1. Oedipus Tyranneus Oedipus The King
Oedipus Rex
Oedipus Tyranneus
Oedipus The King

2. Historical background and structure
Translations
The original play was written in 430 BC
Many translations made by Ancient Greek scholars over the years

3. Theater of Ancient Greece
Ritualistic nature of the art form
Roots are tied to the festivals honoring the gods
The gods would often be characters in the plays
Determining the fate of the characters
Reflecting religious beliefs
Legendary kings and heroes would also be characters
Usually protagonists

4. Theater of Ancient Greece
Significant events
Business and daily activities were suspended
Participation was a civic duty
Important
Not merely entertainment
Instructional Device
Originally performed on stone threshing floors
Orchestra was moved to the foot of the temple of the god being honored

5. Physical structure of the theater
Playwrights had to incorporate setting and some movements into actors’ lines
Housed 15,000 people
Acoustically perfect
No painted scenery
Hard to see the stage from top row seats

8. Actors Originally all the lines were spoken by the chorus
Thespis – first actor, 534 BC
SPOKE as a god rather than SPOKE ABOUT a god
Aeschylus (First of the Greek tragedians)
incorporated a second actor
Sophocles (2nd)
Added a third actor
Euripides (3rd and last)
Employed the third actor
# per scene

9. Actors Greek Actors NO WOMEN Highly regarded
Would be exempt from military duty to perform
NO WOMEN
Young boys (before voice changed) would often play women
Often, women were not even allowed to see the plays
If they did, they were in the seats furthest from the stage

10. lengthy Debate? Monologues Stichomythia
dialogue between two characters
Essentially a debate between two characters
lengthy

11. Costumes Oversized and cumbersome Chiton Cothurni
Developed grand gestures or movements that signified emotions
Chiton
Long flowing robe usually linen or silk
Cothurni
Platform shoes to add height

12. Props Heralds=wreaths Travelers=hats Kings=scepters Warriors=spears
Elderly=sticks/canes

13. Masks Served as a megaphone Identified
Age, gender, mood, rank
Allowed actors to play more than one scene
Fully hooded
Rested on the actor’s shoulders
Made of bark, cork, leather, or linen
Generalized features to represent EVERYMAN
The instructional message pertained to everyone

14. Masks The beautiful masks were for tragedy
The grotesque and bizarre for comedy

15. Legend of Oedipus Well known to Sophocles before he wrote
Well known to the audience as well
Heightens the dramatic irony
Oedipus first shows up in Homer’s Odyssey

16. Dramatic structure
Generic
Conflict to crisis to resolution

17. Greek Drama Structure Prologos (Prologue) Parados Episodes (Scenes)
Opening of the play
Parados
Entrance song of the chorus
Named after the aisles from which the chorus enters
Episodes (Scenes)
Action performed by the actors

18. Greek Drama Structure Stasimons (Odes) Contained Choral passages
Alternate with the scenes
Type of lyrical poem
Dignified diction
Contained
Strophes
the movement of the chorus in one direction
Antistrophes
The movement of the chorus in the opposite direction

19. Greek Drama Structure Exodus Conclusion
Chorus sings their final lines as they exit

21. Role of the Chorus
Evolved out of a chorus of individuals who recited dithyrambs (short poems) to the god, Dionysus.
Originally consisted of 50 men who sang and danced to music
Performing in the chorus was part of civic duty
Trained and costumed
Aeschylus’ Plays (12 men)
Often part of the action
Sophocles’ Plays (15 men)
Commentators
Euripides
Expressed the playwrights philosophical beliefs

22. Role of the Chorus Diminished in importance as Greek tragedy evolved
Collective character
Tangible, audible link between the audience and the central characters
Provided a release from tension

23. Role of the Chorus At times advised central characters
Often functioned as the conscience of the people
Helped establish mood and heightened drama through movement and song
Added theatricality
Helped the pacing of the play

24. Role of the Chorus
Pointed out moments the audience should reflect on the play or the lesson gleaned
Could be in the play or outside of it
Direct participation
Commentary
Separated one scene from another
Usually a spokesperson for the chorus who interacted with the central characters
Choragos

25. Literary Devices Paradox

26. Paradox A seeming contradiction/A play on ideas Teiresias Oedipus
Blind prophet with extraordinary powers of divination
Oedipus
Physically can see (at the beginning)
Accused of being blind to the truth
Blinds himself at the end

27. Paradox Oedipus blinds himself after discovering the truth.
Oedipus to Teiresias
You child of endless night. You can not hurt me or any other man who sees the sun. (p 1323, 360)
Teiresias to Oedipus
Listen to me. You mock my blindness, do you? But I say that you, with both your eyes are blind. (p 1324, 398)
You do not even know the blind wrongs/that you have done [your parents] on earth and in the world below. (p 1325,
But the double lash of your parents’ curse will whip you/Out of this land some day, with only night upon your precious eyes. (p 1325, 407)
Oedipus blinds himself after discovering the truth.

