Oedipus the King - Sophocles - So You Haven't Read

literature gives us the opportunity to experience lives perspectives and worlds different from our own though remember friend a good story has many readings and this is but one it all happened so quickly just hours ago you were sitting pretty as the king of thebes with a beautiful wife and the respect of everyone who knew you but now less than an afternoon later you're a blind widower exiled from the city you once ruled that in a nutshell is the plot of sophocles tragic masterpiece oedipus the king a play that has influenced the structure of most western drama for a millennia also shockingly a play that placed second in a tragedy competition the year it was performed can you imagine being the judge who ranked oedipus the king second i mean that's like being the critic who gave paddington 2 a bad review or something wait you haven't seen paddington 2 oh you have phew you meant you hadn't read oedipus wait you haven't read oedipus oh man zoe break out the tragedy masks we're going to ancient greece [Applause] [Music] thanks so much to brilliant for helping to support our lifelong passion for learning so you haven't read oedipus the king by sophocles well you're not alone friend while it is one of the most influential tragedies in theater history it's also not exactly light reading but despite that and even though it didn't win that playwriting contest oedipus became an instant classic heck just a hundred years later aristotle you know that guy who literally wrote the book on tragedy was ranking it at the top of his 10 greek tragedies you must read before you die list so let's travel back to ancient greece and look at why oedipus continues to be considered one of history's most important plays every year in athens there was a festival called the city dionysia a celebration of the god die in isis and a major part of this festival was a theater contest where playwrights would compete for glory by each writing a trio of tragedies plus a short funny piece called a sadder play and by the time sophocles entered edibus the king in the 429 bc athens city dionysia he was already one of the most successful playwrights in the then short history of western theater like his contemporaries he drew his plots from greece's rich mythological history and could count on his athenian audience to know these characters by heart in fact oedipus the king is a small slice of a larger tale about oedipus's father and the curse he brings down in his family by choosing to have a son instead of a daughter yeah it turns out greek gods had some strong opinions also a quick side note you may have seen this blame is named as oedipus rex which since rex is the latin word for king suggests the play was written in roman times which it wasn't rather the original greek title is actually oedipus tyrannus which means oedipus the tyrant now that made sense in ancient greece because tyrant was a word that meant a ruler without a legitimate claim to rule and sophocles's contemporary audience would have known that oedipus became the king of thebes not because he was the legitimate heir to the throne but because he was able to rid the city of a murderous sphinx an extra mythological nugget that's going to be important to understanding the play so with all that in mind let's head to the theater of dionysus for your debut performance you are oedipus king of thieves and that group of masked people coming at you over there are a greek chorus a crowd of actors who speak and act as one they represent the people of your city and they need your help you see thebes has been living through a plague because its previous king was murdered but his killer was never found so you decide you're going to solve the crime step one summon the local prophet teresius to define the cause he claims you did it preposterous then you bring this claim up with your wife jacosta and she assures you not to take the prophet too seriously because you know back in the day she and the murdered king her former husband had been told that their child would sleep with her and kill him so yeah i mean of course they did the logical thing and sent the baby off with a shepherd to be put to death but still preposterous except when you were a kid living in corinth you did receive a prophecy that you'd kill your dad and marry your mom which is why you fled to thebes in the first place oh that's not good but don't worry jocasta says the former king was told he'd be killed at a specific crossroads oh but you did in fact kill a bunch of rude strangers at that very crossroads right around the time the former king died um okay that's a double yikes but hold on you are definitely off the hook because a messenger arrives to tell you that your father who is in corinth has passed away peacefully oh but he also tells you that you were adopted okay okay it's still all good though eyewitness testimony says it was a group of bandits that killed the old king well that is a relief so you decide to call this witness and it turns out it was the same shepherd who was assigned to murder jocasta's potentially patricidal baby odd coincidence but now you're positive you'll solve this no problem it's about this