AP English Literature ~ Introduction to Greek Tragedy
On separate paper, define any words you come across throughout this unit with which you
are not familiar.
Take brief notes on all background text/lecture readings throughout this unit to help you as
you review with your teacher, and most significantly, so you will understand the historical
context (environment) in which the fiction and non-fiction materials you read were written.
Athens in the 5th Century BCE
The author of Oedipus Rex, Sophocles, was born in Athens, Greece in 497 BCE and was the best-known of the
ancient Greek playwrights. The Athenian government was an “exclusionary democracy,” run by elected officials in the
form of an open assembly. Only about ten percent of the population was eligible to participate. Women, slaves, and other
“non-citizens” were excluded. Although he was a member of the ruling class, Sophocles was aware of the social
inequalities in Athenian society. His plays include repeated attempts to warn his fellow Greeks of the divine retribution that
would come to them as a result of their prejudices and injustice to the poor.
Religious Ideas
The Greek gods, while immortal and powerful, were not all-powerful in the sense
of our modern concepts of God. They were themselves subject to Fate and to each other’s
will. We see much of this in Oedipus Rex, when the Delphic Oracle is the prophet of
Oedipus’ doomed fate, but she is not the cause of it. Nor, really, is Apollo. The Greeks
did, to some extent, believe in Free Will, always accepting that a person would eventually
have to face the human and cosmic consequences of his or her actions and decisions.
Still, Free Will was not more powerful than Destiny, and Oedipus is a perfect example of the belief that, try as they might,
people cannot avoid the destinies to which they are born. Still, as Oedipus’ fate was the result of his father’s earlier
misdeed (see Oedipus’s Backstory below), human Free Will cannot be completely dismissed either.
Oedipus’s Backstory
Sophocles’s audience would most likely already have known the events leading to the curse of Laius and his
descendants that resulted in Oedipus’s tragic destiny. Sophocles’s intent was clearly to illustrate the downfall of the great
Oedipus and not chronicle the family saga, so he does not share the backstory with us.
The story is old, strange, and terrible. Laius (pronounced “lie-us”) and Jocasta (pronounced “Joe-cost-a”), the childless
king and queen of Thebes, were told by the god Apollo that their son would kill his father and marry his mother. A son
was born to them, and they tried to make sure that the prophecy would not come true. Laius drove a metal pin through
the infant’s ankles and gave it to a shepherd, with instructions to leave it to die of exposure on the nearby mountain,
Kithairon. The shepherd took the child up to the mountain but pitied it and gave it to a fellow shepherd he met there, who
came from Corinth, a city on the other side of the mountain range. This shepherd took the child with him and gave it to
the childless king and queen of Corinth, Polybus and Merope. Polybus and Merope (pronounced “Mer-oh-pee”) brought
the child up as their own son, and named him Oedipus, which in its Greek form Oidipous means “swollen foot” (his feet
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AP English Literature ~ Introduction to Greek Tragedy
had been injured by the metal pin.). So Oedipus grew up in Corinth as the king’s son, with no idea of his real parentage.
And Laius and Jocasta believed that their child was dead and the prophecy of Apollo false.
After Oedipus became a young man, he was told by a man who had drunk too much at a banquet that he was not
the real son of Polybus. He was somewhat reassured by Polybus and Merope, but a lingering doubt remained and
rumors continued to spread. He went, on his own initiative, to Delphi, a city in the north of Greece, to the oracle of Apollo,
to ask the god who his parents were. All he was told was that one day he would kill his father and marry his mother!
Shocked and appalled, Oedipus resolved never to return to Corinth, to Polybus and Merope, and started out to make a
new life for himself elsewhere. He came to a place where three main roads met, and in the narrow place was ordered off
the road and then attacked by the driver of a chariot in which an old man was riding. A fight started and Oedipus killed the
old man and his attendants—all except one, who escaped and took the news to Thebes. The murdered old man in the
chariot happened to be Laius, king of Thebes. And so the first half of the prophecy was fulfilled. Oedipus, though he did
not know it, had just killed his father.
Oedipus continued on his way and came to Thebes. He found the city in distress. A monster, the Sphinx—part
bird, part lion, part woman—was killing the young men of Thebes and refused to go away until someone answered her
riddle: “There is a creature two-footed, and also four-footed, and three-footed. It has one voice. When it goes on most
feet, then it goes most slowly.” Many men had tried to answer this riddle, but all had failed and met their death. The
Thebans offered a great reward to anyone who could answer the riddle of the Sphinx—the throne of Thebes and the hand
of Jocasta, the newly-widowed queen, in marriage. Oedipus volunteered to answer the riddle, and he answered it
correctly. The answer is Man, who goes on all fours as a child, on two feet as an adult, and on three as an old man, since
he has a cane to help him along.
In reward for destroying the Sphinx and saving the city, Oedipus married Jocasta (his mother!) and became king
of Thebes. The second part of the prophecy was fulfilled, but once again, he did not realize it. For fifteen years he ruled
Thebes well, an admired and just king. He had two daughters and two sons. And then a plague broke out in Thebes.
The people of the city died, the cattle died, and the crops rotted. The Thebans thronged the temples, and a delegation of
priests went to the palace to beg Oedipus to save them. These are the citizens and priests who also act as the chorus
and come on stage at the beginning of the play. As they enter, the stage door opens and a masked actor—Oedipus—
comes out and addresses them. The play has begun.
Reading Assignments:

A Study of Sophocles (see Oedipus Supplemental Readings attachment)

Theatrical Conventions of Greek Drama (see Oedipus Supplemental Readings attachment)

Tragedy (see Oedipus Supplemental Readings attachment)

Oedipus the King (see Oedipus Supplemental Readings attachment)

Oedipus the King (provided text—pgs. 3-83).

Interpretive Notes (provided text—pg. 89-95).
As you work on the readings in this unit, be sure you take the time to print out (or save) a copy of the AP
Literature Introduction to Greek Tragedy Literature Responses Worksheets FIRST, so that you will be able to
AP English Literature ~ Introduction to Greek Tragedy
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AP English Literature ~ Introduction to Greek Tragedy
follow along and complete each response/activity as you complete each day’s readings assignments shown in
green print.
AP English Literature ~ Introduction to Greek Tragedy
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