Oedipus the King
Sophocles
First performed around 429 BC
Three Theban plays
• Oedipus Rex
• Oedipus at Colonus
• AnBgone (wriEen first)
Family tree
Riddle of the Sphinx • What is the creature that walks on four 4 legs in the morning, 2 legs at noon and 3 in the evening? MAN
Temple of Apollo-‐ Delphi: Know thyself (moderaBon, limit)
Anarchy (arche: origin; head)
• Law of the city (relaBve) • Law of the absolute • Seeing with your biological eyes (organizaBon) • Absolute seeing (prophecy; disorganizaBon, nomadism, opening up new paths, holiness, martyrdom).
• Relics accepted, can procure good for laEer generaBons
AnBgone (worthy of one’s parents-‐instead of one’s parents).
Oedipus at Colonus • But in what manner Oedipus perished, no one of mortal men could tell but Theseus…
• A: “we wish to see the place ourselves, in which our father rests”. T: “no, it is not permissible to go there”. A: “ why?”. T: “Because you father told me, that no one should go near the spot, no mortal man should tell of it… it is HOLY…If I keep this pledge, he said, I should preserve my land from its enemies…”.
AnBgone • Like father, like daughter, both headstrong, deaf to reason!
• She has never learned to yield. • A :Your edict, King, was strong. But all your strength is weakness itself against the Immortal unrecorded laws of God.
• T: Anarchy, anarchy! Show me a greater evil. This is why ciBes tumble…No, no: good lives are made by discipline. We keep the laws then, and the lawmakers. And no woman shall seduce us.
Oedipus: Freud vs. Deleuze • Freud: necessity of accepBng limitaBons-‐reality (neurosis)-‐ Psychoanalysis
• Gilles Deleuze-‐ The An*-‐Oedipus-‐ Desire-‐nomadism-‐intensity-‐creaBon-‐(psychosis) Schizoanalysis
• Freud (guilt); Deleuze: “there is nothing scarier than innocence”)
Oedipus (REX) the King.
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