Realism in Oedipus Rex
This essay will examine a feature of Sophocles’ tragedy which causes the reader to doubt the realism underlying the literary work. Specifically, the essay will consider the feasability of the belief at that time – that the Delphi oracle possessed credibility with the people.
At the outset of the drama the priest of Zeus and the crowd of citizens of Thebes are gathered before the royal palace of Thebes talking to King Oedipus about the plague which is ravaging the city. The king is sorely troubled and laments the sad situation. Then he says:
I have sent Menoeceus' son,
Creon, my consort's brother, to inquire
Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine,
How I might save the State by act or word.
And now I reckon up the tale of days
Since he set forth, and marvel how he fares.
'Tis strange, this endless tarrying, passing strange.
But when he comes, then I were base indeed,
If I perform not all the god declares.
From this passage it would appear that the king has full faith in the awaited advice from the oracle at Delphi. Is this notion historicaly accurate? Did Sophocles’ contmeporaries actually put such trust in their pagan gods and goddesses? As Brian Wilkie and James Hurt state in “Sophocles”: “Humanity in his plays is an integral part of a world-order that can be only partially understood at best. The cosmic system includes, besides human beings and nature, those darkly inscrutable forces identified – inadequately – as the gods and fate” (718). When Creon returns, he gives his report publicly:
CREON Let me report then all the god declared.
King Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate
A fell pollution that ...
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...74). Cypselus consulted the oracle, and on the basis of its answer, set to work to make himself master of Corinth (376)which he ruled for many years.
Thus we have seen that Sophocles is not being imaginative when he bases the action of the tragedy Oedipus Rex upon the words of the oracle at Delphi. It is wholly consistent with historical data available from that time period of the fifth century BC.
WORKS CITED
Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Selincourt. England: Penguin Books, 1972.
“Sophocles” In Literature of the Western World, edited by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. NewYork: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Transl. by F. Storr.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed new?tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&part=0&id=SopOedipus
Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus can be argued that it is related loosely to Rita Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth. This comparative and contrasting characteristics that can be seen within both plays make the reader/audience more aware of imagery, the major characters, plot, attitudes towards women, and themes that are presented from two very different standpoints. The authors Sophocles and Dove both have a specific goal in mind when writing the two plays. In this paper I will take a closer look of the two, comparing and contrasting the plays with the various elements mentioned previously.
Woodard, Thomas. Introduction. In Sophocles: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Thomas Woodard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Descartes, R. (2004). Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth in the sciences.Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
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