/lit/ - Literature

Which translation do you recommend?

Read Oedipus Rex and have some thoughts.

Oedipus is punished for being too smart. Had he not investigated about the oracles sayings he had not knew about his family issues. There are some things that are better not to be known.

It's not a good idea to go back home. This is not discussed explicitly in the play but the story points out the dangers of going back home. Of course Oedipus example is quite an exaggeration, he married his own mother. However I think this relates to the corruption of childhood, as we grow up we observe how things get uglier as time passes us by.

Something else that came to mind is that, if something that horrible happened to the King, what can we expect for us? I mean, regarding social status, the King is the best you can do, nonetheless the King is not absent of doing horribly bad.

Something else I found interesting was the idea of going blind when you get to know the truth.

The beginning of the play is similar to the beginning of the Iliad. There is a plague and, if I not mistaken, Apollo is also mentioned as well. Can anybody explain if there is some meaning to this?

Was I filtered?

>Sophocles wrote over 120 plays,[3] but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.[4] For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place
How did he do it?

>Wrote his first play at 28 years old, then went on to write a total of over 120 plays until he died peacefully of old age at 91
>Held the offices of general and state treasurer
>Remembered as one of, if not the greatest tragedian in history even though only 7 of his plays survive
How did he do it?

>>10695940
>you're a fucking idiot

Are ancient Greek plays and writing a more sophisticated version of fan fiction?

Oedipus, Medea, the Iliad, the Odyssey etc. all tell stories / create extended universes of established myths.

Even shit like Dante's Inferno / Paradise Lost is just an advanced form of fan fiction.

What is his best play?

>characters do stupid, horrible shit, kill their own children and fuck their own mothers
>hurr it's gods durr, i don't have to explain shit

Since when is Shakespeare undisputed?

In what order do you read: Antigone, Oedipus The King, Oedipus At Colonus?