Sophocles' Lost Plays

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Big Three. In antiquity it could mean a whole host of different things, the triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus for instance. But for many, ‘The Big Three’ means the three great tragedians of Ancient Greece we know so well today: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Today’s podcast is all about Sophocles, the creator of famous plays such as Oedipus Rex, Ajax and Antigone.

Seven of his plays survive in full, but believe it or not this is but a morsel of the many works that Sophocles created. Fragments of more than 100 other plays written by Sophocles have been uncovered. Though only snippets survive, and in various forms, they have provided valuable insights into Sophocles’ career and how he wrote much more than just tragedy. Even more extraordinary, to this day new fragments continue to be studied. They continue to reveal more about Sophocles and his works, slowly adding more pieces to the puzzle that is this famous dramatist - and ancient Greek drama as a whole. Sophocles may have been living over 2,500 years ago, but his story is far from over.

I was delighted to be joined by Dr Lyndsay Coo, a leading expert on Sophocles and his lost plays, to talk through the life and legacy of this famous dramatist. We first talk about Sophocles and his seven surviving plays, before going on to the many, many fragments that survive and their significance. This was an enthralling and eye-opening chat. Enjoy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Big Three could mean a whole host of things in antiquity. It could mean the first
0:07.2	reumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crasseus. It could mean the second reumvirate of Octavian,
0:13.8	Mark Antony and Lepedus. For me, I immediately think of the immediate aftermath of Alexander
0:19.1	the Great's death and the three key players then, Perdicus, Craterus and Antipota. But
0:24.9	for many, when someone mentions the Big Three, they immediately think of the three great
0:29.8	tragedians of ancient Greece, Eastclists, Sophocles and Euripides. And this podcast is all about
0:37.4	Sophocles, and in particular, looking at Sophocles' lost plays. Because although seven
0:43.3	of his plays survive in full to this day, he wrote so much more. And joining me to talk
0:49.3	about these fragments, these lost plays of Sophocles, I was delighted to be joined by
0:54.3	Dr. Lindsay Kuh from the University of Bristol. Lindsay, as you're about to find out, she is a fantastic
1:01.0	communicator, she's a brilliant speaker. She is enthralling with her communication, so it was
1:06.9	absolutely amazing to have on the show to talk through the topic of Sophocles' lost plays. Here's Lindsay.
1:18.0	Lindsay, it's fantastic to have you on the show. Thanks for having me. No problem, no problem,
1:23.1	especially for a topic like this, because we're talking about Sophocles. One of the greatest
1:27.2	tragedians of the ancient world, but this time we're looking at his lost plays. That's right.
1:31.6	Yeah, I think people are often a bit surprised to suddenly remember that he didn't just write
1:36.0	the seven plays that people have today. That would have been a very kind of short career of that
1:40.5	sort that he'd done. He actually wrote, we think, about over 120 plays, so many, many more than
1:47.7	then we're accustomed to thinking of. And looking at those can really make us think in really
1:52.4	fresh ways about who he was as a dramatist. Absolutely, it seems to emphasize that we were talking
1:57.1	about this just now, isn't it? How in all aspects of literature and ancient history there is so much
2:02.0	that we've lost and that we only have a snippet of what was actually written from antiquity.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.