Is there something that I was not doing in order to be able to absorb all of the aspects of the reading? I'm hoping that throughout this year, considering the fact that we will be reading a lot of older literature, that I will be able to learn how to better involve myself in the stories that we are trying to become a part of.
Friday, October 22, 2010
The Imperfect Tragedy
This week we've been studying the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, or Oedipus the King of Thebes. This play has often been referred to as "the perfect tragedy", however I would disagree. While, I do think the story has an extremely tragic ending, I felt like throughout the centuries, the play's ability to connect with the audience has greatly diminished. Not only do we no longer have prophets to foretell our futures, but we no longer have such divine rulers that obtain so much power. While reading Oedipus, while it did have a much more enticing storyline than Crito or The Apology, I felt like I had no application of the story to my life. There was no relevance. I think that one of the main points of a play is to be able to capture the audience and reel them into the story, however I felt that Oedipus was lacking this quality. It was just something to read, but it left no lasting impression and sparked no thought process about my own life. Perhaps, I was just not adequately reading the play, but I feel like should I go back and repeat the process, I would still maintain the same monotone feeling about the script.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I completely agree. I felt that this play was outdated and irrelevant, and something like the "perfect tragedy" should not go out of style. I think the main point that the Greek's were trying to make is valid, but the craziness that surrounded the story detracted from the point. The other thing I noticed was the lack of attachment I had to the characters that didn't make it sad for me. Do you think that impacted your opinions of Oedipus?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in some respects Lila, but I think it is also important to note how ground breaking Oedipus was for its time. Just the fact that hundreds of years later we are still discussing it really shows the plays importance. I agree with you that it is a little hard to relate with, but I think that for its time, Oedipus did a great job of capturing human emotion.
ReplyDelete