Oddly, while it was one of his most popular plays then & now, it did not win first prize. Author David Grene in his translation of Oedipus the King said that his plays had tightly controlled plots with complex dialogue, character contrasts, an interweaving of spoken and musical elements, and the “fluidity of verbal expression.” She added that he was conservative in politics and believed in the established order of things, even in theology. He has imposed himself upon the world as the quintessential Greek, and the qualities pre-eminently his are ascribed to all the rest” (198-199). She wrote that “… all definitions of the Greek spirit and Greek art are first of all definitions of his spirit and his art. He was the embodiment of what we know to be Greek.
In her book The Greek Way, she said that the beauty of his plays was in their simple, lucid, and reasonable structure. Classicist Edith Hamilton wrote that he was a passionless, detached observer of life. When he finally learns the truth, he realizes he has fulfilled the prophecy he blinds himself and goes into exile.Īlthough active in Athenian political circles, his plays rarely contain any references to current events or issues - something that makes the dating of his plays difficult. Unknowingly, ignorant of the fact that he was the culprit, he promises to solve the murder. Later, when a plague has befallen the city, Oedipus is told that to rid the city of the plague he must find the murderer of the slain king.
Upon arriving in Thebes, he saves the troubled city by solving the riddle of the Sphinx, then he marries the widowed queen (his mother) and becomes the new king. En route he fulfills the first part of the prophecy when he kills a man, the king of Thebes and his true father. The plot - an old myth already known to most of the audience - was simple: a prophecy claiming he would kill his father and lie with his mother forces Oedipus - whose name means 'swollen foot' after his ankles were pierced as a child - to leave his home of Corinth and unknowingly travel to Thebes (his actual birthplace). The play is part of a trilogy along with Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus the King (429-420 BCE), also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannos ('Tyrannos' signifies that the throne was not gained through an inheritance) is the most famous surviving play written by the 5th-century BCE poet and dramatist Sophocles.
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