-first performed c. 429 B.C .

• The meaning of Oedipus is “swollen foot”. As a child, King Oedipus was abandoned with his ankles and feet bound and pinned together, scarring him.

• These scars are representative of a fate that he cannot escape.

“What creature walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?”

Oedipus saves the people of Thebes from the merciless sphinx, but ironically causes an even more serious threat to the Greek citizens.

Moreau

Bacon

Why do riddles intrigue us?

I can sizzle like bacon,I am made with an egg.

I have plenty of backbone, but lack a good leg.

I peel layers like onions, but still remain whole.

I can be long, like a flagpole, yet fit in a hole.

What am I?

Answer: Snake

There was a green house.Inside the green house

there was a white house.Inside the white house there was a red house.Inside the red house

there were lots of babies.What am I?

Answer: Watermelon

What is an Oedipal Complex?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian

Founded the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry

The Greek TheatreImportant Terms:

•Orchestra

•Theatron

•Parados

•Skene

•Proskenion

•The orchestra or “dancing place” is the circular platform where the chorus performed.

•The audience sat on stone benches in the theatron, “the seeing place.”

•Extending from the orchestra to each side of the theatron were two broad aisles, the parados, a term which also identified the entrance song of the chorus in a tragedy. (Mnemonic = parade, the procession of the chorus both in and out of the theater)

•Perpendicular to the orchestra was the skene, a rectangular building with three doors in the front, providing a generic backdrop fro the action of the play as well as an area into which actors could exit from a scene in order to change costumes/masks/roles.

•The proskenion was a small platform in front of the skene which allowed the actors more visibility and the ability to separate themselves from the chorus in the orchestra below. We now refer to this part of a modern stage as a proscenium.

Skene

Orchestra (Chorus)

Proskenion

Doorways into the skene

Ancient Greek theaters were huge, seating up to 20,000 people (a large Broadway theater seats about 3,000), which necessitated impressive acoustics from sound bouncing off of the skene and the stone seats of the audience, as well as certain features of the actors' costumes.

The actors wore buskins (platform shoes) which helped not only to make the characters being portrayed appear larger than life, befitting their importance in myth and legend, but also helped project their voices to the huge audience.

Also, the actors wore large hollow masks that helped identify to the huge audience who each character was, magnify the size of the actor to befit the larger-than-life character or story being portrayed and also amplify the actor’s voice by serving as a megaphone

Themes/Conflicts/Motifs • Free Will vs. Fate• Predictions and

Prophecies• Truth vs. Ignorance• Intuition vs. Policy• Mortal weakness

when compared to the strength of the gods

• Power’s fleetingness• Pride and Envy

The Chorus:Aristotle said the chorus should be regarded as one of the actors

-Uses symbolic choreography-Often fickle, obtuse and perceptive-Comments on the events witnessed on stage

The Greek tragedy is divided into five distinct sections:

• Prologue (Prologos): Exposition• Parados: The entrance song of the chorus

(named after broad aisles which the chorus uses to enter and exit)

• Episodes (Scenes): Performed by the actors

• Stasimons (Odes): Choral passage, the chorus sang and danced these lyric poems

• Exodos: Conclusion ending with the chorus singing their final lines as they exit

Dramatic Structure of Oedipus Rex

1. Prologos

2. Parados

3. Scene 1

4. Ode 1

5. Scene 2

6. Ode 2

7. Scene 3

8. Ode 3

9. Scene 4

10.Ode 4

11.Exodos

To appreciate the intensifying effect of the dramatic irony employed as a result of the

audience’s preexisting knowledge of Oedipus’ plight, we

must be prepared before encountering the play.

Before reading Oedipus Rex, you must be familiar with the legend of Oedipus, as were the citizens of

ancient Greece.

For homework, please read Edith Hamilton’s rendering of the legend

of Oedipus before you read the prologue (pages 3-10).