous end.

The Antigone is psychologically the most complex of the three plays. It has been viewed as a study of the conflicting claims of convention and a higher law of conduct, or, differ- ently phrased, of the state and the individual. It is also one of the many Greek plays about hubris, or excessive pride—in this case, the pride of Creon—and the ruin that attends such immoderacy of feeling. You will encounter this notion again in Herodotus [8]. Before you start the Antigone, keep in mind that to the ancient Greeks the proper burial of the dead was a matter of overwhelming importance. Also you must accept the Greek idea (or at least Antigone's idea) that a husband or child is replaceable, a brother never.

In the Oedipus Cycle, Sophocles deals with the downfall of greatness. But he is inspired as much by the greatness as by the downfall. We might say that the special Sophoclean emotion comes from the tension between his sad recognition of man's tragic fate and his admiration for man's wondrous powers.

C.F.

EU R1 PI D ES

EURIPIDES

484-406 B.C.E.

Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, The Trojan Women, Electra, The Bacchae

Though possibly fewer than fifteen years jъnior to Sophocles [6], Euripides inherited a different Greek world, torn by intel- lectual doubt and civil strife. His work seems to reflect the change. In Sophocles's sense of tragedy, there is a certain grave serenity; not so with Euripides.

He was born at Salamis, where the famous naval battle was fought. He appears to have led a retired, perhaps even an embit- tered life. One story has him living alone in a cave by the sea. Of his possibly ninety-two plays, nineteen survive, if Rhesus is gen­uine. Though they were popular, he won the prize, according to one account, only five times to Sophocles^ eighteen.