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Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
“Know Thyself!” — If you Dare!
Sophocles in old age
Theater at Epidaurus
Agenda
• Discussion
• Sophocles’ OTK as “Greek” Tragedy
• Discussion Continuation (last class)
• Is Eumenides Tragedy?
• Sophocles’ OTK
• An Introduction
• Tragic Transformations
• Eros, Tyrants, hubris, Knowledge in OTK
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Discussion
Sophocles’ OTK as “Greek” Tragedy
Question Breakdown…
• OTK “tragic” in usual sense?
• “We’ve suffered a tragic loss”
• “Tragedy hit when…”
• Does OTK go beyond that?
• “Greek tragedy is” … what?
“You are my great example, you, your life | your destiny
Oedipus, man of misery — | I count no man blest.”
(Chorus, p. 233)
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OTK: Tragic Structures?
•
•
Formula, etc.
• Koros
• Hubris
• Atē
• Dikē
Aeschylean progression
• Verbal  visual
• Ambiguous  clear
• Human  divine
•
•
•
Cycle of violence?
Knowledge through
suffering?
Aristotelian patterns
• Character-based motivation
•
•
(ēthos)?
Hamartia?
Complex plot?
•
•
Recognition?
Reversal?
• Pity? Fear Catharsis?
“Pride (hubris) breeds the tyrant”
(Chorus, OTK p. 209)
Discussion Continuation (last class)
Is Eumenides Tragedy?
Is Eumenides tragedy? Is Oresteia
tragedy? What is tragedy?
Sophocles’ OTK
An Introduction
Sophocles, “Theban Plays”
• Playwright
• ca. 496-ca. 406 BCE
• first victory 468
• Plays
• Antigone, ca. 441
• Oedipus the King, after 429
• Oedipus at Colonus, ca. 406
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Sophocles Oedipus the King
Sophocles
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Oedipus Family, Backstory
Cadmus
Polydorus
Labdacus
Laius
Oedipus
Menoeceus
Jocasta
Eurydice
Jocasta
Polynices Eteocles Antigone Ismene
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Creon
Sophocles Oedipus the King
Haemon
Megareus
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Historical Backdrop: Peloponnesian War
Athens
versus
Sparta
Athenian allies
versus
Spartan allies
Greeks
versus
Greeks
Athens
431 Outbreak of war.
430-426 Great plague of Athens.
404 Athens defeated, its
empire destroyed.
Sparta
OTK Analysis
•
•
•
•
•
prologue 15 ff.
• Oed, priest, Creon. plague,
•
parodos 168 ff.
• divine invocation. war on
•
1st episode 171 ff.
• Oed, Tiresias. agōn 1
1st stasimon 186 f.
• who the killer?
2nd episode 188 ff.
• Cr, Oed. agōn 2
• 1st kommos (197 ff.)
•
oracle
plague
•
•
Chorus, J, Oed
• Comparison of oracles
2nd stasimon 209 f.
• pride breeds the tyrant
•
•
3rd episode 211 ff.
• J, Corinthian messenger, Oed.
Polybus dead. Oed “child of
fortune”
3rd stasimon 224
• desperate optimism
4th episode 225 ff.
• Oed, Shepherd, J. recognition
4th stasimon 233 f.
• Oed man of sorrows
exodos
• Messenger, Oed. J’s suicide
• 2nd kommos (240 ff.)
•
Chorus, Oed., Oed’s grief
• Oed, Creon. final
arrangements
Tragic Transformations
Eros, Tyrants, hubris, Knowledge in OTK
Erōs and the Tyrant
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Eros
“Many a man before you, in his dreams, has shared his
mother’s bed.”
(Jocasta to Oedipus, OTK p. 215)
“No, I’m not the man to yearn for kingship (to become
turannos, “tyrant”)”
(Creon to Oedipus, p. 193)
“The previous night Hippias (ex-tyrant, hopeful future tyrant of
Athens) had a dream in which he slept with his mother.”
(Herodotus 6.107, on Hippias’ dream the night before the Battle of
Marathon, 490 BCE)
“Pride (hubris) breeds the tyrant”
(Chorus, OTK p. 209)
Oedipus-pharmakos (“scapegoat”)
Oedipus, p. 244:
“Quickly, for the love of god,
hide me somewhere, kill me,
hurl me into the sea where
you can never look on me
again.”
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Rite of Passage
• Separation
• Transition
• Incorporation
Arnold van Gennep, Les rites de passage (Paris, 1909)
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Oedipus’ Reverse Rite of Passage
“I count myself the son
of Chance,”
(Oedipus, p. 224)
sightignoranceincorporation
transition
Oedipus
blindnessknowledgeseparation