Oedipus the King

by Sophocles * * *
Content: 4/5
Poetic Mastery: 3/5
Literary Truth: 3/5

It’s good to have read an unexceptional book. Previous reviews’ nearly perpetual enthusiasm was getting on my own nerves.

Oedipus the King (often titled Oedipus Rex) is the first of a trilogy of plays by Sophocles (c. 497–406 BC) centered around the man and household of the unfortunate Thebian king, Oedipus (ĕd’ə-pəs, ē’də-). In this work, the king’s journey toward realizing that he has already committed the foul deeds he is avoiding so vigorously — killing his father and wedding his mother — is prehaps the difinitive example of dramatic irony.

As for the style, craft, and fashioning of this telling, I recall to mind Manny the praying mantis from Disney’s A Bug’s Life.

Oedipus: O agony!
Where am I? Is this my voice
That is borne on the air?
What fate has come to me?

All the grandiose words that aren’t quite soliloquys since the words are supposed to be in actual conversations produce a rather unnatural (and sometimes silly) effect for me. I imagined fellow characters staring blankly after many of these speeches ended. The Bible is something of a perfect antithesis among ancient writings (except the Psalms). Its narratives use un-commented action with almost no interior dialogue. A pretty good book on emotive and other subtexts in these ancient Hebrew narratives is Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative by Adele Berlin. Perhaps the old Greek style will grow on me when it is less new.

Oedipus the King is a short read often alluded to in Western art. Perhaps that suffices to merit a recommendation. But read Black Like Me!