28. Literary Devices Imagery – Mount Kithairon

29. Mount Kithairon Mountain is symbolic in Greek Literature
Represents man’s unattainable quest for perfection
Separates the distance between God and Man
Image ever present in Oedipus’ search for identity

30. Mount Kithairon
Rocky, hazardous climb to dangerous heights of disclosure for Oedipus (pinnacle of metaphors, eh?)
Odes 2 & 3 remind the audience of the tragic fall from uncertain heights which is inevitable to the man who ignores the order of the universe

31. Mount Kithairon Supposed location of the Dionysian rites
Dionysius - God of fertility, harvest, wind
Home of all foundlings (orphans)
Oedipus is found there
Oedipus returns there at the end to die where he was originally left to die which brings his life full circle

32. Quotes P. 1333 678 “And left him to die on a lonely mountainside.”
P “I came upon you in the woody vales of Kithairon.”
P “Kithairon, now by Heaven I see…”
P “But let me go…to Kithairon…”

33. Literary Devices Imagery – Light vs.. Dark Day vs.. Night

34. Light vs. Dark P 1316 “I must bring what is dark to light”
P 1327 “Laios’s dark death staining Oedipus the King.”
P 1340 “the new prophesies in the light of the old.”

35. Day vs.. Night P 1318 193 “for the day ravages what the night spares”
P “You child of total night! I would not touch you; Neither would any man who sees the sun.”
P 1325 “Out of this land some day, with only night upon your precious eyes.”

36. Literary Devices Imagery – Sight vs.. blindness

37. Sight vs.. Blindness Oedipus to Teiresias
P /291 “Teiresias: seer…Blind though you are, you know the city lies sick…”
P “Why are your eyes so cold?”
P “if you had eyes”
P “You sightless, witless, senseless, mad old man!”
P “You total child of the night! I would not touch you; neither would anyone who sees the sun”

38. Sight vs.. Blindness Teiresias to Oedipus
P “If you could only see the nature of your feelings”
P “You can not see the evil.”
P 1324 “…I say to you, with both your eyes, you are blind.”
P “A blind man, who has his eyes now”

39. Sight vs.. Blindness Miscellaneous
P “Your own eyes must tell you: Thebes tossed on a murdering sea” (Priest)
P “I learned of him from others; I never saw him” (Oedipus)
P “And in its [city] eyes I am just” (Kreon)
P 1334 “I am not sure that the blind man can not see.” (Oedipus)

40. Irony
A contrast between what appears to be and what actually exists, between what is expected and what is experienced.
Why?
Heighten suspense
Add humor
Assist in character development/depth
Assists foreshadowing

41. Irony Verbal Irony: when a character says one thing but means another
Teiresias says to Oedipus “I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind.” Oedipus can see, but Teiresias is referring to insight. Ironically, once Oedipus gains insight, he physically blinds himself.

42. Irony
Situational Irony: what happens is different from what’s expected to happen
It is ironic that the murderer whom Oedipus seeks to cast from Thebes in order to lift the curse on the city is Oedipus, himself.
Teiresias, the prophet, is blind

43. Irony
Dramatic Irony: The audience or reader is aware of information of which the characters are unaware
When Oedipus states “by avenging the murdered King I protect myself” or “until now I was a stranger to this tale, as I had been a stranger to the crime”

44. Tragedy Aristotle’s definition from Poetics
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language that is embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation for these emotions
Aristotle considered Oedipus Rex to be the perfect tragedy
Oedipus as a tragic play

45. Definition broken down
1. The writer of tragedy imitates a serious and complete action, of a certain magnitude, represented by what characters on stage say and do. 2. “Action” is the motivation from which deeds emanate, or the rational purpose of the play. 3. The element of pathos is essential to the whole. 4. Plot is that arrangement of carefully selected, carefully sequenced, tragic incidents to represent one complete action.

46. 7. The story must seem probable
5. The plot consists of parts or types of incidents in the beginning, middle, and the end of the play.
Quantitative Parts: Prologos, Parados, Episodes, Choric Odes, and Exodos.
Organic Parts:
Reversal/peripteia of the situation;
Recognition/anagnorisis a change from ignorance to knowledge; Pathos/Scene of suffering a moment of passion
Plots vary by kind
Complex vs. Simple
Ethically motivated vs. Pathetically
7. The story must seem probable

47. Plot is divided into two main parts
Complication – part of the play which extends from the Prologos to the turning point
Unraveling or Denouement – part of the play which extends from the turning point to the end
9. A play can be unified only if it represents one action, and the best plays are unified by a single plot and a single catastrophe

48. 10. The central action of the play springs from character and thought, manifested in the dialogue. 11. The chorus: most direction represents the action (or purpose) of the play 12. Characters should be carefully delineated to contrast sharply with one another, should be full of life individually, should vary ethically, should be probable, consistent, and should reflect the central action of the play in the development of the character

49. The tragic hero should be a ruler or a leader, whose character is good and whose misfortune is brought about by some error or frailty.
Language should be elevated in verse (which in 5th century BC was similar to blank verse today) and should reflect rhetorical strategies of persuasion.
The special quality of man’s pleasure in tragedy comes from the purgation of the passions of fear and pity felt by the audience as they watch the fate of the tragic hero unfold, recognizing in it the universal human lot.
HAMARTIA = TRAGIC FLAW

50. Themes Hubris (hybris) – excessive pride which leads to a fall
How man deals with inevitable pain in his life will define his humanity
No one is as blind as he who by the act of free will will not see
Error and disaster can happen to anyone
Human beings are relatively powerless before fate or the gods and that a cautious humility is the best attitude toward life.

51. Themes
Human beings can demonstrate remarkable powers of intellectual depth and insight and have a great capacity for knowledge, but that even the smartest human being is inevitably going to err.
Man is insignificant and flawed
The desire and quest for understanding of the mysteries of the universe is a noble one

52. Importance
Archetypal chronicle of human frailty, pride, and punishment
The perfect tragedy in Aristotle’s mind