Oedipus Rex | Oedipus: Possibly the Greatest of all Tragedies
In this essay, Jennifer Lewin argues that the story of Oedipus qualifies as the greatest of all tragedies.
Oedipus Rex is arguably the most important tragedy in all of classical literature. Ever since Aristotle used it in his Poetics in order to define the qualities of a successful tragedy, its strengths have been emphasized again and again by countless notable authors, whose remarks illuminate the play' s historical reception as much as they help us to understand the broader critical climate in which they wrote. When Freud, for example, helped to shape the direction of twentieth-century thought with his 1900 The Interpretation of Dreams, his coinage of the term "Oedipal...
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