Tragedy

Tragedians:

• the three great Greek tragedians wrote after the Greeks defeated the Persians in 480 BC
• this was during the fifty years of the Golden Age of Greece
• the three playwrights:
• looked at the "Heroic Age"
• provided a history of Greece
• developed the mythology of the Gods
• duality: the gods and the state
• moral lessons
• the three tragedians probably saw things differently; they were each of a different generation
• Aeschylus: very, very old; a true Greek patriot of the old school;
• Sophocles: middle age; comes of age at the very time Greece enjoys its Golden Age
• Euripides: a rebel? we'll see; he's a youngster; would want to make a name for himself

Oedipus:

• unless I'm missing something, this myth is the most covered myth, by all three tragedians. 
• it certainly occupied the mind of Sophocles; writing about it twice, in two different plays, 25 years apart