How Electra drew on The Odyssey
A documented line of influence: Sophocles demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Odyssey
Homer · c. 725 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Electra
Sophocles · c. 410 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
6/10
On Electra’s page
- The avenging-son myth Sophocles dramatizes descends from the Odyssey, where Orestes' vengeance on Aegisthus is the recurring warning urged on Telemachus
- Electra is the closest extant retelling to Homer's version of the Orestes story
- Read the Odyssey first and you hear the exemplum Sophocles is dramatizing — the dutiful son who set the standard
On The Odyssey’s page
- The Orestes story runs through the Odyssey as a constant moral exemplum — the avenging son held up to Telemachus as the model he should follow
- That myth-kernel — vengeance for a murdered father — is what Sophocles stages in Electra
- Of all the surviving versions, Sophocles stays closest to the Homeric shape of the tale