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Oedipus Rex is widely regarded as one of the greatest plays, stories, and tragedies ever written. [21] [22] In 2015, when The Guardian ' s theatre critic Michael Billington, selected what he thinks are the 101 greatest plays ever written, Oedipus Rex was placed second, just after The Persians. [23]
Patricide (or paternal homicide) is the act of killing one's own father. The word patricide derives from the Latin word pater (father) and the suffix -cida (cutter or killer). Patricide is a sub-form of parricide, which is defined as an act of killing a close relative. [1] In many cultures and religions, patricide was considered one of the ...
Oedipus (UK: / ˈ iː d ɪ p ə s /, also US: / ˈ ɛ d ə-/; Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes.A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family.
Many years later, after Oedipus won the kingship of Thebes by defeating the Sphinx, a plague attacked Thebes. King Oedipus, in his effort to find the cause of plague due to a patricide, revealed that he was told in his teen years that he was destined to murder his father, and sent a spy to Corinth to see who was currently on the throne.
Euryganeia was occasionally named as Oedipus' second wife and the mother of his children, Polynices, Eteocles, Ismene and Antigone. [5] According to Pausanias, the statement at Odyssey 11.274—that the gods soon made the incestuous marriage between Oedipus and his mother Jocasta known—is incompatible with her bearing four children to him. [6]
The play opens with a summary of the story of Oedipus and its aftermath told by Jocasta, who in this version has not committed suicide.She explains that after her husband blinded himself upon discovering that he was her son, his sons Eteocles and Polynices locked him away in hopes that the people might forget what had happened.
The plot of Oedipus Rex may have been influenced by the Oedipodea. Sophocles also wrote another tragedy, Epigoni. Unfortunately, the script has been lost and only a few fragments remain. The Thebaid was probably the basis for a later Latin epic poem of the same title which describes the struggle of Polynices and Eteocles for the throne of Thebes.
'manifold strife' or 'much strife' [1]) was the son of Oedipus and either Jocasta or Euryganeia and the older brother of Eteocles. [2] When Oedipus was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother, Oedipus was expelled from Thebes, leaving Eteocles and Polynices to rule. Because of a curse put on them by their father, the two ...