1. Oedipus the King by
Sophocles

2. Sophocles Born at Colonus near Athens Born circa 496 B.C.
Died 406 B.C.
Family was aristocratic
Had a classical Greek education
only males educated
memorization the primary learning tool
Wrote on tablets

3. Sophocles Continued
Learned Homer
Goal of education to produce good citizens
Sang a hymn at the victory of Salamis (480 B.C.), a battle which saved Greece from Persian invasion
Acted as a general
Member of a commission that guided Athens that followed a desperate military defeat to Sicily (413 B.C.)

4. Sophocles Continued
Most successful dramatist who presented plays in the theater of Dionysus
First victory in 468 B.C.; defeated Aeschylus
Won first prize 18 times
Won second prize occasionally
Never came in third

5. Sophocles Continued Wrote 123 plays
Seven survive: Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, Electra, and Trachiniae

6. Athenian Theater Athenians invented theater
Chorus was the oldest element
the chorus consisted of dancers (hence choreography)
drama began as a dance to Dionysus
When Oedipus the King was performed, theater was still an act of religious devotion to Dionysus, the god of all living, growing things

7. Athenian Theater Continued
Theater only active during the three-day festival of Dionysus
Dancers often wore masks
Thespis added the first actor
Sophocles had the genius to add two more
Audience was made up of average people
Theater could hold fourteen thousand
Audience was quite lively

8. Athenian Theater Continued
Players wore masks enabling them to play multiple parts
The chorus stayed on the stage the entire time
Drama based on well-known myths, which had the authority of history and religion
The stories held the moral, religious, and historical ethos of the race

9. The Legend
Playwrights used well-known myths as the basis of their plays; automatically had a sense of authority
Exposition and character development was built in
Audience recognized the story
Dramatic irony a key element in the plays

10. The Legend Continued
Audience in a unique position; they understand the past, present, and future in every situation of the play
Audiences understood everything on two levels at once
Their role became at once godlike and everyman: he sees the image of his own life and sees it through an all-knowing lens

11. The Oedipus Legend
Jocasta and Laius, queen and king of Thebes, are childless
Told by Apollo that their son would kill his father and marry his mother
When Oedipus was born, Laius put a stake through his feet and ordered a shepherd to abandon the baby on a mountainside
The shepherd pitied the baby and gave him to another shepherd

12. The Oedipus Legend Continued
The second shepherd gave it to the king and queen of Corinth, Polybus and Merope, also childless
They name him Oedipus which means “swollen foot”
Oedipus, now a young man, heard from a drunkard that he was not the real son of the king and queen
Oedipus went to Delphi and was told he would kill his father and marry his mother

13. The Oedipus Legend Continued
He leaves and meets a chariot at a crossroads where, enraged by his ill treatment by the charioteer, kills the entourage, including Laius
Oedipus comes to Thebes which is being plagued by the Sphinx - part bird, lion, woman
Oedipus solves the riddle and gets the prize -- Jocasta
He rules well for many years; has children
A new plague breaks out in Thebes which is where the play begins

14. Aristotle
384 – 322 B.C.
Agreed with Plato that universals, (ideas or forms as he called them), are real, and that knowledge derived from the senses is limited and inaccurate
Asserted that form and matter are of equal importance: both are eternal and neither can exist inseparable from the other

15. Aristotle
His god was simply the Prime Mover, the original source of the purposive motion contained in the forms
No place in his religious scheme for individual morality
Highest good consists in self-realization, that is, in the exercise of that part of man’s nature which most truly distinguishes him as a human being

16. The Golden Mean
The solution to living a good and purposeful life is to be found in the golden mean, in preserving balance between excessive indulgence on the one hand and ascetic denial on the other.

17. Works Consulted
Oedipus the King. Sophocles. Trans. Bernard M. W. Knox. New York: Washington Square Press, 1969.