... the best playwrights were Aeschylus, a playwright who developed the dramatic form further by adding a second actor, and quite possibly the most well-known playwright Sophocles, who added a third actor to the stage. Dramatic plays had become grand outdoor spectacles that drew in audiences numbering in the thousands and each year the ... riddle and upon being freed from the Sphinx's spell, the Thebans proclaimed "It was some god breathed in you to set us free" (Sophocles 5). In fact, the Thebans were so grateful to Oedipus that they decided to make him the king of Thebes and married him to...

• Word Count: 1488
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Certainly blindness and sight" illuminate metaphors throughout Sophocles' masterpiece work Oedipus Rex. Ironically, the blind prophet Teiresias becomes such an exasperation to Oedipus, "I did not know you were about to speak folly; else it would have been long ... written just after the first Peloponnesian War (with Sparta) and soon after the plague that carried off 1/3 of all Athens' inhabitants and their beloved Pericles (who was a close friend of Sophocles). As all who were in the audience of this play were intimately aware of the Sparta's siege of Athens, the plague catastrophe, and Athe...

• Word Count: 653
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Oedipus' inevitable downfall, which represents man's struggle between free will and fate. In an attempt to use the audience's knowledge to his advantage, Sophocles opens the play seventeen years after Oedipus murders his father, Laius and marries his mother, Jocasta. The sequence in which the story unravels reveals the strong psychological focus towards Oedipus' ... ...

• Word Count: 631
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

As in any great tragedy, the story of Oedipus is rife with heartbreaking irony. In "Oedipus the King," Sophocles provides the reader with an interesting contrast between the truth as defined by the gods and their oracles and the truth as defined by Oedipus himself. It is Oedipus' interpretation ... ...

• Word Count: 1443
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... person he has already been. This progression indicates the importance of Greek tragedy as a means of catharsis for the audience, presenting Oedipus" development as the tragic hero. Moreover, it expresses Sophocles" social commentary concerning the evolution of individual thought versus loyalty to traditional beliefs and submission to fate. The tragedy of Oedipus begins with a speech that gives an idea of Oedipus ... ...

• Word Count: 1741
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate