One of Sophocles’ more accomplished dramas, the Electra has always generated a good deal of scholarly debate. This edition, the first full-scale commentary on any play of Sophocles since the nineteenth century, explores afresh longstanding controversies such as the moral status of the killing of Clytemnestra, while also investigating many subjects which have traditionally attracted less attention, such as the place of rhetoric within the drama, the use of typical scenes, and allusions to epinician poetry. It provides original metrical analyses of the lyrical sections of the play and a completely revised Greek text. New research on the papyri, mediaeval manuscripts and printed editions has led to a more accurate apparatus criticus than ever before, with many conjectures attributed to their rightful owners for the first time.
