Oedipus Tyrannus Research Articles

The vertical axis and the agôn between theatre and philosophy

ABSTRACT This article explores the controversy between ancient Greek dramatists and their fellow philosophers over the vertical axis, with special reference to Socrates. I begin with a discussion of the vertical axis in Greek theatre, and turn to Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus to discuss the vertical as a manifestation of the tragic preference ascribed to our “divine” upper body over our “bestial” lower body. Then, I discuss the deus ex machina as an image of divine vertical intervention in the horizontal human plot, and claim that Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical critique of this theatrical convention fails to notice that the dramatists made a subversive use of the illogicality of this convention. The second part of the article is dedicated to the vertical as an expression of man’s desire to transcend the boundaries of the human sphere. I discuss the negative treatment of this desire by Greek dramatists, who regard it as an unworthy aspiration, compared to its positive treatment by Greek philosophers, who presents it as a worthy aspiration, since it is only through such an ascent that one can get a glimpse of the eternal. In this context, I examine two representations of Socrates: his deus ex machina appearance in Aristophanes’ Clouds, implying the hubristic stance of philosophers; and his habit of long immobile standings as introduced in Plato’s Symposium, implying the philosophers’ superiority over the dramatists. However, the publicly-visible nature of Socrates’ standstills also turns them into a display of philosophizing, meaning that Socrates of the Symposium is a philosopher who (perhaps unfairly) theatricalizes his verticality so as to challenge the art of theatre.

Beyond the Ancient and the Modern: Thinking the Tragic with Williams and Kitto

The philosophy of Bernard Williams, recognised as a prominent expression of ethical thought, presents an intense dialogue with ancient Greek tragic culture. Combining erudition and elegance, Williams evokes Greek tragedies to discuss modern ethical ideas and conceptions. Our article intends to consider Williams’ thought from a cultural point of view: we propose analysing Williams’ cultural methodology, which may be described as a way of thinking beyond the traditional dichotomies between the ancient and the modern, especially concerning the notion of the tragic. Accordingly, we shall examine the affinities between ancient and modern tragic cultures by identifying common narrative and poetical elements. To do so, we shall consider the interpretation of Hamlet, developed by the classicist scholar H.D.F. Kitto. In Form and Meaning in Drama: A Study of Six Greek Plays and of “Hamlet” (1956), Kitto proposes reading Hamlet in close alliance with Oedipus Tyrannus. Kitto maintains that both tragedies are poetical expressions of a shared tragic element: miasma, or “pollution”, a concept thoroughly treated by Williams in the third chapter of Shame and Necessity. Our article aims to combine Williams’ cultural methodology—we may call it the deconstruction of the repeated theoretical frameworks regarding the differences between the ancient and the modern—and Kitto’s reading of Hamlet in line with Oedipus Tyrannus, which may be understood as an illustration of the persistence of common tragic elements beyond time and the historical separation of cultural periods. Our perspective shall be both cultural and aesthetical.

Bad Love and its three categories

Bad love, as its name suggests, refers to unusual relationships between two parties that either harms the interest of one end or generally opposes the society’s objective morality defined by Nietzsche as a set of rigid standards that people are raised and taught to conform to, usually conservative and fixed. (Islam, 2020) A typical instance of bad love is the erotic relationship between parents and their own children. Though only an allusion, the story of Oedipus Tyrannus illustrates how twisted love may bring about destruction and social disapproval, ultimately leading to detrimental consequences. Ancient people describe the demerits of bad love with the media of literature, oral storytelling, etc. Today, bad love appears to be an unusual term since the developed knowledge of biology reveals to the general public about the genetic defects resulted from incest behavior. But if we are to define bad love in a broader sense that takes into account the various forms of negative emotional attachments to certain figures or obsession with problematic social norms, it may be concluded that bad love has never ceased to exist; instead, it changes its form in accordance with the diversifying culture and society. This essay will focus primarily on three types of bad love, namely, love generated by excessive reliance on parents out of sexual desire, love built on gender inequality, and the radical loving relationship between children and parents which sits on the extreme ends of the love spectrum.

