OEDIPUS REX

Sophocles

thy body and acquaint yourself with the mother as

you pass through creation in the manner of a tragedian

romance, embodying nature and spirit.

And in your night crusade, you will perceive a revelation

of the most superlative feelings that come not from words

or form, but from light.

Hope Saphos DeVenuto

A vaporous energy passes before us as a wave which carries us through the

categories of the mind of an ancient past in Aristotelian truth. Aristotle's cool objective eyewhich ascends from his

deductive logic, introduces to the arts a canvas of inner landscapes

that becomes an expedition of mans human instinct for imitation, harmony and rhythm.

Aristotle's observation of the human experience becomes a psychological basis of modern

learning by accumulating the facts and causes of an existing world. In his poetics, life is poetic.

Everything written has its own style and rhythm which concludes that poetry arose from an

inborn gift that developed into two directions. Comedy which is the pillory of the meaner

actions of life and tragedy which stages a nobleman's vulnerabilities into full blown out

drama from the simple and continuous fundamental questioning of his moment to moment

solitary acts.

What can be more wonderful than a man and woman who are painted

as descendant characters from fables and myths of a culture and at the same time dissect

their humanness, interweaving human idiosyncrasy with the power of fate? This depicts the

poetic art form of Sophocle's Oedipus Rex ,which possesses an imitation of an action that is

serious, complete and of a certain immensity that expresses language with creative adornments

and dramatic action. According to Aristotle, plot is the most crucial aspect of tragedy and to

achieve this dimension of space, the plot must have a beginning, middle and an end. Just as a

living organism has a biorhythm, so does the plot through the emotional, intellectual, and

physical activity of the events from "calamity to good fortune or from good fortune to calamity."

Complication, unraveling and surprise are the components of the best living tragedy, along with

the noble individual who brings about his own downfall through his own debilities.

Through Oedipus Rex there is a definite movement of the adult and child

experience where the affair may or may not happen. As history deals with our particular past,

Upon entering into the feminine portion of this literature, it is not surprising

that Jocasta would take her own life. Men look at women as the weaker sex and therefore her

Jocasta's golden brooches at the sight of her swinging in the noose. What is he feeling in that

moment? Is it loss, disgust, shame? Probably all of the above as his life continues on as a poor

old blind man and vagrant of the desert. Although Oedipus may no longer be seen as a noble

man in royal colors, he chooses to live the remainder of his life with a severe handicap which

can be viewed as a great example of human resiliency. And so the hero is still a hero, maybe

more, or maybe less, it depends on your relationship to the body of the plot and where your

rhythm rises or falls at the juncture of timeliness to this dimensional space of antiquity.

Sophocles on the other hand would not have been so popular if the ending

would have been different. He had to make a living at what he chose as a profession and he

knew the psychology of the elite class very well. Anyone who knows their own psychology

well, can see clearly through others and therefore it can be used as an art form to give different

reflections and perspectives of different modes and form to others. When the mind is clear, it

can release products of creative imagination and make intuitive connections that draws upon

life as a continuous poetic verse of tragedy and comedy.

The laughter and tears of a child are as a gentle

wind and soothing rain. They come and go for good

reason. And when they cease to exist in the child,

woe, the child has been truly lost in the man.

Hope Saphos DeVenuto