“The Electra” of Sophocles

Extract

Sophocles’ version of the Electra theme has been a constant source of trouble to the critics of Greek tragedy. Many of them conclude that it is a beautiful play, but a very poor tragedy. Other critics will defend the play on the grounds that if Sophocles wrote it, it must be good. Finally, there are those critics who try to infuse meaning into the play by forcing it into a philosophic framework which the critic has assumed prior to his analysis of the play. Let us look, briefly, at some of the conclusions reached by these critics.