time that jocasta suggests that maybe you call off the investigation but no you're going to follow this trail of evidence to the bitter end and that end turns out to be very bitter because the shepherd confirms both that you killed the old king and that you're the abandoned baby realizing that that long ago prophecy was absolutely horrifyingly correct jacosta hangs herself and you use two long gold pins from her dress to gouge your own eyes out so you won't have to live with the sight of your shame and finally you beg to be exiled from thieves the city you unknowingly polluted now oedipus the king placing second in the city dionysia probably didn't sting sophocles as much as his ending stung oedipus because he not only wrote 120 other plays but he also won this contest more than any other playwright but now you might be asking how out of all of his works is it that this runner-up was the one that went on to influence the whole of western drama well to understand that we have to take a quick detour with our good friend aristotle as you are probably aware aristotle was a philosopher who lived in athens from 384 to 322 bc and this dude loved tragedies so he started composing a treatise on the subject called the poetics which is the earliest extant piece on literary theory now i'm not saying the following is exactly what he did but based on how often he mentions oedipus in this work it sure feels like aristotle looked at sophocles play and thought dang now this is how you do it and then based his entire definition of theoretical tragedy on that also it should be noted that the poetics wasn't actually meant to be a book on how to theater but for millennia in europe it was used as exactly that for example the story we learn about oedipus's life in the play stretches from his birth to his blinding but the actions of the play itself only encompass the hours leading up to his fateful date with sharp pointy things this selection of a tightly sequenced series of events in real time creates what aristotle calls unity of plot which he thought was the hallmark of a good tragedy and by using oedipus the king as exhibit a in the western world's first treatise on dramatic theory aristotle did inadvertently set up the play to influence all european descendant theater that came after even today most dramatic art still features elements similar to oedipus the king and yes that includes paddington too though you're gonna need to give me way more caffeine for my complete aristotelian analysis of five star films about beloved anthropomorphized bears but i digress if you're serious about learning the history of theater the performing arts or heck literature itself you should head down to your local library and check out a copy of oedipus the king because not reading it for yourself would really be tragic and once you scratch that literature itch perhaps you also like to level up your learning in some stem categories well luckily we have a brilliant solution for you you know one of the things we really love about our ec community is that a lot of us are super passionate lifelong learners but who also prefer to do it on our own schedule which is why we think brilliant the interactive learning environment focusing on science technology engineering and mathematics you know the whole stem set is perfect for learning at your own pace in a fun and interactive way replacing traditional lectures with hands-on lessons complete with visual examples and a storytelling approach that engages while educating case in point jeff's still brushing up on his fundamentals having already worked his way through some foundational computer science courses before jumping into statistics and probability whereas i just started their course on pre-algebra because while math was never really my strong suit i really did love the way that previous brilliant courses taught me new skills and i gotta say even after only a few lessons i feel like stuff is really clicking that i used to bang my head against and i've been really enjoying it so if you're a curious learner professional or otherwise you can learn more about brilliant and buff your own brain by going to brilliant.org extra credits and signing up for free not to mention the first 200 people that go to that link will also get 20 off an annual premium subscription which added bonus also helps out our channel in the process i mean if that's not a no-brainer i don't know what is the most legendary thanks to ahmed zion turk alecia bramble angelo valenciana arcolite games casey muestia dominic glenciana joseph blame and kyle murgatroyd [Music] you

Channel: Extra History

Views: 196,653

Keywords: Classics (Field of Study), So you Haven't Read, Education (TV Genre), Oedipus (Book), Sophocles (Author), Humanities (Field Of Study), Literary Criticism (Field Of Study), Book Review (Award Discipline), Classics (Field Of Study), Literature (Media Genre), Literature Review (Literature Subject), animated, summary, explained, Analysis (Quotation Subject), reading, book recommendations, Oedipus Rex (Movie), drama, booktok, book, booktube, popular books, Oedipus the king, Oedipus Tyrannus

Id: 6eetzJXoAKk

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2022