Stage as a Space to Promote Reformation-Focusing on Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot the Tyrant

Stage as a Space to Promote Reformation-Focusing on Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot the Tyrant

Scapegoat Carnivale's Tragic Trilogy: Euripides's Medea, Euripides's Bacchae, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus ed. by Lynn Kozak (review)

Scapegoat Carnivale's Tragic Trilogy: Euripides's Medea, Euripides's Bacchae, and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus ed. by Lynn Kozak (review)

Viewing Ancient Greek Tragedies in Light of Transformative Pollution: Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, Hippolytus

This article focuses on the Ancient Greek social structure practices, tracing the historical, social, and mythical traces of the idea of pollution, and explains how these ideas and practices took place in the three fifth century BC Athenian tragedies Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, and Hippolytus. The pollution motifs in the tragedies of three different periods by two different authors show differences in principle in the context of the transformativeness of pollution. While the Ancient Greek concept of pollution was also deconstructed in light of these differences, the definitions of pollution by Mary Douglas, René Girard, Robert Parker, and Andrej and Ivana Petrovic were read comparatively. To clarify the position of the concept in tragedies, the concepts of ritual pollution and social pollution are also disclosed. In conclusion of the study, it is suggested that the transformativeness of the concept of pollution in tragedies also can be a revolutionary movement.

D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers: A Neo Version of Oedipal Complex

This article endeavors to come up with the novel Sons and Lovers with the view of Oedipus complex which turned out at the time when D.H. Lawrence set off to rejuvenate the new generation writers along with the readers throughout his novel to be familiar with the neo type of complication which is related to Freudian Theory of Psychosexual Development or Organic evolution. Following the footprint of Sophocles, Lawrence depicts his neo form of complexity in accordance with the philosophy of psychoanalysis but in different way that is in reality the influential work Oedipus Rex (Oedipus Tyrannus). The enduring psychological pressure and anxiety always leg-pulls the mind of the protagonist Paul Morel and makes him anesthetized in absence of both his mother and beloved. It is Lawrence’s first full-fledged novel where he portrays his uneasiness overshadowing his romances with two women. This complication is the root of all problems that actually imposed on the Protagonist to love his mother with all the intensity of his soul. Furthermore, there develops an unnatural bond of interdependence between Paul and his mother which leads to further complications in his emotional life.

Listening in Sophocles: The Sounds of Empathic Dialogue

This article explores how listening sounds in Sophoclean tragedy. Engaging with insights from the work of psychotherapists and philosophers of sound and voice, I offer an understanding of listening as an active form of vocalization—a manifestation of empathy. By focusing on metric structures and other poetic effects making up the vocal soundscape of Sophocles, I explore how such listening is sonically performed between characters as they engage in sung dialogue, and how such dialogues may offer a possibility of healing during or after extreme suffering. Musical passages in particular bring together the protagonist and the chorus, a collective body of listener-witnesses, in moments of great distress and heightened emotionality. Three sung dialogues are examined in detail: one from Oedipus Tyrannus and two from Oedipus at Colonus. The exchange between the chorus and Oedipus the King immediately following his act of self-blinding already suggests the possibility of mitigating and making sense of suffering through empathic resonance. The first dialogue at Colonus exemplifies the chorus's refusal to empathically listen to Oedipus, an interaction that magnifies his traumatic experience; the second demonstrates the subsequent development of choral listening and the radical therapeutic potential of a reciprocally empathic vocal exchange.

New insights into the mechanisms of fast and slow conduction in the atrioventricular node

