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Sophocles

Sophocles. Oedipus Cycle. Sophocles 496-405 BCE. The most successful dramatist to present plays at the theater of Dionyseus in Athens. Also a scholar, statesman, and general. Sophocles. Added the third actor to the stage. Before this there were never more than two people on stage.

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Sophocles

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  1. Sophocles Oedipus Cycle

  2. Sophocles 496-405 BCE • The most successful dramatist to present plays at the theater of Dionyseus in Athens. • Also a scholar, statesman, and general

  3. Sophocles • Added the third actor to the stage. Before this there were never more than two people on stage. • Won the 1st prize in competition 18 times (more than anyone)

  4. Sophocles • Of the 123 plays he wrote only 7 remain in their complete form. • His best known plays are the Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.

  5. Philosophies to Consider • Salvation comes through suffering which purges one from sin. • Wisdom is achieved through pain.

  6. Philosophies • Suffering is universal. Sadness and tragedy are inherent in living. • Death is the worst thing that can happen and some deaths are more honorable than others.

  7. Oedipus Rex (the king) • This play is the end of a long story that everyone already knew. • Background: • Laius, King of Thebes, receives a prediction that his son will kill him.

  8. Oedipus contd. • Laius and his wife, Jacosta, leave their infant son with a servant to kill. • The baby is bound—a spike is put through his ankles and he is left on a mountain side to die. • The servant could not complete the task.

  9. Oedipus contd. • The servant takes the child and gives it to another man who gives the child the king and queen of Corinth. • Adopted parents name him Oedipus--meaning swollen foot.

  10. Oedipus • Oedipus grows up happy and visits an oracle. The oracle tells him that he is destined to marry his mother and kill his father. • Fearing this fate Oedipus leaves Cornith.

  11. Oedipus • Outside the city of Thebes, Oedipus gets into a fight and kills several men. One man is left alive. • Oedipus travels into the city of Thebes where there is a monster, a Sphinx, who kills all who can not answer her riddle.

  12. Oedipus • The Riddle: What walks on 4 legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night? • Oedipus gives the correct answer: Man. 4 legs as a baby, 2 as an adult, 3 (cane) in old age.

  13. Oedipus • Oedipus learns that the king of Thebes (Laius) has been killed and no one has found his murder. • His prize for defeating the Sphinx: marriage to the widowed queen, Jacosta.

  14. Oedipus • Jacosta and Oedipus have a happy marriage and 4 children. • The play begins when Thebes is undergoing a plague. Crops will not grow, women die in childbirth, and people are dying rapidly.

  15. Oedipus • Of course, the audience already knows that Oedipus has lived his fate. • He has in fact married his mother, his birth mother Jacosta. This is the dramatic irony. The characters are not aware of what has happened.

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