What is the historical value of King Oedipus

Bringing the art of ancient tragedy to maturity.

King Oedipus is based on ancient Greek legends. Legend has it that after Oedipus was born, his biological father, King Laos of Thebes, learned from an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother when he grew up, so he pierced his heel with iron and asked his servants to throw the baby in the wilderness.

The servant took pity on the innocent child and gave him over to a shepherd in Corinth.

King Collins adopted him because he had no sons.

As an adult, when Oedipus learns from God that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother, he flees from Corinth to escape the doom revealed by God, as he believes that the king and queen of Corinth are his biological parents. However, Oedipus never expected that it was this deliberate avoidance that accelerated the pace of tragedy in his life.

He left his adoptive parents and walked to the city of Tebai.

While escaping, Oedipus is humiliated by a group of passers-by and in a fit of rage kills four people, including his own father, the elderly king of Thebes, Laos.

Oedipus the King is one of the masterpieces of Sophocles (496 BC), one of the three great tragic writers of ancient Greece. It is based on the story of Oedipus killing his father and marrying his mother in Greek mythology, and shows the typical Greek tragic conflict - the conflict between man and fate. This work has also been called the most painful and terrible tragedy in the theater world.

The plot goes something like this: Oedipus is the king of Thebes in Greek mythology, the son of King Laios and Queen Jocasta, who, without knowing it, killed his father and married his mother. When his son Oedipus was born, the oracle said that he would be killed by his son, and to escape his fate, Laios pierced the newborn's ankle and abandoned him in the wild.

The shepherds took pity on them and secretly gave the baby to the Corinthian king Polybos, where they raised him as if he were his own son.

When Oedipus grew up, the oracle of the temple of Delphi signaled that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus did not know that the king and queen of Corinth were not his biological parents, and in order to avoid the oracle coming true, he left Corinth and vowed never to return. While wandering near Thebes, Oedipus clashes with a group of strangers on a fork in the road and accidentally kills someone, including his own father.

Thebes was trapped by the Sphinx, a sphinx, because he would grab everyone who passed by, tearing them apart and devouring them if they couldn't solve his puzzles. In order to get out of the situation, Thebes announced that whoever could solve the puzzle and save the city-state from the Sphinx would be able to obtain the throne and marry the king's widow, Jocasta. Later, it was Oedipus who solved the riddle of the Sphinx and rescued Thebes.

He succeeded to the throne and, without knowing it, married his own mother, and had two daughters and two sons.

Later, plagues and plagues plague plagues plague in the country ruled by Oedipus, so the king asked the gods for advice on why the plague had befallen him. Finally, under the revelation of the prophet Tirisias, Oedipus learned that he was the son of Laios, and finally fulfilled his unfortunate fate of killing his father and marrying his mother. Shocked, Jocasta hangs himself in shame, while Oedipus, who is equally grief-stricken, blinds himself.

Oedipus the King has a high artistic achievement, especially in the whole plot.

1. The tightness of the structure and the ingenious layout can be called a model of Greek tragedy. In terms of portraying the characters, the author uses the development of the plot to promote the shaping of the characters, so that the personality history of the characters serves the realization of the creative intention. Therefore, the same person has different expressions in different works, that is, the different ideas of different works determine the different character traits of the same task.

In addition, Sophocles is adept at using a variety of rhetorical devices, including alliteration, homophony, onomatopoeia, arrangement, symmetry, and metaphor, and pays attention to the reality of the situational structure, carefully arranges the position of words, and successfully uses various styles of symmetrical modification.

The historical value of King Oedipus is to show the contradiction between human will and fate, to show that the protagonist is brave, upright, kind, and dares to take responsibility. It highlights the complex relationship between chance and necessity, and the "impermanence" and "helplessness" of fate. It is the idea that fate reigns supreme in Western mythology.

Among them, the mystery of the Sphinx symbolizes the first self-understanding and self-exploration of human beings, and the beginning of the era of human philosophy. At the same time, it is also a manifestation of the formation of new ethical and moral concepts in ancient Greece, expressing the painful memories of human beings from barbarism to civilization.

Oedipus (oedipus or odipus, sometimes spelled oidipous) is a typical tragic figure of fate in the history of foreign literature. The son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebe in Greek mythology, he unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Sophocles, the "Homer of dramatic art" and "master of the tragedy of fate", enriched the tragedy of fate in the ancient Greek play "Oedipus the King".

Oedipus the King is a classic work of ancient Greek tragedy and a classic book that must be read. One of the dramatic masterpieces of Sophocles in ancient Greece. Premiered c. 430 BC 426 BC.

The play was promoted by Aristotle as a model in the art of drama. Oedipus tries to escape the fate of the oracle, and this escape itself is the practice of the oracle. "Oedipus the King" not only left a model for later generations in art, but also through Freud's psychoanalysis, it also led to a new term——— Oedipus complex.