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==Oedipus in Popular Culture==
==Oedipus in Popular Culture==
[[Tom Lehrer]], former songwriter, pianist, mathematician and lecturer, wrote a famous song on the theme of Oedipus Rex. <ref> http://www.lyricsdir.com/tom-lehrer-oedipus-rex-lyrics.html </ref> Though the lyrics to the song include "when he found what he had done," indicating that Oedipus only realized his crime after the fact, they may reinforce the common modern misconception that Oedipus intentionally committed incest, though the Freudian term [[Oedipus complex]] likely reinforces it more. Contrary to this popular belief, the text suggests that he unwittingly committed his crimes, and in Oedipus at Colonus he even goes as far as to call himself completely innocent.
[[Tom Lehrer]], former songwriter, pianist, mathematician and lecturer, wrote a famous song on the theme of Oedipus Rex. Though the lyrics to the song include "when he found what he had done," indicating that Oedipus only realized his crime after the fact, they may reinforce the common modern misconception that Oedipus intentionally committed incest, though the Freudian term [[Oedipus complex]] likely reinforces it more. Contrary to this popular belief, the text suggests that he unwittingly committed his crimes, and in Oedipus at Colonus he even goes as far as to call himself completely innocent.


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 14:59, 9 January 2008

Oedipus the King
Antigone Leads Oedipus out of Thebes by Charles Francois Jalabert
Written bySophocles
ChorusTheban Elders
CharactersOedipus
Priest of Apollo
Creon
Tiresias
Jocasta
Messenger from Corinth
Herdsman of Laius
SettingBefore the Palace of Oedipus in Thebes
Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Oedipus the King (Greek Oἰδίπoυς τύραννoς, Oedipus Tyrannus, or "Oedipus the Tyrant"), also known as Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy, written by Sophocles and first performed ca. 429 BC.[1] The play was the second of Sophocles' three Theban plays to be produced, but comes first in the internal chronology of the plays, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone. Over the centuries it has come to be regarded by many as the Greek tragedy par excellence.[2]

Plot

And also see the entry under Oedipus.

Much of the myth of Oedipus takes place before the opening scene of the play. The main character of the tragedy is Oedipus, son of King Laius of Thebes and Queen Jocasta. After Laius learned from an oracle that "he was doomed/To perish by the hand of his own son," Jocasta ordered a messenger to injure his foot with a pin and leave the baby (Oedipus) for dead "In Cithaeron's wooded glens"; Instead, the baby was found and rescued by a shepherd, named Oedipus (which actually means "swollen foot"), and raised in the court of King Polybus of Corinth. As a young man in Corinth, Oedipus heard a rumor that he was not the biological son of Polybus and Merope. When Oedipus asked them, they denied it. Oedipus remained suspicious and decided to ask the Delphic Oracle who his real parents were. The Oracle seemed to ignore this question, but instead told him that he was destined to "Mate with [his] own mother, and shed/ With [his] own hands the blood of [his] own sire." Oedipus left Corinth under the belief that Polybus and Merope, Polybus' wife, were his true parents. On the road to Thebes, he met Laius and they argued over which wagon had the right-of-way. Oedipus' pride led him to kill Laius, ignorant of the fact that he was his biological father, fulfilling part of the oracle's prophecy. Oedipus then went on to solve the Sphinx's riddle: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?" To this Oedipus answered "Man." Distraught that her riddle had been answered correctly, the Sphinx threw herself off the side of the wall. His reward for freeing the kingdom of Thebes from the Sphinx's curse was kingship and the hand of the queen, Jocasta, who was also his biological mother. Thus, the prophecy was fulfilled.

The play begins years after Oedipus is given the throne of Thebes. The chorus of Thebans cries out to Oedipus for salvation from the plague sent by the gods in response to Laius' murder. Throughout the play, Oedipus searches for Laius' murderer and promises to exile the man responsible for it, ignorant of the fact that he is the murderer. The blind prophet, Tiresias, is called to aid Oedipus in his search; however, after Tiresias' warning against following through with the investigation, Oedipus accuses him of being the murderer, even though Tiresias is blind and aged. In response to that, Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is looking for himself, causing Oedipus to become enraged in disbelief. Oedipus also accuses Tiresias of conspiring with Creon, Jocasta's brother, to overthrow him.

