person
Sophocles
also: Szophoklész
Sophocles (c. 497–406 BC), Athenian tragedian; Madách invokes him as the source of timeless female characters (Antigone, Deianira, Clytemnestra) against which sentimental modern fiction falls short.
Reading notes
- On Women and Their Vocation §1 Szophoklész
Sophocles (c. 497–406 BC), Athenian tragedian; Madách invokes him as the source of timeless female characters (Antigone, Deianira, Clytemnestra) against which sentimental modern fiction falls short.
- Studies and Articles §1.1.1 Philoctetes
In Sophocles's Philoctetes, the Greek hero Philoctetes was abandoned on the island of Lemnos because of a festering wound, and harbors hatred for the Atreidae (Agamemnon and Menelaus) who abandoned him. The Greeks need his bow (inherited from Heracles) to win the Trojan War and must persuade him to return.
- Studies and Articles §1.1.1 Oedipus the King
Sophocles's Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex): Oedipus discovers he has unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, fulfilling the oracle in spite of all efforts to avert it. For Madách, it is the supreme example of the drama of inescapable fate.
- Studies and Articles §1.1.1 Oedipus at Colonus
The sequel to Oedipus Rex: the blinded exile Oedipus dies at Colonus near Athens, having cursed his two ungrateful sons Eteocles and Polyneices for abandoning him. Madách reads the play as an illustration of the commandment to honor one's parents.