The educational features in Sophocles’ plays: The search for the ideal man in the concept of just measure

Abstract

Greece experienced a transition process during the Classical Period (6th and 5th centuries BC). Transformations in Hellenistic society caused a great deal of conflicts with regard to the manner of living of the Greek citizen. The conflicts were the subject matter in the tragedies that were enacted in the 5th century BC in the state cities. Due to the importance of tragedy in the Classical Period, the literary genre was utilized by the polis’s administrators and lawgivers to contribute to the citizens’ education. Among the tragic poets about whom there is historical and literary knowledge Sophocles was the playwright who best expressed the process of change that society experienced during that period. With great clarity and objectivity, the tragedies Oedipus King, Oedipus at Colonnus and Antigone proposed the ideal man for living in the polis and overcoming the conflicts in the transition process. Through the concept of just measure Sophocles proposed a solution to the Greek citizens so that they might face the problems caused by transformations in society, thus trying to maintain the societal order.

Key words: Greek tragedy, Sophocles, social transformation, education, social conflict.