Term 3 - Lecture 2

Question 1

What universal taboo is an obliteration of origin?

Answer 1

Parricide

Question 2

What three cities are involved in Oedipus?

Answer 2

Thebes, Delphi and Corinth

Question 3

Who is the god of healing, purification, and prophecy?

Answer 3

Apollo

Question 4

What hero does Oedipus supplicate?

Answer 4

Theseus, the king of athens. Oedipus is seeking refuge. He has just arrive in Coronis - the place where the oracle of Delphi said he would die.

Question 5

What does Oedipus’ name mean?

Answer 5

Swollen foot - refers to his exposure at birth. His parents bound him at the ankles and left him on the mountainside.

Question 6

What does “philosophy” mean?

Answer 6

Love of knowledge

Question 7

Who was Socrates? What did the Delphic oracle have to say about him?

Answer 7

Socrates was a philosopher in Plato’s dialogues. The Delphic oracle proclaimed him as the wisest person. The only thing he KNEW was that he didn’t KNOW. Socrates was put to death by the Athenians in 399 BCE.

Question 8

Does Oedipus know the acts that he is committing? Is he still stained with miasma?

Answer 8

He does them unconsciously, and thus he is innocent. He is still stained by ritual pollution.

Question 9

How does Oedipus Rex begin?

Answer 9

With Oedipus confronting his city, they are acting as suppliants. He calls them CHILDREN.

Question 10

In Plato’s dialogues, who was an early hero of Philosophy who challenged accepted truths?

Answer 10

Socrates. Socrates annoyed everyone so much by contradicting them that they wanted him executed

Question 11

What is the Riddle of the Sphinx? What happens if the riddle is not solved?

Answer 11

What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, three legs in the evening? (answer is a person). If the riddle is not solved, then the person is killed. If the riddle is solved the Sphinx is killed.

Question 12

What universal taboo is the confusion of cause and effect?

Answer 12

Incest with mother

Question 13

How was Oedipus a philosopher?

Answer 13

He was a lover of knowledge. As a philosopher he tried to understand the truth about the world and the nature of knowledge itself, including its limitations.

Question 14

How many plays did Sophocles write? Which concerned the house of Laius?

Answer 14

He wrote 7 tragedies. Three concerned the house of Laius: 1. Antigone 2. Oedipus the King 3. Oedipus at Colonus (between 496–406 BCE)

Question 15

Who are the actual parents of Oedipus? Where are they from? What is their lineage?

Answer 15

Labdacus has a son, Laius. Laius marries Jocasta, Jocasta and Laius have Oedipus. Oedipus and Jocasta have children together - Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone and Ismene They are from Thebes

Question 16

What does Sigmund Freud have to say about Oedipus?

Answer 16

That Oedipus’ destiny moves us because it might have been ours - sexual impulse towards the mother, and murderous hatred towards the father.

Question 17

What does the oracle to Thebans tell him?

Answer 17

That after Oedipus dies, whoever have possession of his bones will prosper in battle.

Question 18

Who was Sophocles? When did he live?

Answer 18

An ATHENIAN tragedian. He lived from 496–406 BCE.

Question 19

Where does Oedipus come of age?

Answer 19

Away from home, in Corinth

Question 20

What two acts are Oedipus fated to commit?

Answer 20

Incest with mother and parricide

Question 21

What does the oracle to Oedipus tell him the first time?

Answer 21

The he would kill his father and marry his mother. He tries to avoid this, but fails because he thinks King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth are his true parents.

Question 22

What are the 2 universal taboos presented in Oedipus?

Answer 22

1. Parricide: an obliteration of origin 2. Incest with mother: a crime against time, confusion of cause and effect

Question 23

What tension is there in Oedipus Rex?

Answer 23

The human drive to KNOW about himself, and the HORROR of the truth. Oedipus himself is the answer to all of his questions

Question 24

What does Aristotle say about Oedipus in Poetics? (384–322 BCE)

Answer 24

That Oedipus the King is the perfect tragedy. Both Anagnorisis and Peripeteia occur spontaneously in Oedipus the King

Question 25

What does the oracle to Laias tell him?

Answer 25

That if he has a son, he will kill him. Oedipus tries to avoid this by leaving Oedipus to die on a mountainside

Question 26

What does the oracle to Creon say?

Answer 26

Tells him about the miasma in Thebes and how to stop the plague.

Question 27

What is Anagnorisis?

Answer 27

Recognition of the truth

Question 28

What is Peripeteia?

Answer 28

Reversal, overturning, experience of downfall

Question 29

Who was the Sphinx? What was it doing?

Answer 29

A foreign being: part lion, part human, part animal, part bird. Foreign and from Egypt, but is causing blight on Thebes.

Question 30

Who wrote Oedipus Rex?

Answer 30

Sophocles

Question 31

Who are the adopted parents of Oedipus? Where do they live?

Answer 31

Merope and Polybus, they are from Corinth

Question 32

Who is Creon in Oedipus Rex?

Answer 32

Of the same time as Labdacus, living in Thebes. He has a son named Haemon.

Question 33

How does Oedipus kill the sphinx?

Answer 33

He solves the riddle, winning KLEOS

Question 34

What does the oracle to Oedipus tell him the second time?

Answer 34

About the place of his death (Colonus). Said that he would die at a place sacred to the Furies.

Question 35

LOCOT

Answer 35

oracle: Laius, Oedipus, Creon, Oedipus, Thebans

Question 36

What is also known as a “crime against time”?

Answer 36

Incest with the mother

Question 37

What ruler does Oedipus displace?

Answer 37

His own father, Laius

Question 38

What are the 5 Delphic oracles in Oedipus’ story?

Answer 38

1. Oracle to Laius 2. Oracle to Oedipus 3. Oracle to Creon 4. Oracle to Oedipus (AGAIN) 5. Oracle to Thebans

Question 39

Who is the prophet of Apollo, and where does he live?

Answer 39

Tiresius, he lives in Thebes (before the time of Odyssey)

Question 40

What is the irony in Oedipus?

Answer 40

Speech has one meaning for one audience and a different meaning for a different audience. (ex. internal and external audiences). Irony highlights the limits of knowledge. Mythic plots are known by the Athenian audiences—sense of inevitability.