Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC) was the second of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has
survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides.
Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete
form: Ajax, Antigone, Trachinian Women, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at
Colonus. For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most-awarded playwright in the dramatic
competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and
the Dionysia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles
First performed: 429 BC
Oedipus's biological parents: Jocasta & King Larius
Oedipus's hometown: Thebes
Oedipus's adoptive parents: Merope & Polybus
Oedipus's adoptive town: Corinth
Oedipus’s daughters: Antigone & Ismene
Oedipus’s sons: Polyneices & Eteocles
The name of the Shepherd: Euphorbus
The name of the blind seer: Tireisus – Seer: a person with unusual powers of foresight.
What is the relevance of the seer? Themes: Foreshadowing, lucidity, blindness vs. sight.
The Sphinx: Bird – Lion – Woman
The riddle of the Sphinx: “What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three
legs in the evening?”
Answer to the riddle: A man
Mountain on which Oedipus was abandoned: Mount Cithaeron
What does Oedipus mean? “Swollen foot” in Greek
Theban plays: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
Art and the representations of the Theban plays:
Three types of Columns:
“Phorbes” by Antoine Denis Chaudet (1763-1810)
“The Plague of Thebes” by Charles Francois Jalabeat (1819-1901), French
Oedipus and the Sphinx by Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1805) – Classic.
Notice that the sphinx is represented smaller than Oedipus.
Sphinx by Gustave Moreau, 1864.
Notice that the Sphinx is in elevation, seductive, and sensual.
Sphinx by Odilon Redon, 1894. Style: Symbolist.
Sphinx on a Greek “Kylix” or bowl, 470 BC
Oedipus cursing Son by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
Another representation by Andre-Marcel Baschet, 1883
Notice the beautiful Ismene (left).
“Oedipus & Antigone” Antoni Stanislaw Brodowski (1784-1832)
Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust (1753-1817) , French, 1788, Classical
“Meditation on a Harp” by Dali, Spanish, 1932
Think of The Oedipal Complex. In psychoanalytic theory, a group of largely unconscious (repressed)
ideas and feelings which centre around the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and
eliminate the parent of the same sex. According to classical psychoanalytic theory, the complex appears
during the so-called "oedipal phase" (between the ages of three and five).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex
Notice the swollen foot of Oedipus.
“Oedipus Rex” by Max Ernst, 1922, Surrealistic
“Tireisus to Odysseus”, Henry Fuseli, 1780-1785