Oedipus then calls for one of Laius' former servants, the only surviving witness of the murder, who fled the city when Oedipus became king in order to avoid being the one to reveal the truth. Soon a messenger from Corinth also arrives to inform Oedipus of the death of Polybus, whom Oedipus still believes is his real father. At this point the messenger informs him that he was in fact adopted and his real parentage is unknown. In the subsequent discussions between Oedipus, Jocasta, the servant, and the messenger, Jocasta guesses the truth and runs away. Oedipus is stubborn; however, a second messenger arrives and reveals that Jocasta has hanged herself and Oedipus, upon discovering her body, blinds himself with the golden brooches on her dress. The play ends with Oedipus entrusting his children to Creon and declaring his intent to leave in exile. Creon, however, convinces Oedipus that they should consult the Delphic Oracle on what to do next. Creon leads Oedipus back into the palace. The chorus then admonishes the audience to count no man happy until he has died.[3]

Sophocles' departure from mythic tradition

In the Archaic period, two cities in particular were the focus of Greek epic poetry: Troy and Thebes. The events surrounding the Trojan War were chronicled in the so-called Epic Cycle. Myths about Thebes were similarly treated in the so-called Theban Cycle, now lost. Combined the epics in this cycle apparently recounted the misfortunes that befell Thebes -- particularly the House of Laius.[1] In 467 BC Sophocles' fellow tragedian Aeschylus won the first prize at the City Dionysia with a trilogy about the House of Laius, comprising Laius, Oedipus and (the only surviving play) Seven against Thebes. Aeschylus presumably treated Oedipus' story as one link in a chain of calamities that befell Laius, his son and his grandsons.[2]

Sophocles did not share Aeschylus' predilection for writing connected trilogies. His play by necessity, then, treats the Oedipus myth with a much narrower focus than its epic and tragic predecessors. Though Laius' story obviously plays a part in the tragedy, the travails of Oedipus become much more self-contained. No longer part of an entire House's inexorable slide toward ruin, Sophocles' Oedipus the King is instead the tragedy of a single man who tries to outwit the Delphic Oracle and fails.[citation needed]

Themes and motifs

Oracles, fate and free will

Two oracles dominate the plot of Oedipus the King. At lines 711-14, Jocasta relates the prophecy that was told to Laius before the birth of Oedipus. Laius was only told of the patricide and not of the incest:

An oracle once came to Laius (I will not say
'twas from the Delphic god himself, but from His ministers)
declaring he was doomed To perish by the hand of his own son,
A child that should be born to him by me.

The oracle is implicitly conditional: if Laius has a son, that son will kill him. Laius, therefore, is in no way a victim of fate. He knowingly fathers a child and suffers the predicted consequences. Hearing this prophecy prompts Oedipus to recall one he received from the Delphic Oracle shortly before he left Corinth (787-93):

And so I went in secret off to Delphi.
Apollo sent me back without an answer,
so I didn’t learn what I had come to find.
But when he spoke he uttered monstrous things,strange terrors and horrific miseries—
it was my fate to defile my mother’s bed,
to bring forth to men a human family that people could not bear to look upon,
to murder the father who engendered me.

Given our modern concept of fate and fatalism, readers of the play have a tendency to deem Oedipus a mere puppet controlled by larger forces. This is inaccurate. While it is a mythological truism that oracles exist to be fulfilled, oracles merely predict the future. Neither they nor Fate dictate the future. In his landmark article, “On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex,”[4] E.R. Dodds draws a comparison with Jesus’ prophecy at the Last Supper that Peter would deny him three times that night. Jesus knows that Peter will do this – but he in no way forces him to do this. So it is with Oedipus.

The oracle delivered to Oedipus is often called a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in that the prophecy itself sets in motion events that conclude with the oracle’s own fulfillment.[5] But this is not to say that Oedipus is a victim of fate with no free will. The oracle inspires a series of specific choices freely made by Oedipus that lead to killing his father and marrying his mother. Oedipus chooses not to return to Corinth after hearing the oracle; he chooses to head toward Thebes; he chooses to kill Laius, who later turned out to be his father; he chooses to marry, and he further chooses Jocasta specifically as his bride; in response to the plague at Thebes, Oedipus chooses to send Creon to the Oracle for advice, and then chooses to follow that advice, initiating the investigation into Laius' murder. None of these choices were predetermined.

Another characteristic of oracles in myth is that they are almost always misunderstood by those that hear them. Hence, Oedipus’ misunderstanding the significance of the Delphic Oracle. Oedipus visits Delphi to find out who his real parents are. He assumes that the Oracle refuses to answer that question, and instead offers an unrelated prophecy forecasting patricide and incest. Oedipus’ assumption is incorrect -- the Oracle does answer his question. Stated less elliptically, the answer to his question is, “Polybus and Merope are not your parents. You will one day kill a man, and he will turn out to be your true father; you will one day marry, and the woman you choose will be your real mother.”[citation needed]

State control

The exploration of this theme in Oedipus the King is paralleled by the examination of the conflict between the individual and the state in Antigone. The dilemma Oedipus faces here is quite similar to that of the tyrannical Creon: each man has, as king, made a decision that his subjects question or disobey. Each king also misconstrues both his own role as a sovereign and the role of the rebel. When informed by the blind prophet Teiresias that religious forces are against him, each king claims that the priest has been bought off. However, it is here that their similarities end: while Creon, seeing the havoc he has wreaked, tries to fix his mistakes, Oedipus listens to no one. [6]

Sight and blindness

Literal and metaphorical references to eyesight appear throughout Oedipus the King. Clear vision serves as a metaphor for insight and knowledge, yet the clear-eyed Oedipus is blind to the truth about his origins and inadvertent crimes. The prophet Teiresias, on the other hand, though literally blind, “sees” the truth and relays what is revealed to him. Only after he has physically blinded himself so as not to look upon his children – the fruit of his accidental sin – does Oedipus gain a limited prophetic ability, as seen in Oedipus at Colonus.[original research?]

