Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex

​a play by Sophocles

Translation by Duddley Fitts

and Robert Fitzgerald​

LIT 1

​This is Sophocles.

​He's the playwright of Oedipus Rex (c. 429 B.C., premiered at the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens) and is known to be the greatest tragedian after Aeschylus.

​

​He wrote 123 plays in his lifetime most of which were awarded in the Dionysia, a festival dedicated to Dionysius, the god of fertility, wine and theatre.

​

​Social context:

Plague in Athens (430-429 B.C.)

Multiple Choice

How many of Sophocles' plays were saved today?

• 35

• 100

• 12

• 7

Multiple Choice

Tragedy gets its name from the Greek practice of:

• Writing sad plays: Tragedy means sad

• All the actors crying during the play

• The sacrifice of chickens to honor Zeus

• Sacrificing goats before the play to honor Dionysus

Multiple Choice

The ancient religious sanctuary dedicated to the Greek god Apollo where Oedipus found out his fate. 

• Dodona

• Pythia

• Delphi

• Trophonius

​Greek Drama Conventions

​

• Plays are held in an amphitheater

• No more than 3 actors on stage​

• Chorus are normally around 12-15 actors on stage​

• ​Murders, suicides, and terrifying events are not performed on stage. They are narrated.

Multiple Choice

All of the following are true about Greek Theatre EXCEPT...

• Not just for entertainment

• Linked sacred religious rituals

• Performed at night by torchlight

• Written for spring Festival of Dionysus

​Greek Drama Structure

​​Prologue

​

Parodos (Entrance of the Chorus)

​

​Episode/ Scene

​

​Stasimon (Stationary Song or Choral Odes)

​

​Exodus

Multiple Choice

What occurs in the Prologue?

• A messenger announces Iokaste's death and Oedipus' blindness

• The shepherd reveals the real parents of Oedipus

• Oedipus confronts Kreon and accuses him of treason.

• The people of Thebes asked Oedipus to save the city from the cause of the plague.

Multiple Choice

What occurs in the Odes?

• Iokaste talks about leaving her child in the mountains.

• The chorus exits singing a song that usually offers words of wisdom related to the outcome of the play.

• Teiresias tells the fate of Oedipus.

•  The chorus stays to summarize the situation and beg for salvation from the gods.

Multiple Choice

What occurs during the Exodus?

• The messenger describes what happened to Iokaste and Kreon.

• Kreon banishes Oedipus on stage.

• A chorus exits singing a song that usually offers words of wisdom related to the outcome of the play

• Antigone and Ismene asks for the body of their mother.

Multiple Choice

What is the primary role of the Chorus in Greek Tragedy?

• To offer the audience entertainment in a serious situation.

• To serve as a barometer of public opinion.

• To serve as a method of foreshadowing.

• To offer advice and counsel to the king.

​The Odes have the best kinds of verse in the play:

​Antistrophe 2

​"The plague burns on, it is pitiless,

​Though pallid children laden with death

​Lie unwept in the stony ways,

​And old gray women by every path

​Flock to the strand about the altars

​There to strike their breasts and cry

Worship of Phoibos in wailing prayers:

Be kind, God's golden child!" (Lines 27-32, Parodos)

​The Odes have the best kinds of verse in the play:

Strophe 1

​"Let me be reverent in the ways of right,

Lowly the paths I journey on;

Let all my words and actions keep

The laws of the pure universe

From highest Heaven handed down." (Lines 1-5, Ode II)

​The Odes have the best kinds of verse in the play:

Antistrophe 1

​"The tyrant is a child of Pride

Who drinks from his great sickening cup

Recklessness and vanity,

Until from his high crest headlong

He plummets to the dust of hope.

That strong man is not strong." (Lines 11-16, Ode II)

​What is a tragedy?

​“Tragedy,” says Aristotle in the Poetics, “is an imitation [mimēsis] of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.” (qtd. in Britannica Encyclopedia)

​

​There is a character who in his greatness falls because of a tragic flaw.

​

​The audience already know the ending.

Multiple Choice

Hamartia is

• a tragic flaw, that leads to a character's downfall

• feelings of pity and fear felt by the audience, for the inevitable downfall of the hero.

• excessive pride

• reversal of fortune, as the result of the discovery of evidence which can no longer be ignored.

Multiple Choice

Hubris is

• a tragic flaw, that leads to my downfall

• feelings of pity and fear felt by the audience, for the inevitable downfall of the hero.

• excessive pride

• reversal of fortune, as the result of the discovery of evidence which can no longer be ignored.

Multiple Choice

What are these feelings of pity and fear we felt as the audience, for the inevitable downfall of Oedipus?

• catharsis

• hamartia

• peripeteia

Multiple Choice

When Oedipus found out he killed his father and wedded his mother, he is showing this Greek concept.