Cardiac pathologists and electrophysiologists have studied the atrioventricular (AV) node since 1906, when Tawara 1 Tawara S. Das Reitzleitungssystem des Saugetierherzens: Eine anatomisch-histologische Studie uber das Atrioventrikularbundel und die Purkinjeschen Faden. Gustav Fischer, Jena, Germany1906: 135-136 Google Scholar described its inferior extensions in the human heart. One century later, this important cardiac structure still carries the reputation of a profound enigma, invoked as the riddle of Sphinx, by means of its electrophysiological properties during both normal conduction and reentrant tachycardia. 2 Katritsis D.G. The human atrioventricular node: oedipus and the riddle of the Sphinx. Arrhythm Electrophysiol Rev. 2020; 9: 52-53 Crossref PubMed Scopus (0) Google Scholar In recent years, considerable evidence has accrued pertaining to its anatomic structure, 3 Inoue S. Becker A.E. Posterior extensions of the human compact atrioventricular node: a neglected anatomic feature of potential clinical significance. Circulation. 1998; 97: 188-193 Crossref PubMed Scopus (271) Google Scholar , 4 Hikspoors J. Macias Y. Tretter J.T. et al. Miniseries 1–part I: the development of the atrioventricular conduction axis. Europace. 2022; 24: 432-442 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar , 5 Macias Y. de Almeida M.C. Tretter J.T. et al. Miniseries 1–part II: the compara-tive anatomy of the atrioventricular conduction axis. Europace. 2022; 24: 443-454 Crossref PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar , 6 Anderson R.H. Sanchez-Quintana D. Mori S. Cabrera J.A. Back Sternick E. Re-evaluation of the structure of the atrioventricular node and its connections with the atrium. Europace. 2020; 22: 821-830 Crossref PubMed Scopus (32) Google Scholar along with the electrophysiological properties, which have allowed identification of the so-called fast and slow pathways involved in atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). 7 Katritsis D.G. Josephson M.E. Classification, electrophysiological features and therapy of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. Arrhythm Electrophysiol Rev. 2016; 5: 130-135 Crossref PubMed Scopus (29) Google Scholar , 8 Katritsis D.G. A unified theory for the circuit of atrioventricular nodal re-entrant tachycardia. Europace. 2020; 22: 1763-1767 Crossref PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar , 9 Katritsis D.G. Calkins H. Anderson R.H. The specialized atrioventricular ring tissues participate in the circuit of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. J Am Heart Assoc. 2021; 10e022811 Crossref Scopus (0) Google Scholar But still the nature of these patterns of conduction in the context of sinus rhythm, as opposed to those observed during tachycardia, remains obscure. In the great Sophoclean tragedy, in light of its insurmountable difficulty, the denouement of the riddle of Sphinx by mortal Oedipus was initially perceived by the Athenians as a form of hubris against the gods by a human. 10 Sophocles. Oedipus Tyrannus. 429 BC. Google Scholar We believe that the accumulation of recent anatomic and electrophysiological evidence now enables us to provide the rationale for solving the nodal riddle without committing scientific hubris.

OIDIPOUS TYRANNOS’TA KEHANET VE MERHAMET

This article focuses on the place and importance of pity in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. Although the feeling of pity or compassion is just the basic emotional reaction expected from the audience, it is the most important element that takes place in the center of the plot of Oedipus Tyrannus and determines the course of events in the tragedy. Sophocles made some important changes about the Oedipus myth in the tragedy of Oedipus Tyrannus and reconstructed the plot of the tragedy in an original way. Our main claim here is this: The main character's pity is the basis of the critical changes Sophocles made in the myth. For just as the feeling of pity was decisive when Laios’ slave did not leave the baby Oedipus on the mountain, but gave it to the Corinthian messenger to raise him, there is also the intense fear and pity behind Oedipus’ important decisions that led him to investigate the cause of the great plague epidemic in the city of Thebes and left the administration to Creon.

The Downfall of Croesus and Oedipus: Tracing Affinities Between Herodotus' Histories and Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus

In this paper, we compare the downfall of Herodotus' Croesus and Sophocles' Oedipus against four central themes: ignorance and learning too late; misplaced hope; mutability of fortune; and fate and responsibility. Our analysis reveals striking affinities between the two author's works, not only in their conception of human fortune and the working of divine and human causation, but also in how Herodotus and Sophocles engage their audiences by employing similar narrative techniques, notably through the use of different focalizations. Moreover, it shows that many of the features highlighted in Aristotle's Poetics for the finest tragedy not only apply to Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus but also to Herodotus' Croesus logos.

THEGETTY HEXAMETERSAND GREEK TRAGEDY

The present article aims to show that several passages of Greek tragedy make use of language present in theGetty Hexameters, especially in contexts where incantations and protection of the city are mentioned. TheGetty Hexameterswere written on a lead tablet at the end of the fifth century BC in Sicily (Selinus or, more likely, Himera). The article argues that the composition of the text predates the lead tablet by several decades (section 2). It focuses on similarities in structure and language that involve Soph. fr. 535 (section 4), Aeschylus’Oresteia(section 5), Sophocles’Oedipus Tyrannus(section 6) and Euripides’Hecuba(section 8). It also suggests that Plato (section 7) and late antique poetry and prose (section 9) reuse some of the linguistic elements of the incantatory tradition of theGetty Hexameters.

