INTRODUCTION

This play Oedipus Rex has also been called Oedipus Tyrannus at certain chapter in the
history of attic tragedy. At its best it is a tragedy par excellence. To do a full justice to the
work we must not hesitate to say that Oedipus Rex is a tragedy of tragedies. Oedipus
Rex is the story of a nobleman who seeks knowledge that in the end destroys him. His
greatness is measured in part by the fact that the gods have prophesied his fate: the gods
do not take interest in insignificant men. Before the action of the play begins, Oedipus has
set out to discover whether he is truly the son of Polybus and Merope, the king and queen
who have brought him up. He learns from the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the most powerful
interpreter of the voice and the will of the gods, that he will kill his father and marry his
mother. His response is overwhelmingly human: he has seen his moira, his fate, and he
can't accept it. His reaction is to do everything he can, including leaving his homeland as
quickly as possible, to avoid the possibility of killing Polybus and marrying Merope.

The Greek audience would have known that Oedipus was a descendant of Kadmos,
founder of Thebes, who had sown the dragon teeth that produced the Spartoi (the sown
men). Legend determined that the Kingship of Thebes would be in dispute, with fraternal
rivalry resembling that of the Spartoi, who fought and killed each other. This bloody legacy
follows Oedipus, but it also reaches into all the plays of the trilogy. For example,
in Antigone, we learn that Antigone's brothers Polyneices and Eteocles killed each other in
the shadow of the city walls. Thus, the fate Oedipus attempts to avoid actually dooms most
of the characters in the true plays, including his true father, Laios, and his daughter
Antigone.

Sophocles develops the drama in terms of Irony: the disjunction between what seems to be
true and what is true. Knowing the outcome of the action, the audience savors the ironic
moments from the beginning of the play to the end. Oedipus flees his homeland, to avoid
fulfilling the prophecy, only to run headlong into the fate foretold by the Oracle. He
unwittingly returns to his original home, Thebes, and to his parents, murdering Laios, his
true father, at a crossroads on the way and marrying lokaste, his true mother, and becoming
king of Thebes. The blind seer Teiresias warns Oedipus not to pursue the truth, but, in
human fashion, Oedipus refuses to heed Teiresias's warnings. When the complete truth
becomes clear to Oedipus, he physically blinds Teiresias, Oedipus must now look inward
for the truth, without the distractions of surface experiences.

The belief that the moral health of the ruler directly affected the security of the polis was
widespread in Athenian Greece. Indeed, the Athenians regarded their state as fragile like a
human being whose health, physical and moral, could change suddenly. Because the
Greeks were concerned for the well-being of their state, the polis often figures in the
tragedies. The Sophoclean Oedipus trilogy is usually called the Theban plays, a terminology
that reminds us that the story of Oedipus can be read as the story of an individual or as the
story of a state.

AUTHOR

Sophocles was one of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient Athens, the other two
being Aeschylus and Euripides. Unlike his younger contemporary, the often-misunderstood
Euripides, Sophocles had the fortune of being revered for his genius during his own lifetime.
He lived to the ripe old age of ninety, and his life coincided with the great golden age of the
city-state of Athens. Sophocles came from a stable, well-to-do family, and from the
beginning, it seemed that he was blessed in every way. Handsome, wealthy, and well-
educated, Sophocles lived and died as one of Athens' most beloved citizens. In the annual
dramatic competitions organized by the state, Sophocles won first prize about 20 times.

Sophocles introduced several important advances into Greek theater. He increased the
number of actors from two to three, thus lessening the influence of the chorus and making
possible greater complication of the plot and the more effective portrayal of character, by
contrast and juxtaposition; and he changed the Aeschylean fashion of composing plays in
groups of three (trilogy). Aeschylus, for example, had used three tragedies to tell a single
story, each of them part of a central myth or theme. Sophocles chose to make each tragedy
a complete entity in itself and made each play an independent psychological and dramatic
unity. He had to pack all of his action into the shorter form, and this clearly offered greater
dramatic possibilities. His richly developed characters often exhibit tragic flaws that
ironically support their unwelcome destinies. Sophocles improved stage scenery, reduced
the importance of the chorus, and, most significantly, added a third speaking actor to the
traditional two. Of the three tragedians, he has what is arguably the best sense of drama
and pacing. His plays are cleanly made, tightly constructed and filled with beautiful poetry.
In many ways, he was a conservative man, a firm believer in Athenian religion and Athenian
government.

Sophocles' pursuit of creativity ranged from his youth to his old age. His plays written in the
later part of his life are tremendously outstanding. It has been assumed that Sophocles
wrote more than a hundred twenty plays, of which we know the titles of 118. Of this huge
output of plays only seven complete tragedies survive: Antigone, Oedipus Rex (sometimes
also called Oedipus Tyrannos), Oedipus at Colonos, Ajax, Electra, The Women of Trachis,
and Philoctetes.

Apart from being an excellent tragedian Sophocles was a statesman as well. In many cases
his career as a statesman and tragedian overlapped to the point of confusion. Whether
Sophocles enjoyed the status of being a statesman or not we don't know. But what we know
confidently is that Sophocles might have enjoyed the respect and regard from the Athenian
Society. As a man of action it was necessary for Sophocles to be sociable. By the same
token, he was religious. He was well-acquainted with the religious cults. "Antigone" (441
B.C.) is the kind of play, which is evocative of Sophocles' deepest obsessions with the then
political concerns.