Tiresias, Oedipus, and Pasolini: the Figure of the Intellectual in the Edipo Re

Abstract

Critics have interpreted Pasolini's Edipo Re from a psychoanalytical point of view as the reenactment of Pasolini's own Oedipus complex, in which the famous director identifies himself with the Greek hero. In this paper I argue that this identification has a further dimension. Drawing on the evolution of the Oedipus character in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, Pasolini uses the figure of Oedipus as the blind sage as a symbol of his own role as intellectual /seer in the modern world and of his isolation in contemporary 20th century Italy.