This monograph is devoted to the reception of Sophocles in German Humanism and early Baroque. It explores the paths taken by the early Humanists in a bid to make Greek tragedy their own and then proceeds to examine the theoretical appreciation accorded to Sophocles' oeuvre in humanist thinking on style and the theory of drama as well as in the early-Baroque poetics of drama in the Jesuit mold. The study also looks at transformations of Sophoclean figures in mythological manuals, translations and adaptations for the theatre of the early modern age, reflecting the increasing predilection for the creator of »Oedipus«.