Leadership in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos (Rex), Act 1
This seven-hour module asks us to consider the well-known story of Oedipus from the perspective of leadership. It is split into three acts: foundations, communities, and discoveries. In the first stage, we consider the mythological and cultural backgrounds of the story to consider to what extent it makes sense to think of the story of Oedipus in this performance as one that is in a significant way about leadership.
Act 1: Foundations
Readings: Oedipus, Lines 1-510
Revision: Iliad book 1
Odyssey 11.271-280
Opening Comments
The ‘Oedipus’ we know in popular culture as the man who blinds himself after finding out that he killed his father, married his mother, and had four children with her is not necessarily the Oedipus ancient audiences first treated to Sophocles’ play would have known. The Oedipus of myth and legend appeared in a range of narratives from lost epics about his triumphs as a hero (the Oedipodea) to tales about the conflict between his sons that led to two major wars around Thebes (e.g. the lost epic Thebais and Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes). Modern audiences are often surprised to learn that Oedipus is from a mythographic and literary perspective a hero, in that he follows the narrative stages famously identified by Joseph Campbell (and others).
This traditional identity is important to understand because it directly informs one of the characteristics distinct about the performance and reception of ancient tragedy: unlike a modern mystery tale or drama, there are few plot surprises to shock the audience. Instead, the ‘drama’ of experiencing the narrative comes from how this particular story is told—how the poet selects and emphasizes the narrative strands already available from the tradition.
The Oedipus we meet in this play is not a young champion; instead he has already been ruling many years. Contrary to some modern expectations as well, Oedipus is a figure known for his intelligence. His signal act in the tradition as featured prominently in early Greek art is the solving of the Sphinx’s riddle. In doing this, he wins a kingdom and a princess (fulfilling a hero’s quest in slaying a monster and saving a ‘girl’). The classic Oedipus myth, however, takes the heroic narrative to its (il)logical conclusions. If a heroic narrative is in part about growing up and taking a father’s place in the world, what happens when this act moves from the figurative to the literal realm?
As many scholars have noted (in psychology Sigmund Freud and his student Carl Jung), the heroic myth is in part about an individual’s struggle to grow up and find a place in the world (thus the stages of a heroic narrative can be mapped out onto life stages of an individual). But as heroic coalition narratives like those of the Iliad show, individuals do not exist in isolated families—heroes are parts of communities: their victories bring their people honor and prosperity, but their failures are shared as well.
And Oedipus Tyrannos does not just engage with a mythical traditional. It also shows ‘literary’ engagement. Consider, for instance, its echoes of Iliad, book 1.....
Reading-Questions
How does the first part of the play communicate (or activate) knowledge from the tradition?
How much knowledge does the play assume on the part of the audience?
What power structures are anticipated from the play’s beginning—e.g. what are the assumed relationships between the leader and the led? What are their obligations?
Why is the play called Tyrannos or Rex? What values or beliefs do these terms communicate? If the play were entitled Oedipus, president or Oedipus, mayor, how would that affect your reading?
In-Class Activities: (20-35 Minutes: 10 minutes meeting; 5 minutes presentation each)
Break into multiple groups to answer the following questions:
[Group 1] Summarize the action of the play’s first third in five sentences or fewer?
[Group 2] What are the structural and thematic parallels between the beginning of Oedipus and Iliad 1?
[Group 3] What types of power or leadership structures are presented in the poem? [consider ideas like secular vs. sacred; political factions]
[Group 4] In the beginning of the Iliad multiple political voices are opposed to the leadership [the Achaean acclamation, Achilles’ protest]. What ‘internal audiences’ appear in Oedipus? How do they correspond to the epic's audiences?