Sophocles
Sophocles ( 496 – 406 BC ),Greek tragedian who wrote c.120 plays, of which seven survive, including Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes. The group known as the Theban plays, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, have long been influential in English literature, either directly or in versions by Seneca . T. Watson 's translation of the Antigone into Latin ( 1581 ) was widely read, and both Milton's Samson Agonistes and Dryden 's Oedipus draw on Sophocles, though Dryden is chiefly indebted to Seneca . It was in the 19th cent. that Sophocles really came into favour. Shelley read him on his last and fatal sailing trip. Bulwer-Lytton adapted his Oedipus the King ( 1846 ). M. Arnold produced his Sophoclean play Merope ( 1858 ) and two Sophoclean fragments, an Antigone ( 1849 ) and a...
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