His King Oedipus is considered by Aristotle to be the perfect tragedy par excellence. Alongside Antigone, it is the most performed tragedy on German stages. From antiquity to the present, its themes have engaged playwrights around the world: We are talking about Sophocles, the second of the three great tragedians, whose tragedies have been valued for their balance from the very beginning. No high school graduate has not encountered one or another of his plays; no literature student can bypass him. In addition to his two most famous works, King Oedipus and Antigone, the only complete German edition of Sophocles' surviving tragedies includes Electra, Philoctetes, The Women of Trachis, Ajax, and Oedipus at Colonus, translated by Heinrich Weinstock. The current introduction by Bernhard Zimmermann and the informative introductions to the individual plays provide further insights.