The Oedipus Casebook, Reading Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (with a new translation of Oedipus Tyrannus by Wm. Blake Tyrell) (M.R.) Anspach (ed.) pp. xiv + 459. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2020. Paper, US$29.95. ISBN: 978-1-61186-339-0

The Oedipus Casebook, Reading Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (with a new translation of Oedipus Tyrannus by Wm. Blake Tyrell) (M.R.) Anspach (ed.) pp. xiv + 459. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2020. Paper, US$29.95. ISBN: 978-1-61186-339-0 - Volume 23 Issue 45

Plautus goes USA: the adaptation ofRudensby the Ladies’ Literary Society of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1884

AbstractThis article investigates the first documented performance of a Plautine comedy in Latin in the USA. In 1884, The Ladies’ Literary Society of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, staged Plautus’ Rudens in Latin with an all-female cast. This performance offers a unique opportunity to analyse the Society’s understanding and interpretation of Plautus’ play as well as its adaptation for the nineteenth-century stage. Furthermore, the Society provided an English translation for its academic and especially its non-academic audience, evidence of how the Society dealt with the Plautine Latin text. Based on this translation and contemporary newspaper and journal articles, this article outlines the main characteristics of the Society’s adaptation. First, this production merits scrutiny in the historical context of staging ancient Greek and Roman plays in the USA during the late-nineteenth century, since the Society followed the trend, started by Harvard University’s staging of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus in 1881, of presenting ancient plays ‘authentically’. Nevertheless, the Society seems to have staged this Roman comedy as a feminist response to Harvard’s production of a Greek tragedy. Secondly, the Society modernised Plautus’ comedy by adding strong melodramatic elements, and thirdly, it reflected the contemporary socio-cultural context by alluding to current American concerns.

Fall and rise of King Oedipus

This essay is placed within a continuing debate on the appropriateness of a Christian deployment of tragedy. According David Bentley Hart, tragedy legitimates a sacrificial and scapegoating logic that is in contradiction with the Christian gospel. It promotes exclusion and therefore is imaginatively and metaphysically conservative in its import. In the ensuing argument, I hope to show through one example how even Greek tragedy can resist some of these claims. Drawing on the seminal work of Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, I argue that Sophocles’ Oedipus cycle, firstly, demonstrates the inability of nomos to grasp the exception of Oedipus, and that this might constitute a critique rather than a simple legitimation of the civic order. Secondly, the narrative arc of Oedipus Tyrannus and Oedipus at Colonus point towards incorporation rather than final exclusion, and that his apotheosis could be read as resisting deleterious tropes of a final holocaust of the tragic figure. In the final section, drawing on Rowan Williams, I discuss the problems associated with literary Christologies in general, and whether it could be theologically feasible to talk about the Theban cycle as exhibiting a ‘proto-Christology’.

DOENÇA E ESPACIALIDADE NO ÉDIPO TIRANO DE SÓFOCLES

O artigo proposto procura desenvolver uma reflexão sobre a doença e o espaço na tragédia grega. O artigo insere-se na temática da doença (nósos) e de suas representações para problematizar a tragédia Édipo Tirano (427 a.C.) de Sófocles em relação à peste ocorrida entre 430 e 426 a.C em Atenas. Parte-se da hipótese de que a peste ressignificou a maneira como Atenas percebia suas instituições sociais. O texto realiza uma análise do vocabulário trágico e das relações entre doença e espaço desenvolvidas na peça.

Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage by Melinda Powers

Reviewed by: Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage by Melinda Powers Karelisa Hartigan (bio) Melinda Powers. Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage. (Classical Presences) New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 230. $81.79. Greek drama on the American stage: a good thing. The ancient classics speaking to the contemporary world: another good thing. An author who bases her discussion on productions of Greek-based plays that she has seen: a third good thing. I looked forward to reading Melinda Powers' recent book. But as I began, I realized I should have looked more closely at the first word in her title, diversifying. The plays, their writers, and their production companies were indeed truly diverse, and their scripts far removed in meaning and message from the Greek originals. Powers has done a masterful job in collecting evidence for these plays: her research has been extensive. Every page is filled with quotations and the bottom margins full of notes. She writes that these theatre artists use the ancient texts to "develop a new syncretic, mythological mix that reflects the needs, concerns, and anxieties of a democracy in the present" (2). Powers follows the leads these new "adaptations" of ancient dramas offer, stating, "I work as a critic and historian of contemporary, live performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical contexts, while articulating questions related to US identities" (12). The book comprises an introduction and five chapters, each addressing a different contemporary social issue. Chapter 1 examines the relationship between ancient Greek drama and African American communities using plays produced by two Harlem-based theater companies, TWAS and CHT. In each discussion, Powers chooses a lens through which to view the shows; here she views them as illustrations of "the black body," the strategies used by the companies to negotiate cultural ideas about standard views of Greek drama and those of "the black body." In this allotted space, I cannot summarize the plots of the updated scripts (Trojan Women and two versions of Medea), but to illustrate how changes are made, I note that the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Trojan Women relocates the action to civil war in Sierra Leone and uses the tragedy "as a framework to explore the violence of war and its repercussions for the global community" (42). But the set, an urban station, serves to implicate western views on black identity. In her discussion of these plays, Powers accepts the agenda the black productions assert. Chapter 2 addresses the use of Greek drama in urban Latinxs communities. Powers writes that, unlike the African American theater, Latinxs "do not have an extensive historical relationship with the genre" (51). She focuses on three plays by Luis Alfaro, who adapted Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides' Medea as modern Latino dramas. As Alfaro's versions range far from their ancient originals, an audience unfamiliar with them might not easily follow the changes. One oddity Powers repeats throughout: she gives in her notes a plot summary [End Page 535] of the Greek plays but does not offer a similar review of the new versions. Like most readers of this book, I know the Greek texts but was unaware of the story line of the Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey or Mojada. The several illustrations within each chapter do allow the reader to see how the companies produced the plays. Powers' lens here, taken from Alfaro's teaching, was "executing stereotypes." Although she devoted about 31 pages to this issue, I found it hard to understand if "executing" was to be understood as destroying or performing. But throughout, Powers/Alfaro illustrate how the characters in the Greek dramas play into the Latinxs stereotypes held by mainstream America. The vendetta justice of Sophocles' Electra is well repeated in Alfaro's Electricidad, where the characters believe in the "cholx code of gang violence" (60). Powers connects the issues in Alfaro's plays with contemporary events: mistrust of the police, the poverty of cholx neighborhoods, the abuse and drug addiction found there. In Oedipus El Rey, social conditions replace the ancient oracles in predetermining the destiny of members of the Latinx communities. Alfaro's...

Edições digitais nas Clássicas: elementos de gênero na produção e leitura da língua grega e do latim

As edições digitais na área de clássicas têm surgido como aliadas no rompimento de barreiras e no enfrentamento de desafios no ensino das línguas e culturas clássicas. O objetivo deste artigo é destacar algumas características específicas de edições digitais das Letras Clássicas, como possíveis elementos de gênero na sua produção e sua leitura digitais, supondo serem uma forma de contribuir para a mobilização da aprendizagem das línguas clássicas e a formação docente na área. Descrevemos, de um lado, os componentes essenciais no processo de uma edição digital nova do texto grego do Édipo Rei, de Sófocles, preparado na Universidade Furman, para um curso de graduação. De outro, apontamos de que modo as anotações de edições digitais, em alinhamentos, treebanking e geoanotações, na qualidade de experiências de aprendizagem, são potenciais instrumentos de desenvolvimento.

Cave hominem

Abstract This article explores two episodes from Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica which both feature domestic animals: the horse in 1.239-270 and the dog in 4.354-376. Both of these episodes are highly intertextual, alluding to, respectively, Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and the abduction narratives from Moschus’ Europa and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. I argue that the poet of the Cynegetica invites his readers to reflect on the potentially problematic nature of the power dynamic for these animals through sophisticated allusions to the poetic tradition, through which the relationship between man and animal is compared to that between the gods and humans.

Oedipus-Inspired Pintos: The Plague of Prisons in Two Chicano Takes on the Prototypical Myth of Crisis

This article discusses two revisions of the tragic myth of Oedipus in the light of recent studies on the American prison crisis. In 2010, Luis Alfaro’s “Oedipus el Rey,” a play that draws on Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, addressed the national prison crisis which has encroached on barrio life with dreadful repercussions. One year later, Ernest Drucker employed the term “plague of prisons” to describe the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the US and shed light on its effects on poor communities of color, such as barrio communities. As if responding to Drucker’s study and Alfaro’s play, Law Chavez’s “Señora de la Pinta,” presented in 2012, gets its inspiration from the myth of Oedipus to dramatize US prison experience as a plague threatening the self and the barrio. The two plays are examined for what they reveal about the impact of the prison crisis on Chicano barrio life and Chicanidad.