Reading Order
Oedipus Rex Reading Order
Oedipus Rex (ca. 429 BCE) by Sophocles is Aristotle's paradigm of perfect tragedy and the most widely read Greek play — a detective story in which the detective discovers that he himself is the criminal he has been investigating. Oedipus, King of Thebes, investigates the cause of the plague that is destroying his city; the oracle at Delphi says the plague will end when the murderer of the previous king, Laius, is found and expelled. The investigation reveals, step by step, that Oedipus himself killed Laius (his real father, whom he met on the road and killed in a quarrel), that he married his own mother Jocasta, and that the prophecy that his parents had tried to prevent by exposing him as an infant has been fulfilled in every detail. Jocasta hangs herself; Oedipus puts out his own eyes and goes into exile. Sophocles constructs the play with extraordinary dramatic irony: the audience knows the outcome from the beginning (the myth was familiar to every Athenian), and the play's power comes entirely from watching Oedipus pursue the truth step by step, understanding each revelation slightly before Oedipus does, and being unable to prevent what we know is coming. The form of the detective investigation is perfectly suited to tragedy: Oedipus's relentless drive to know the truth is exactly the quality that makes him a great king and exactly the quality that destroys him. Freud named the Oedipus complex after the play (though his reading was selective); Lévi-Strauss analyzed it as a myth about the tension between the human and the natural; and it has been performed and reinterpreted continuously for 2,500 years.
Where to start
Oedipus Rex — the E.F. Watling Penguin translation is readable and widely available; the David Grene translation in the University of Chicago Press series is scholarly. Read it as a detective story.
Complete Oedipus Rex Book List
- 1Buy
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles·-429·The play — Oedipus's investigation of Laius's murder, which reveals that he himself is the criminal. - 2Buy
Oedipus at Colonus
Sophocles·-401·The sequel — the blinded Oedipus's death at Colonus; Sophocles's final play, performed posthumously. - 3Buy
Antigone
Sophocles·-441·The third Theban play — set after Oedipus's death; Antigone's defiance of Creon, Oedipus's successor. - 4Buy
The Oresteia
Aeschylus·-458·Aeschylus's trilogy — the other essential Greek tragic sequence; where Sophocles is more purely dramatic, Aeschylus is more theological. - 5Buy
Hamlet
William Shakespeare·1601·Shakespeare's tragedy — the investigation of a father's murder; the most obvious modern parallel to Oedipus's structural situation. - 6Buy
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky·1880·Dostoevsky's novel — the father-murder, the trial, the question of guilt; the modern work most deeply engaged with the Oedipus complex in the Freudian sense. - 7Buy
Poetics
Aristotle·-350·Aristotle's essay on tragic form — uses Oedipus Rex as the paradigm of perfect tragedy; essential background for understanding the play's structure. - 8Buy
Oedipus the King
Sophocles·1984·Stephen Berg and Diskin Clay's modern verse translation — one of the most actable contemporary versions.
Oedipus Rex — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Oedipus Rex about?
Oedipus Rex follows Oedipus, King of Thebes, as he investigates the cause of the plague destroying his city. The Delphic Oracle says the plague will end when the murderer of the previous king, Laius, is found and expelled. Oedipus's investigation reveals, piece by piece, that he killed Laius (his biological father) on the road to Thebes, that he married Jocasta (his biological mother), and that the prophecy his parents tried to prevent by exposing him as an infant has been fulfilled in every detail. Jocasta, understanding first, kills herself. Oedipus, upon full realization, puts out his own eyes and demands exile from Thebes.
What is dramatic irony in Oedipus Rex?
Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that the character does not. Oedipus Rex is built almost entirely on dramatic irony: the audience knows the myth — they know that Oedipus killed Laius, married his mother, and will be destroyed by the truth — before the play begins. Every scene of investigation, every new revelation, every confident assertion by Oedipus that he will find the truth takes on a terrible double meaning because the audience knows what he doesn't. The play's climax — when Oedipus finally understands — is more devastating because we have been waiting for it throughout. This is why Aristotle called recognition (anagnorisis) and reversal (peripeteia) the two essential elements of tragedy: in Oedipus Rex, they occur simultaneously, in the most concentrated form imaginable.
Why does Oedipus blind himself?
Oedipus gouges out his own eyes at the moment when he fully understands what he has done — killing his father, marrying his mother, fathering children who are also his siblings. The self-blinding is usually read as a punishment that is also an act of lucidity: Oedipus has been metaphorically blind throughout the play (seeing only what he wanted to see, ignoring the evidence that pointed toward the truth), and his literal blinding is the acknowledgment of this metaphorical blindness. There is also the irony that the blind prophet Tiresias could see the truth that the sighted Oedipus could not: Oedipus puts out his eyes when he can no longer bear to see, having finally seen what Tiresias saw all along.
What is Aristotle's theory of tragedy as exemplified by Oedipus Rex?
In the Poetics, Aristotle uses Oedipus Rex as his paradigm of perfect tragedy and defines tragedy through the elements he finds in it: plot (the arrangement of incidents, which must produce pity and fear); character (which must have hamartia, the tragic flaw — not a moral fault but an error of judgment or ignorance); recognition (anagnorisis — the move from ignorance to knowledge that produces the reversal); and reversal (peripeteia — a change from one state to its opposite). In Oedipus Rex, recognition and reversal occur simultaneously and with maximum impact: the investigation that Oedipus believes will vindicate him is the investigation that destroys him. Aristotle calls this the most effective form of tragic plot.
What should I read after Oedipus Rex?
After Oedipus Rex, the natural continuation is the other Theban plays: Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles's sequel (performed posthumously in 401 BCE), and Antigone, which follows the story of Oedipus's daughter. Aeschylus's Oresteia is the other essential tragic sequence. For Aristotle's theory of tragedy, the Poetics is brief and illuminating. For modern responses to the Oedipus myth, Freud's discussion of the Oedipus complex (in The Interpretation of Dreams) and Jean Cocteau's Machine Infernale (1934) are important. For a contemporary verse translation that reads well aloud, Frank McGuinness's version is widely used in theatre.
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