SORBONNE 



5442 



SORORITY 



marked development in dramatic technique. 

 He introduced a third actor, thus enlarging the 

 scope of the action; increased the chorus from 

 twelve to fifteen members and subordinated it 

 to the main plot, thus making it essentially the 

 ideal interpreter of the action, and completed 

 each play in itself, instead of grouping three 

 about a central theme as Aeschylus and other 

 dramatists had done. His style is characterized 

 by elegance and beauty ; his characters are Hel- 

 lenic in their calm reserve and human in the 

 distinctness with which they are presented. 



Dramas That Are Extant. His Antigone is a. 

 problem play, revealing -the tragedy of a con- 

 flict between the law of the individual con- 

 science and the dictates of political authority. 

 In the Oedipus Tyrannus he makes use of what 

 has been called Sophoclean, or dramatic, irony, 

 and shows how the hero Oedipus unknowingly 

 but inevitably fulfils the oracle which has de- 

 creed that he should live in incestuous marriage 

 with his mother after slaying his father. The 

 other plays that now exist complete are Ajax, 

 Electro,, Trachiniae, Philoctetes and Oedipus at 

 Colonus. In all there is a pervading sublime, 

 religious reverence, and his conception of Fate 

 is no longer the traditional one of making it a 

 blind, external power, but something, instead, 

 that results inevitably from character and cir- 

 cumstance. Sophocles has rank with Aeschy- 

 lus and Euripides as the foremost dramatist in 

 the golden age of Pericles. M.R.T. 



Consult Wright's Short History of Greek Lit- 

 erature; Murray's History of Ancient Greek Lit- 

 erature. 



SORBONNE, sohrbon', a famous institution 

 of learning in Paris, the outgrowth of a medie- 

 val college of theology. It has belonged to 

 the city of Paris since the middle of the nine- 

 teenth century. The modern Sorbonne is 

 housed in one of the finest university buildings 

 in the world, dating from 1889 and known as 

 La Nouvelle Sorbonne ("the New Sorbonne"). 

 The institution maintains faculties of science 

 and literature and has splendidly equipped 

 laboratories, lecture rooms and libraries. The 

 faculties of science and letters of the University 

 of Paris have their headquarters in the Sor- 

 bonne building. At the outbreak of the War of 

 the Nations about 5,000 students were asso- 

 ciated with the institution, and it had about 

 one hundred professorships. 



The old Sorbonne was founded in the thir- 

 teenth century by Robert of Sorbon, and was 

 originally a hall of residence and study for poor 

 theological students. In the course of time the 



institution became one of the strongest theo- 

 logical schools on the Continent. In the sev- 

 enteenth century its buildings were recon- 

 structed by Richelieu, who built a magnificent 

 chapel for its students. Among the changes 

 that occurred when the institution was re- 

 organized after the French Revolution was the 

 abolishment of the faculty of theology. 



SOREL, sorel', a city of Quebec, in Riche- 

 lieu County. It is on the right bank of the 

 Richelieu River at its junction with the Saint 

 Lawrence, forty-two miles northeast of Mont- 

 real and forty miles southwest of Three Riv- 

 ers. It is served by the Quebec, Montreal & 

 Southern Railway, and is a port of call for 

 Saint Lawrence boats. Sorel is above all else 

 a shipbuilding center, and its deep-water har- 

 bor makes it an ideal shipyard. Population in 

 1911, 8,420; in 1916, about 8,800. 



Sorel has considerable water commerce in 

 coal, pulp wood, ore and grain. In addition 

 to ships its chief manufactured products are 

 agricultural and other machinery, clothing, na- 

 tive wines and war munitions. The water 

 works were purchased by the city in 1872, and 

 the gas works in 1881. The city was incorpo- 

 rated in 1889. A convent school for girls, Saint 

 Bernard College (a $200,000 building), the Do- 

 minion government's building and the Riche- 

 lieu Market (1882) are worthy of special men- 

 tion. The convent and a number of adjacent 

 buildings were damaged by fire on November 

 9, 1915. 



SORGHUM, sawr' gum, a group of plants be- 

 longing to the grass family, one class of which 

 contains a sweet sap from which syrup is made. 

 The syrup-yielding plants are known as sac- 

 charine sorghums, and the others as nonsac- 

 charine. Kafir corn and broom corn, both of 

 which are described under their titles in these 

 volumes, are the best-known varieties of the 

 nonsaccharine class. The saccharine varieties 

 are cultivated for their sap, as forage plants 

 and as packing for silos. About 15,000,000 gal- 

 lons of sorghum syrup are produced each year 

 in the United States, but recent experiments of 

 the Department of Agriculture indicate that 

 the sap does not make good sugar. Sorghums 

 are tall, earless plants, bearing heads of seeds. 



SORORITY, sorahr'iti, from the Greek 

 word for sister, is the name applied to a Greek- 

 letter society for women students in colleges 

 and universities, corresponding to the frater- 

 nity, for men. In all essential respects the 

 aims and organization are identical with those 

 of the fraternity. See FRATERNITY; COLLEGE. 



