Oedipus, tragedy and Aristotle

Sophocles lived 496 – 406 B.C.

• Born in Athens
• Wrote Antigone, then Oedpius Rex, then Oedipus at Colonnus
• Wrote a total of 120 plays. We only have 7 complete plays, and fragments of the others

• He was a musician throughout his life; also worked at various occupations; among them, he was a priest, ambassador, general
• Leaves the Divine mysterious
  • We don’t know for sure, and we don’t need to speculate

• Believed to be the originator of the single play
• Was the first to introduce a third character on stage at the same time
• Sophocles concentrated on the individual character instead of the Chorus
• His characters have strong personalities. They don’t budge (stubborn)
  • Only one main character
    • Isolates them, they further isolate themselves with the choices that they make
    • Tend to be intelligent and willing to accept their moral responsibility
    • Deep moral commitment to a high moral standard, they make the right moral choice, BUT it ultimately destroys them

Oedipus Rex :

7 Major themes:

1. Search for Truth
2. Incest / Patricide
3. Man in Relation to God
4. Mystery of Identity
5. Fate vs Freedom
6. Leadership in Crisis
7. Justice

• It is possible that the beginning of Oedipus is set during the Greek plague
  • There was both a plague & a civil war going on
• The opening scene, the Priest represents the people
  • The people are asking Oedipus for help
• The Riddle representative of humanity

Tension / Conflict

Greatest possible public  Good           vs         Greatest Possible Evil

• Oedipus is wise, persistent, determined to find the truth.

What is the tragic flaw?

• Oedipus thinks that he can control everything with investigative thought, through the use of his intellect… HUBRIS

Jocasta’s speech:  “Chance rules our lives…”  and “Live day to day…”  STOP QUESTIONING

VS

Oedipus’s final speech before learning the truth, where he says that he will accept the truth, whatever it is è personal drive, he wants to know the truth

• Both the dignity and tragedy of Oedipus resides in his reliance on his “heroic intellect”
  • He saved the city.
  • He is clever, brave, confident, but he is not a god.
  • Does his hubris become overreaching?
    • Even that becomes tragic because he is reaching for knowledge, not power

The first line of Aristotle’s book, Metaphysics is “All men, by nature, desire to know.”

At the end, “O Light”

God of light (Sun, also thought, intelligence, medicine)

The light that blinds you

Insight SO great, that it blinds you

Oedipus blinds himself and now he SEES.

What is tragedy?

Aristotle believed that art was essential and that the best and highest form of art was drama, specifically tragedy. According to Aristotle, that is because tragedy — when properly constructed — leads to catharsis, a purging or cleaning of the soul achieved through extreme emotion.

How is that achieved? According to Aristotle, the story must:

• be told in real time and in one place. That is the unity of time and place. If the story takes two hours to tell, it must be two hours in the lives of the characters on stage.
• Unity of plot and theme – there has to be one story and one story only (no side stories or die plots) and there must be a tight cause and effect relationship. All actions must be the direct result of previous actions (no intervention by the gods and no sheer coincidence)
• Unity of mood – no comic relief
• There must be a tragic hero that is: noble, good, attractive, well-liked, admired, and human.
  • He must posses a tragic flaw which directly leads to his downfall (hamartia)
  • and there must be a moment of recognition (anagnorisis) where the hero understands his downfall was caused by his own actions.

Often, we call sad events tragic, but there is much more to it.  There are whole philosophical debates on the nature of tragedy:

“Tragedy arises when human aspirations urge us to go beyond the limitations placed on us by our own human nature and by the forces of nature that surround us.”

“The tragic hero has normally had an extraordinary, often nearly a divine, destiny almost within grasp…. The irony in tragedy lies in the contrast between the vision which the tragic hero has of his future and the shocking disaster that befalls him. In this respect, he is also the universal human being.”

To the tragic hero, the world is ambiguous. Is there order? He yearns to believe that there is a purpose, yet his actions lead to disaster.

Qualities that make him heroic:

1. A belief in his own freedom
2. Supreme pride, often leading to hubris
3. Capacity for suffering
4. A sense of commitment
5. Vigorous protest/resistance to his situation
6. Transformation / transfiguration
7. Impact / catharsis

Oedipus’s world is an existential one.  It is a nihilistic world in which there is no concern for human beings.  In the deepest sense, Oedipus is innocent.  He is wronged by the gods.  His tragic heroism arises from his refusal to resign himself to the meaninglessness and purposeless cruelty of this world.  If there is any meaning for Oedipus, it is that he can assert the dignity of self in a vacuum of injustice and absurdity.

More on Aristotle and tragedy:  http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/AristotlePoeticsEdited.htm

Learn the terms: harmartia and peripeteia