Sophocles' Oedipus Rex » (REV)

One of our most popular, respected, and controversial literary critics, Yale University professor Harold Bloom s books about, variously, Shakespeare, the Bible, and the classic literature are as erudite as they are accessible.

First presented between 429 and 425 B.C., Oedipus Rex is the most well known extant tragedy by the fifth century Greek dramatist Sophocles. The sheer volume of performances and reinterpretations of the work in the intervening centuries speaks to its enduring power. Sophocles' Oedipus was itself a new version of an older myth, the story of an abandoned child who unwittingly fulfills a prophecy that he will murder his father and marry his mother. In this tragic episode, Sigmund Freud found a manifestation of the human urges he called the Oedipus Complex, a psychoanalytic reading of Sophocles' play that literary critics have spent the last century combating. This collection of essays draws upon a rich history of criticism and commentary on Oedipus Rex to examine the questions of fate, free will, heroism, and humanity that the tragedy continues to provoke.

Introduction     7
Biographical Sketch     12
The Story Behind the Story     15
List of Characters     22
Summary and Analysis     26
Critical Views     69
Clifton W. Collins on Shifts in Perspective from Aeschylus to Sophocles     69
C. M. Bowra on Right and Wrong in Sophocles     71
H. D. F. Kitto on the Problem of "Justice"     77
Bernard M. W. Knox on the Restoration of Oedipus     80
E. R. Dodds on Oedipus as a Free Agent     84
Herbert Musurillo on Ship-of-State Imagery     86
David Seale on the Stagecraft of the Opening Scene     89
Cynthia P. Gardiner on the Contribution of the Chorus     93
Christopher Rocco on "Tyrannos"     95
Felix Budelmann on the Expanded Focus of the Play     97
Alan H. Sommerstein on the World of Sophocles     100
Works by Sophocles     104
Annotated Bibliography     105
Contributors     110
Acknowledgments     112
Index     114