Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Are there any works related to Oedipus the King or other versions of it from other cultures?

Oedipus himself is a part of the Theban dynasty, a family that was part of the mythical foundation story of the Greek city of Thebes. Many plays about this family exist in classical Greek. Cultures with no connection to ancient Greece would obviously not know of the story of a Greek king. Because much of Western culture was strongly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece, we do find numerous adaptations and retellings of the...

Oedipus himself is a part of the Theban dynasty, a family that was part of the mythical foundation story of the Greek city of Thebes. Many plays about this family exist in classical Greek. Cultures with no connection to ancient Greece would obviously not know of the story of a Greek king. Because much of Western culture was strongly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece, we do find numerous adaptations and retellings of the story in many modern Western literary works.


The story of Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, is told in two modern French plays, Jean Cocteau's Antigone and Jean Anouilh's Antigone, both based on Sophocles' Antigone. Andre Gide's play Oedipe is a French adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.


Leoncavallo's 1920 opera Edipo re was based on Sophocles' play. Carl Orff created musical versions of Antigone and Oedipus der Tyrann, and Stravinsky created an operatic adaptation of Oedipus Rex.


Sopocles' play was the basis for Pier Paolo Pasolini's movie Edipo Re. Although not a literary work, The Interpretation of Dreams by Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud created the concept of the "Oedipus complex," which has had tremendous traction in popular culture.

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