About the work
Tragedy by Sophocles about the revenge Electra and her brother Orestes take for the murder of their father Agamemnon. The date of composition is unknown; scholars generally place it in the 410s BC, toward the end of Sophocles' career.
Plot
For years Electra has lived in grief and hatred at the court of Mycenae, ruled by her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, who once murdered Agamemnon together. When her brother Orestes, believed dead, returns in disguise, Electra recognizes him, and the siblings carry out their revenge on the murderers.
Cultural significance
Because of its focus on Electra's suffering, the play is considered one of Sophocles' most psychologically intense tragedies. Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 1903 adaptation and Richard Strauss's 1909 operatic setting kept the material influential well into the twentieth century.