Literary Theory In Oedipus

Yağmur Tulga
112401012
Dr. Hasan İnal
IDE 401
12 August 2015

From Aristotle to Shakespeare A Literary Theory Changeover By looking at the history, one can say that human beings were always in search of new things, chasing new theories and trying to find some answers by asking certain questions. It is pretty normal for us, humans to seek after the truth or try to explain some uncertainties as it is a part of our nature. This pursuit occurred and continued ever since the ancient times of our existence in this planet. This quest was observed in various areas of all topics related to humans. Curiosity made humans to become wiser, scholar and wittier. Through this ability of being curious and in search

(Thomas, 69) Oedipus the King which Aristotle evaluates as a very successful classical tragedy is a great representation of Greek tragedy genre because of the rules that it follows throughout the play. In this work written by Sophocles in 429 BC, when Oedipus embarks to find the cause of the plague that surrounds Thebes, he finds out that the person who is cursed is actually himself, is the plot’s peripateia. At this very moment, decoding of the story begins and audience comes close to the solution. When Laios’s servant illuminates Oedipus with the true story of his life, anagnorisis of the play overlaps with peripateia. After the prophet’s every oracle being realized, audience is left with a sequence of thoughts. These interwoven incidents which lead to catharsis, to be realized in the same day and at the same place makes the tragedy’s catharsis’ phenomenon enhanced. Furthermore, when the chorus appears as a character and contributes the play with melody, it also serves to the way that takes the audience to catharsis. Oedipus’s mother and at the same time wife, Jocasta’s death intensifies the spectacle and with the scene when Oedipus makes himself blind with Jocasta’s dress’ needles, the pity for Oedipus reaches its peak point and his pathos is felt by the audience. Oedipus’s fate becomes dreadful with obscurities

The play, in which the protagonist having his mother as his wife, killing his father with his own hands without knowingly and becoming the father of his own siblings, can definitely detract the audience from their own secular passions and leave them with the effect of a great catharsis and shows the supremacy of Greek tragedy which Aristotle mentions in Poetics. As for the three unities rule, the whole action of Oedipus the King takes place in a 24 hour period, the entire play happens only in one play, at the entrance to Oedipus’s mansion and the certain dramatic action is the dilemma of Oedipus.
On the other hand, in the 16th Century of England, during renaissance, audience met with a new tragedy type that does not fully follow Aristotelian tragedy rules, it was Shakespearean tragedy. Oedipus the King’s explicit Greek traces on the medieval tragedies started to become indistinct after Shakespeare’s art come to surface. This differentiation certainly draws attention in his plays, in order to give an example one can examine his great tragedy