A singing or dancing chorus continually pushing itself forward with wise advice and mournful warnings. Dramatic action taking place offstage and reported verbally to onstage characters.
Long scene-setting speeches mixed with terse exchanges among a limited number of (possibly masked) speaking characters, who seem to overreact to every turn of events. When you first read or see Oedipus Rex, or the other two plays usually grouped with it as The Theban Plays or The Oedipus Cycle, you may be put off at first by the creaky structure.
No one would dare translate the Shakespeare's verse into modern vernacular.īut, even apart from any updating effect of translation, Sophocles's work continues to strike chords. There is little of the struggle through the language that one experiences with even more recent plays, such as Shakespeare's.Īt least part of that ease may be due to the work of translators, aiming to make ancient Greek dramatics more appealing to today's readers. CRITIQUE | THE TEXT As fate would have itįor a modern reader or playgoer, the ancient drama of Oedipus Rex can be startlingly accessible.
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