Oedipus Rex | Oedipus

Oedipus, the title character, is the protagonist of the play. His name means "swell-foot" or "swollen-foot." One of the most famous dramatic characters in the history of western literature, he was singled out by Aristotle in his Poetics as the right kind of protagonist because he inspires the right combination of pity and fear. "This is the sort of man who is not preeminently virtuous and just, and yet it is through no badness or villainy of his own that he falls into the misfortune, but rather through some flaw in him; he being one of those who are in high station and good...

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