When was electra by sophocles written

The play constructs another powerful character — Electra. The subject was very popular to ancient literature. The events are presented in the Odyssey, but the story appears in the work of all three great tragedians- Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Because both the date of Sophocles' Electra and Euripides' are uncertain, one of the debates of the critics was which play influenced the other, without leading to an exact answer. Sophocles follows the main lines of Aeschylus' Choephoroe and bases his play on a very popular story for Greek audiences, the legend of the House of Atreus. King Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War with a new concubine, Cassandra.

During the war, his wife, Clytemnestra, has taken Agamemnon's cousin Aegisthus to be her lover. Cassandra kills the king and his concubine, believing the adultery was justified, since Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter Iphigeneia before the war, for the gods commanded this way. Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, manages to rescue her infant brother Orestes from her mother, by sending him to Strophius of Phocis. The tragedy begins, years later, with Orestes returning for revenge.

Orestes arrives together with his friend Pylades, son of Strophius and his tutor. Their plan is to announce Orestes has died in a chariot accident, and to deceive everybody he and his friend are just two men delivering the urn with remains. Electra continues hoping one day her brother will return for revenge and she is devastated when she hears the news of his death. Jebb dates it between BC and BC. Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan War, the play tells of a bitter struggle for justice by Electra and her brother Orestes for the murder of their father Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.

When King Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War, his wife Clytemnestra who has taken Agamemnon's cousin Aegisthus as a lover kills him.

Clytemnestra believes the murder was justified, since Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia before the war, as commanded by the gods. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, rescued her younger brother Orestes from her mother by sending him to Strophius of Phocis. The play begins years later when Orestes has returned as a grown man with a plot for revenge, as well as to claim the throne.

Het stuk werd geschreven tussen en v. Women ofMycenae.