Ancient Greek Drama: A Comparison of the Euripides and Sophocles

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Theater was an important part of Ancient Greek Civilization. History of Greek theatre began with religious festivals which aim to honor Dionysus, a god. During the festivals some citizens sing songs and perform improvisation plays and other participants of festivals judges this performances to decide which one of them was the best. These plays form the foundation of the Greek Theatre. Because of the competition between performers to create best performances, plays gained an aesthetic perspective and became a form of art. So, theatre as a part of religious rituals took attention of people and gained an importance in Ancient Greek Society.

This paper aims to study two significant playwrights, Sophocles and Euripides, and compare their respective attitudes by examining their plays in respect to plot and character structures. To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into two main sections. In the first section, we provide a brief biography of both Sophocles and Euripides. The second and last section includes summaries of Sophocles’ Electra and Euripides’ Electra which were based on same essentials and give an opportunity to observe the differences of the playwrights. This section also includes the comparisons that are made by our observations about the plays.

Information about lifes of Sophocles and Euripides are very limited and hard to verify. However, many sources match about following information about their biographies. Sophocles was born at 497 or 496 BCE in Colonus Hippius, now a part of Athens. His father was a wealthy merchant and weapon producer and an important figure in their society. So, Sophocles had the opportunity of taking the traditional aristocratic education and studying art in his early age which was a pr...

... middle of paper ...

...drama has its own strict rules that can be extended to certain rules. The Plots are based on mythological stories which are well known by society. So, audience does not come to see what is going to happen, they come to see how the playwright is going to present to story. So, the differences between them are mostly in the development of story and characters.

To conclude, it can be said that Sophocles and Euripides both were great playwrights and important characters of Ancient Greek Civilization. In addition, they contributed western literature by innovating drama and theatre.

Works Cited

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_ancient_Greece

http://www.egs.edu/library/sophocles/biography/

http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Euripides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sophocles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euripides

http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Sophocles

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