Oedipus Rex

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More than a translation - Rated
Oedipus the King is one of the classic works of Western literature. It was originally written as a play in around 429 BC by Sophocles (~496-406 BC), a Greek philosopher and playwright. It took the Greek world by storm, and has been handed down to future generations who have also been greatly influenced by it. Most notably in modern times, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) took this work as pointing toward a deep-rooted psychosis, the Oedipus Complex.

Oedipus the King (also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus) is the story of Oedipus, the king of Thebes, which is suffering under a horrific plague. Finding out that the god Apollo has laid the plague on the city until it should punish the murderer of its previous king, Oedipus pronounces a curse on the murderer and sets out to discover who the murderer was. Sadly for Oedipus, there is fate upon fate wrapped up in this mystery, and doom upon doom.

This book, is not merely a translation of Oedipus the King, instead it is an "acting version," created by the Stratford Shakespearian Festival Company of Canada for High School level students. The book begins with an introduction to Sophocles and Greek theatre, and after the play are copious notes, critical excerpts and questions for discussion. The play itself was written so that a young reader, with no background understanding of Greek theatre or culture will understand it.

Overall, I found this to be a great book. I enjoyed the information about the play a lot, and believe that it will be very helpful to any reader. But, foremost, I enjoyed the play itself. The story is powerful, and quite enthralling. I have never seen this play acted out, but do think that this translation would make it excellent. I loved this book, and highly recommend it!

You only think you know the story: please read carefully - Rated
"Oedipus The King" ("Oedipus Rex") is not only the most read of all the Greek tragedies, it is also the most misread of the Greek dramas. The play's reputation exists in part because it was presented as the paragon of the dramatic form by Aristotle in his "Poetics," and it may well be because of that fact that "Oedipus The King" was one of the relatively few plays by Sophocles to be passed down from ancient times. When I have taught Greek tragedies in various classes students have reconsidered the play in terms of key concepts such as harmartia ("tragic error of judgment"), angonrisis ("recognition"), peripeteia ("reversal"), catharsis, etc., and they usually agree this play provides the proverbial textbook examples of these terms.

However, I was always bothered by the fact that Sophocles engages in some rather heavy-handed foreshadowing regarding the fact that the play's tragic hero is going to blind himself before the conclusion. The lines were closer to, dare I say, sophomoric humor than eloquently setting up the climax. But then I read something very, very interesting in Homer's "Iliad," where there appears a single reference to Oedipus which suggests that he died in battle. Remember now that Homer's epics were written several hundred years before Sophocles was born and that the Greek playwrights were allowed to take great liberties with the various myths (consider the three different versions of the death of Clytemnestra at the hands of Orestes we have from Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus). The Athenian audience would know its Homer, but "Oedipus The King" was a new play.

This leads me to advance a very interesting possibility: the Greek audience did not know that Oedipus was going to blind himself. This was a new idea. Jocasta (Iocasta) appears in the "Odyssey" when Odysseus visits Hades, but the only mention of the sin involved is in her marriage to her son, nothing about his being blind.

Obviously you will have to make your own judgment about my hypotheses, but I have to think it is at least worth consideration.

Still, there is the fact that because even those who do not know the play know the story about the man who killed his father and married his mother, "Oedipus The King" is usually misread by students. Because they know the curse they miss something very important: the curse that the oracle at Delphi tells Oedipus is not the same curse that was told to his parents (you can, to quote Casey Stengel, "look it up"). As in his play "Antigone," where the main character is not the title figure but Creon, Sophocles makes Jocasta more than a mere supporting character in this tragedy.

Consequently, while there is no need for me to convince you that "Oedipus The King" is a great play and the epitome of Greek tragedy, I have hopefully given you a couple of things to consider when next you use this play in class.

P.S. You can also play the cherubs Tom Lehrer's song for the movie version of "Oedipus The King." That will broaden their horizons in a totally unexpected direction.

Thought provoking - Rated
As Sophocles has done in many plays of his, again in this one he challenges the reader to seek the answers to some commonly discussed topics such as destiny. The play handles the concept of destiny very successfully and therefore is a guide to understanding how the loss or the presence of destiny could change our actions or what happens to us in the future. Is it true that whatever we do we are unable to defeat destiny? That is the main question that rose as I read the book. The language of this play is very simple and can be understood by any people who are interested in provoking thoughts.

A great masterpiece everyone should have. Everyone who is interested faith and destiny, and of course ancient Greece should read this book to see the Greek philosophers points of view at those times.