The Ethical Analysis Of Sophocles's Tragedies

The tragedies in ancient Greece, especially in Athenian times, mainly focusing on the construction of ethical order between the individuals and cities, are aimed to achieve harmony and unity between prosperity and stability of cities and individual remarkable moral excellence. As one of the three famous tragic poets in ancient Greece, Sophocles whose lifetime main achievement is his drama, has made splendid achievements and obtained great honor in this domain. Therefore he is honored as "theatrical circle's Homer". Once Aristophanes acclaimed him "to be perfect before death, no regrets after death". The Athenians respect him as "the world harmonious and peaceful singer". He developed the subject of Aeschylus'destiny tragedy into the subject of ethical tragedy. His tragedies manifest the interpersonal relationship in the real life in ancient myths and epic poems and view personality equality, corresponding punishment for crimes and democracy and justice as the principles of safeguarding the city-state orders. In accordance with the ethical rational order, Sophocles' tragedies pay much attention to the description of the characters and the leading characters'corresponding behaviors, idealizing and personalizing these characters. Therefore Athenians'in ancient Greece attention to and sighs of their life, miseries and contradiction are demonstrated. The heroes in the tragedies can bravely confront tribulation and hindrance, which manifest their firm wills in self approval, human nature known to people, and the pursuit of happiness. This represents the beginning of humans exploring their own survival value and life significance. From the perspective of ethics, Sophocles conducted an idealized imagination centering on the city construction and the pursuit of individual moral excellence. Thus he admitted that he molded the tragedy characters in line with the principle of what humans should be. It is because of the pursuit and yearning of ideal persons that Sophocles can endure and overcome the miseries and tribulation in the real life and is positively engaged in exploring the ethical tragedy. By setting his conceived ideal personality as a model and an example, his tragedies transmitted on impel, incentive and inspiration to people who regard this ideal personality as the object of learning and respecting and are inspired to actively perfect themselves and to pursue their valuable life.Sophocles's tragic works, as the products of the mature period of the tragedy development in ancient Greece, constitute an important mode of discussing and describing Athens ethics at that time and also act as one of the important criteria for commenting the aftertime tragedies. Many tragedy theoreticians, for example, Aristotle and Hegel, while probing into the Greek tragedies, referred to Sophocles's tragic works as their chief source. Based on Sophocles's tragedies, this thesis, from the perspective of the ethics, is designed to delve the value of the tragedies so that a new way can be paved for us to better understand the tragedies in ancient times to a certain depth. Also, it can broaden our horizon while vividly enrich ethics ideology. Therefore, it is'of great significance to discuss the ethical knowledge in ancient Greece in light of tragedy literature style.Specifically speaking, this thesis consists of the following parts:The introduction deals with the research origin of this thesis, summarizes the scholar's current research on and basic viewpoints of Sophocles's tragedies. Besides, the research methods and some feelings and experiences in this thesis are also expounded. Chapter one outlines Sophocles's tragedies and mainly focuses on the tragedy connotation, the historical origin, the background, tragedies, brief introduction and the characteristics of Sophocles's tragedies, Chapter two is connected with the ethical implication of Sophocles's tragedies. It explains the implication from the moral principles, the moral codes, the molded ideal moral personality and the ethical conflicts in the tragedies. Chapter three conducts the ethical comments and the enlightenment to the reality that Sophocles's tragedies arouse. This chapter also discusses the reference function of his tragedies that the tragedies of the later generations can refer to.