Saturday, July 19, 2014

Sophocles

Sophocles I: Oedipus The King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (The Complete Greek Tragedies, #8)

I have been thoroughly enjoying Sophocles' plays lately. I finished Oedipus the King, and am now reading Oedipus at Colonus. I absolutely LOVE these plays. This week I was inspired to do a really quick search online to learn a little more about Sophocles (though I will eventually do more extensive searching about this intriguing man). He is known as a Greek tragedian and apparently he wrote a total of 123 plays during his lifetime, only 7 have survived in their entirety. That amazes me! Also, the two most known plays by Sophocles (Oedipus the King and Antigone) were actually each written as part of a different tetralogy (which I learned means a compound work made up of 4 distinct works, thanks to wiki). For some reason I am always just in awe of these play writers from years long past, such as Shakespeare and Sophocles. I am always so drawn into their writing and the fantasy of seeing it played out before my eyes as it was while they lived. This further inspired me to search and see if our area holds any type of Shakespeare or Sophocles plays, and discovered there is a Shakespeare Festival going on RIGHT NOW! This is the last weekend we are able to go, but already have plans for our family day to go to a carnival. They are performing Hamlet, which I would totally LOVE to see. I may have some convincing to do on everyone else in my family!

* I am sharing this post with Book Inspired over at Mom's Book Banter.

2 comments:

  1. What a great family trip! We have a very large Renaissance Faire near us and they do a modified version of Shakespeare's plays on the "globe" stage. Great for kids and adults, i highly recommend looking for one near you.

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  2. Well, the state fair won! They are still performing Hamlet this weekend though, but I am not sure if we will go. My oldest daughter has her Remicade infusion on Friday, which usually means a relaxing indoor weekend. We will see...

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