• anagnorisis

• peripeteia

• hamartia

Multiple Choice

When Oedipus gouged his eyes and banished himself from the city, he shows this Greek concept.

• anagnorisis

• none of these

• peripeteia

• hamartia

Multiple Choice

What is the dramatic irony in this play?

• Oedipus is blind to the truth.

• Oedipus murdered his father and married his mother.

• Oedipus cursed himself.

• All of these.

​Some literary terms

​hamartia - tragic flaw ​ hubris - excessive pride

​

​catharsis - feelings of fear and pity purged from the inside

​

​anagnorisis - recognition, discovery, or epiphany (revelation)

​

​peripeteia - reversal of fortunes

​

​dramatic irony - found in the plot, it is the full awareness or understanding of the character's fate by its audience or reader which are unknown to the character

​​Oedipus as a character

Open Ended

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Oedipus? (Write one adjective for strength and weakness to describe him. E.g. strength - ___, weakness - ___)

​How is Tieresias, Iokaste o Kreon different from Oedipus?

​What is the hamartia of Oedipus?

1. ​His hubris (loss of reverence for the god's will).

2. ​His obsession to search for the truth.

Multiple Choice

Who said this line?

"But I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind:

You cannot see the wretchedness of your life...

You do not even know the blind wrongs

That you have done them, on earth and in the world below,..."

• Teiresias

• Kreon

• Choragos

• Iokaste

Multiple Choice

Who said this line?

"I have never longed for the king's power--only his rights,/...

If I were king, I should be a slave to policy."

• Teiresias

• Kreon

• Choragos

• Iokaste

Multiple Choice

Who said this line?

"For God's love, let us have no more questioning!

Is your life nothing to you?

My own is pain enough for me to bear."

• Teiresias

• Kreon

• Choragos

• Iokaste

Multiple Choice

Who said this line?

"The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves."

• Teiresias

• Shepherd

• Choragos

• Messenger

​Important themes

Search for truth/ knowledge

Fate and faith (reverence to the gods​)

​Limits of free will

​Communal suffering

​Tyranny and the pandemic

​Important motifs

Sight and blindness

​Darkness and light

Poll

If you were Oedipus, what would you choose?

• unpleasant truths (be literally blind and know the truth)

• comforting lies (have sight and be blind to the truth)

​Oedipus Rex shows that acting against the will of the gods can cause harm to the polis or city.

​He was looking for a cure, the banishment of the murderer in their country.

However, while he was doing that, he also had the time to:

​1. accuse Teiresias and Prince Kreon of treason

​2. search obsessively for his own truth while everyone's suffering

​

​He was also breaking the will of the gods through:

​1. running away from his foster parents.

​2. invalidating the oracles (they represent the truth in ancient Greek societies)

​Influence in Psychology

Multiple Choice

Which famous psychologist developed the idea of the Oedipus Complex?

• Sigmund Freud

• Karl Jung

• Abraham Maslow

• Jacques Lacan

Multiple Choice

During this stage children may develop strong sexual attachments to the parent of the other gender and begin to view the parent of the same gender as a rival for the other parent’s affections.

• phallic stage

• anal stage

• oral stage

• latency

Multiple Choice

This conflict (found within the phallic stage) is labeled after the legendary Greek king who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.

• Electra complex

• Oedipus complex

Multiple Choice

This conflict (found within the phallic stage) is labeled after the Greek legend where a daughter longed for father after his death and sought revenge against his slayers: her mother and her mother’s lover

• Electra complex

• Oedipus complex

Multiple Choice

The Oedipus and Electra complexes are resolved by what age?

• 3 or 4

• 9 or 10

• 5 or 6

• 2 or 3

​Epidemics and History in Oedipus Rex

There are possibly 19 pathogens responsible for the Plague of Thebes and comparing it with Thucydides’ history strongly suggests that B. abortus caused the disease called brucellosis, "a highly contagious zoonosis caused by ingestion of unsterilized milk or meat from infected cows or close contact with their secretions." (Kousoulis, et al., 2012, p. 155)

​"Thebes is tossed on a murdering sea

​And cannot lift her head from the death surge.

​A rust consumes the buds and fruits of the earth;

​The herds are sick; children die unborn,

​And labor is vain. The god of plague and pyre

​Raids like detestable lightning through the city,

And all the house of Kadmos is laid waste,

​All emptied, and all darkened: Death alone

​Battens upon the misery of Thebes" (Lines 27-34, Prologue)

Poll

Can we consider Oedipus Rex a "Great Work" of literature?

• Yes

• No

Open Ended

If you will adapt Oedipus Rex in a Netflix series set in the Philippines, which character will you choose and who will they be in today's context?

(For e.g. Kreon - Vico Sotto

or Plague - COVID-19)

​Questions and Answers

Poll

Do you want to have another gamified lesson next meeting?

• Yes

• No