Falsos mensageiros: Electra de Sófocles

Abstract

In the last decades of fifth century BCE Athenian tragedy seems to go through a sort of existential crisis that manifests itself in the search for new forms and in the questioning of the old conventions that had defined tragic genre. Signs of this questioning can be found in Euripides' plays, as well as in Aristophanes' comedies, where the author plays with tragic scenes and characters. Sophocles' theatre did not escape this movement, but his dealing with theatrical conventions is never, as in Euripides, so subversive and, in general, avoids the comic effect. In Electra, the playwright uses the Messenger's scene in order to involve the audience in the game of truth and falsewood that mirrors dramatic art itself.