Sophocles may have written 130 plays during his lifetime. Only seven survive. This podcast episode covers a book a fragments of the 100+ other tragedy and satyr plays of Sophocles.
Fragments are phrases, sentences, or even paragraphs of content that were mostly referenced by other writers like Aristotle, Athenaeus, and Plutarch. They were aware of these plays that have since been lost to us and so they may have quoted a line within their own works. That’s how we have most of these fragments.
And the fragments are within familiar mythological stories, so we have a rough idea of the content of the play and then try to fit these fragments into particular characters, contexts, and situations. It’s thrilling!
There is an element of discovery and adventure in these fragments. Is this something Sophocles believed or did he have a character say it to prove another point? How did Sophocles expand on ideas from the seven play that have survived in his other plays?
In this episode, I cover fragments I liked, things I learned, and share a partial answer to a question I shared in last week’s episode about Sophocles’ Women of Trachis:
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