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Sophocles

Time alone can prove a just man just, though you can know a bad man in a day
Candidate Name : Apurva Jain
Module Name : Crictical Writing skills - 2


Acknowledgement
The success and final outcome of this project required a lot of guidance and
assistant from many people but I owe a great many thanks to Mrs ACHALA
TRIVEDI for giving me such support and guidance to complete this project on
time. I am extremely grateful to her for providing such a nice support though she
had a busy schedule managing other college work.
I again thank Mrs Achala Trivedi with all respect for helping throughout the
project and for taking keen interest on our project work and guiding us all along,
till the completion our project work by providing us all the necessary information
for development of our writing and reading skills










Index

Serial No.

Topic

Pg no.

1

Introduction

1

2

Writing carrier

2

3

Bibliography

4

4

Plagiarism report

5

5

Referencing

6






Introduction
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greektragedians whose plays have survived. His
first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or
contemporary with those of Euripides. According to the Suda, a 10th-
century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but
only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of
Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.
[3]
For
almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most-fted playwright in the dramatic
competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious
festivals of theLenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in around 30 competitions,
won perhaps 24, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won 14
competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won
only 4 competitions.







Writing career
His first appearance yielded great results, and he won first place, beating the
legendary Aeschylus while doing so. This would be the first of an astounding
eighteen victories won at the City Dionysia, more than Aeschylus and the
distinguished Euripides combined. Sophocles was the only playwright of his time
that did not perform in all of his own plays, owing to his weak voice.
When Sophocles gave up acting, he took to new areas of interest. He became part
of the Board of Generals, which dealt with civil and military affairs in Athens. He
would also later become a city director of the Treasury, helping to control funds of
the Delian Confederacy. Sophocles also took part in actual combat he witnessed
the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, and served as a general alongside Pericles in
the war on Samos.
While he did undertake other jobs, Sophocles continued his writing until the end of
his life. He wrote over 120 plays, many of them great tragedies. He introduced the
third actor, and did away with Aeschylus trilogy-based writing style. That is to say,
he made each of his tragedies its own story, unlike Aeschylus and other writers of
the time, who used three tragedies to tell one story.


One account of history states that, towards the end of his life, Sophocles sons
wanted him to be declared mentally incompetent, and brought the case to court.
Accounts from Cicero and Plutarch say that Sophocles responded in his own
defense by reading a passage from the then unpublished Oedipus at Colonus, so
impressing the jury that they enthusiastically acquitted him surely no incompetent
person could write such beautiful words. Shortly after this final addition to his
trilogy of Oedipus was published in 405 B.C., Sophocles joined Aeschylus and
Euripides in the underworld, ending a great age of tragedy. He left behind him a
wife, Nicostrate, and her son Iophon, also a writer of tragedy. Also, his son with
his mistress Theoris of Sicyon, Agathon, fathered Sophocles the Younger, another
writer.
Sophocles continued to write and serve in government well into his eighties. He
died in c.406 BC. And yet, despite leaving us only a small sample of seven
complete plays, Sophocles still left a legacy powerful enough to make him one of
the founding fathers of Western drama






Referencing
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles
2. Biography. n.d. March 2014 <www.biography.com eope >.
3.Brainy Quote. n.d. March 2014
<www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/Sophocles.hm >.
4.ood ead. n.d. March 2014
<www.goodread.comahorhow.ophoce >.

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