Did Oedipus really do it?

Frederick Ahl[7] has notably revived Voltaire's observation[8] that in Sophocles' telling of the myth, the evidence appears to exonerate Oedipus of patricide and incest. In Oedipus' version of events at the crossroads, he killed a man and all his attendants; there were no survivors. According to Jocasta, however, one of the attendants survived the attack on Laius, and he indicated multiple killers were involved. On the face of it, Oedipus and Jocasta cannot be describing the same event. Oedipus summons this witness to clarify the matter. In the meantime, a messenger arrives announcing the death of Polybus and in doing so, reveals that Polybus and Merope were not Oedipus' birth parents. Long ago the messenger had been a shepherd, and was given the infant Oedipus by another shepherd. He turned the baby over to Polybus and Merope, who raised Oedipus as their own. Just then the witness arrives, and the Corinthian messenger identifies him as the shepherd who had handed Oedipus over to him years ago. The witness confirms the messenger's story.

What the witness does not do is answer the question he was originally summoned for: was Laius killed by one killer, or many? This question is entirely forgotten. Based on what the messenger and the witness have said, Oedipus and (presumably) Jocasta conclude that he is the son of Laius and Jocasta, and that he has committed both patricide and incest. Yet Oedipus' account of the events at the crossroads and the witness' account (as recalled by Jocasta) cannot both be true. This unresolved discrepancy, Ahl argues, suggests that Oedipus is guilty of neither patricide nor incest: the power of the drama lies in his haste to convict himself on insufficient evidence. Mary Whitlock Blundell has called Ahl's interpretation "a breathtaking perversity."[9]

Tom Lehrer, former songwriter, pianist, mathematician and lecturer, wrote a famous song on the theme of Oedipus Rex. Though the lyrics to the song include "when he found what he had done," indicating that Oedipus only realized his crime after the fact, they may reinforce the common modern misconception that Oedipus intentionally committed incest, though the Freudian term Oedipus complex likely reinforces it more. Contrary to this popular belief, the text suggests that he unwittingly committed his crimes, and in Oedipus at Colonus he even goes as far as to call himself completely innocent.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Though we know that Sophocles won second prize with the group of plays that included Oedipus the King, its date of production is uncertain. The prominence of the Theban plague at the play's opening suggests to many scholars a reference to the plague that devastated Athens in 430 BC, and hence a production date shortly thereafter. See (e.g.) Bernard Knox, "The Date of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles," The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 77, No. 2 (1956), 133-147.
  2. ^ It is widely argued that Aristotle in his Poetics identifies Oedipus the King as the best Greek tragedy. See, e.g., Elizabeth Belfiore, Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion (Princeton, 1992) 176. Yet although Aristotle praises many aspects of the play, he nonetheless also expresses a preference (1454a) for tragedies in which a timely recognition prevents violence and a plot arc that moves from misfortune to good fortune (such as Euripides' Iphigeneia at Tauris); Oedipus the King conversely features a belated recognition of mistaken violence, and a plot that moves from good fortune to misfortune. See Christopher S. Morrissey, "Oedipus the Cliché: Aristotle on Tragic Form and Content," Anthropoetics 9, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2003).
  3. ^ The Greek historian Herodotus (in his Histories, Book 1.32) attributes this maxim to the 6th-century Athenian statesman Solon.
  4. ^ Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., Vol. 13, No. 1 (Apr., 1966), pp. 37-49
  5. ^ Strictly speaking, this is inaccurate. Oedipus himself set these events in motion when he decided to investigate his parentage against the advice of Polybus and Merope.
  6. ^ Sophocles. Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. 2nd ed. Grene, David and Lattimore, Richard, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991. [clarification needed]
  7. ^ Sophocles' Oedipus: Evidence and Self-Contradiction (Ithaca, 1992); see also Rix, R.W. "Was Oedipus Framed?" Orbis Litterarum 54.2 (1999), 134–145.
  8. ^ In his "Third Letter on Oedipus."
  9. ^ Review of Ahl 1992 in The Classical Journal, Vol. 87.3 (Feb.-Mar., 1992), pp. 299-301.

Translations

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Additional references

  • Brunner, M. "King Oedipus Retried" Rosenberger & Krausz, London, 2000
  • Foster, C. Thomas. "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" HarperCollins, New York, 2003
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