Oedipus the King
Author:Sophocles
Summary: Oedipus was abandoned as a baby because it was prophised he would kill his father and marry his mother. He grows up with a farmer. He kills the King Laius one day (his father) but he did not know it. Then he solved the problem of the Synphx and is now King of Thebes and wife of Jocosta (his mom). Thebes is under a plague because of the person who murdered King Laisus. They call in Tiresias a blind prophet who responds cryptically. Oedipus wants to know now. Tiresias just talks about how the murderer will be both father and brother to his own children, and the son of his own wife. Odeipus is angsty he swaps stories with his wife Jocasta. They call in the Shepard who raised him and they finally realize that he is the murderer, who killed his own father and has had kids with his own mother. They are disgusted. Jocasta hangs herself. Oedipus gouges out his eyes and Creon takes away Oedipus's kids/siblings.
Notes:
This is a drama not a narrative, the deeds must proceed from the charecters not the narrative. There wasn't a division between secular and state. As the story
It is by the death of mortals that the divine work through them. The more divine there is in you the more it eats through you. You must die to reveal the god inside.
The opposed moving principles are
Oepipus: Believes he has control -> active
Tirsius - > accepts that he doesn't have control -> truth -> receptive
Oedipus is self moved he moves by logic.But he treats reason like an instramaunt which can be used to bring about progress.
The greeks knew the limits of reaspm amd feared it.
Tirsius: Has Apollos vision and here he acts as the
The goal is not to become a master over reason and use it, the goal is to become like Tyrseus and be receptive. In seeing it all he misses the details. It is a terrible thing to see the truth.
Aristotlian Tragedy: Brings about pity
The play is about the conflict of the good within itself
Truth is receptive to everything and also foundational to everything.
Being is interchangeable with nothing.
Being that is also the same as nothing because it is no particular. This is also a kind of ignorance
We brought nothing into the world we only receive
You need both activity and receptivity
The tragic hero must be in between great virtue and great evil and his fall must be the consequence of a a hamartia - missing the mark.
Vocab:
Hamartia: missing the mark