Thebes II: Destruction
Classical Mythology
English - May 08, 2013 06:15 - 39 minutes - 23.3 MB - ★★★★ - 18 ratingsCourses Education History la trobe university chris mackie christopher mackie greece greek history history ancient history rhiannon evans classical mythology Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Incest, fratricide and patricideare central to the Theban myths explored in Athenian tragedy, particularly Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. Written during a plague at Athens, the play opens with plague at Thebes, which as Oedipus discovers, has been caused by his own unwitting murder of his father, Laius; he then marries and fathers children with his mother, Jocasta. This lecture explores the importance of the Oedipus myth at Athens; how it fits into the self-destructive and deviant myths which Athenian tragedy sets at Thebes, and how it still resonates for us, particularly after Freud wrote of it andused Oedipus’ quest for self-knowledge as an analogy for psychoanalysis.
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