One of the greatest of the classic Greek tragedies and a masterpiece of dramatic construction. Catastrophe ensues when King Oedipus discovers he has inadvertently killed his father and married his mother. Masterly use of dramatic irony greatly intensifies impact of agonizing events. Sophocles' finest play, Oedipus Rex ranks as a towering landmark of Western drama. A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

To make this quintessential Greek drama more accessible to the modern reader, this Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition? includes a glossary of difficult terms, a list of vocabulary words, and convenient sidebar notes. By providing these, it is our intention that readers will more fully enjoy the beauty, wisdom, and intent of the play.The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles? classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play. Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can.

The famed Athenian tragedy in which Oedipus’s own faults contribute to his tragic downfall. A great masterpiece on which Aristotle based his aesthetic theory of drama in the Poetics and from which Freud derived the Oedipus complex, King Oedipus puts out a sentence on the unknown murderer of his father Laius. By a gradual unfolding of incidents, Oedipus learns that he was the assassin and that Jocasta, his wife, is also his mother. This Enriched Classic Edition includes: -A concise introduction that gives readers important background information -Timelines of significant events in Greek history and theater that provide the book’s historical context -An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations -Detailed explanatory notes -Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work -Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction -A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience Enriched Classics offers readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson

AN EPIC TRAGEDY, WIDELY CONSIDERED TO BE A MASTERPIECE Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ finest play is considered by many to be the greatest of the classic Greek tragedies. First produced sometime around 429 BC, it exhibits near-perfect harmony of character and action and is a work of extraordinary power which has circulated throughout world culture for thousands of years. After Laius, King of Thebes, learns from an oracle that he is doomed to perish by the hand of his own son, he orders his wife Jocasta to kill his newly born son. Unable to do it, Jocasta entrusts a servant with the task instead, who takes the baby to a mountaintop and leaves him to die of exposure. A passing shepherd rescues the baby and names him Oedipus, taking him to Corinth where he is raised by the childless King Polybus as if it were his own. When Oedipus learns that he is not the biological son of Polybus, he seeks the counsel of the Oracle of Delphi who relates to him that he is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother. The play is a unique combination of a murder mystery, a political thriller, and a psychological whodunit. This ironic story of patricide and incest tells how Oedipus, who has become King of Thebes, in order to stop a plague in his kingdom, is determined to find and punish the former king’s assassin, only to learn that the murderer is himself. At the end of the play, after this truth comes to light, the queen, Jocasta hangs herself while Oedipus, horrified at his patricide and incest, gouges out his own eyes in despair.

Electra recounts the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Clytemnestra's son Orestes, to avenge their murder of his father Agamemnon, commander of the Greeks at Troy, upon his return home. Sophocles' version is presented from the viewpoint of Electra, Orestes' sister, who laments her father, bears witness to her mother's crime, and for years endures her mother's scorn. When Orestes arrives at last, her mood shifts from grief to joy as Orestes carries out the bloody vengeance. Despite her overwhelming passion for just revenge, Electra admits that her own actions are shameful.

Oedipus King of Thebes Sophocles - Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus (Ancient Greek: , pronounced [oidípos týrannos]), or Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. Originally, to the ancient Greeks, the title was simply Oedipus (), as it is referred to by Aristotle in the Poetics. It is thought to have been renamed Oedipus Tyrannus to distinguish it from another of Sophocles's plays, Oedipus at Colonus. In antiquity, the term "tyrant" referred to a ruler with no legitimate claim to rule, but it did not necessarily have a negative connotation

"To Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found the babe and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him to his master, the King of Corinth. Polybus being childless adopted the boy, who grew up believing that he was indeed the King's son. Afterwards doubting his parentage he inquired of the Delphic god and heard himself the word declared before to Laius." -Preface

Ajax Sophocles - Ajax is enraged because Achilles' armor was awarded to Odysseus, rather than to him. He vows to kill the Greek leaders who disgraced him. Before he can enact his extraordinary revenge, though, he is tricked by the goddess Athena into believing that the sheep and cattle that were taken by the Achaeans as spoil are the Greek leaders. He slaughters some of them, and takes the others back to his home to torture, including a ram which he believes to be his main rival, Odysseus.

The latest title to join the acclaimed Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus tells the story of the last day in the life of Oedipus. It was written at the end of the fifth century BCE in Athens, in the final years of the "Golden Age" of Athenian culture, and in the last year of Sophocles' own life. At the center of the play is the mysterious transformation of Oedipus from an old and blind beggar, totally dependent on his daughters, to the man who rises from his seat and, without help, leads everyone to the place where he is destined to die. In the background of this transformation stands the grove of the Furies, the sacred place of the implacable goddesses who pursue the violators of blood relationships. Although Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, is an obvious target of the Furies' vengeance, he enters their grove at the beginning of the play, sure that it is the resting place Apollo has predicted for him. The reversals and paradoxes in the play speak to the struggle that Oedipus' life and the action of the play bring vividly before us: how do we as humans, subject to constant change, find stable ground on which to stand and define our moral lives? Sophocles offers his play as a witness to the remarkable human capacity to persevere in this struggle.