Sophoclean Journeys

Journeying is everywhere in Sophocles, as a structuring element of plot, as a motivator of dramatic action – linking seen with unseen and present with past and future – and above all as a metaphor with an extraordinary range of resonances. The journey of life, the journey to the beyond, the wanderings of the exile, the quest, the path of destiny: all are potentially tragic images, and I want to suggest that the lasting ‘translatability’ and pervasiveness in modern culture of Sophocles’ surviving plays owes much to the complex power with which such seemingly simple images are invested. My test case will be Oedipus at Colonus , where the idea of the journey informs the whole action with particular intensity, but there are many parallels in the other plays.