Exploring the dialogue between psychoanalytic and literary discourses, the authors examine the models of plot, character, and ways of reading which each of these discourses has developed in interpreting Shakespeare. Since Freud's writings on Oedipus and Hamlet, Shakespearean tragedy has been paradigmatic for psychoanalytic theory and criticism. In this ambitious and highly imaginative book, the authors trace the dialogue between psychoanalytic and literary discourses by examining the models of plot, character, and ways of reading which each tradition has developed through its interpretation of Shakespeare.

At the outset of the play, Oedipus is the beloved ruler of the city of Thebes, whose citizens have been stricken by a plague. Consulting the Delphic oracle, Oedipus is told that the plague will cease only when the murderer of Queen Jocasta's first husband, King Laius, has been found and punished for his deed. Oedipus resolves to find Laius's killer. His investigation turns into an obsessive reconstruction of his own hidden past when he discovers that the old man he killed when he first approached Thebes as a youth was none other than Laius. At the end, Jocasta hangs herself in shame, and the guilt-stricken Oedipus blinds himself.

Adventures, calamities, and conquests abound in stirring tales about Pandora's box, King Midas and his golden touch, the dreaded Cyclops, Narcissus and Echo, and many other familiar figures.

The ancient Greek tragedy about the exiled king’s final days—and the power struggle between his two sons. The second book in the trilogy that begins with Oedipus Rex and concludes with Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus is the story of an aged and blinded Oedipus anticipating his death as foretold by an earlier prophecy. Accompanied by his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, he takes up residence in the village of Colonus near Athens—where the locals fear his very presence will curse them. Nonetheless they allow him to stay, and Ismene informs him his sons are battling each other for the throne of Thebes. An oracle has pronounced that the location of their disgraced father’s final resting place will determine which of them is to prevail. Unfortunately, an old enemy has his own plans for the burial, in this heart-wrenching play about two generations plagued by misfortune from the world’s great ancient Greek tragedian.

Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is the most famous of ancient tragedies and a literary masterpiece. It is not, however, the only classical dramatization of Oedipus' quest to discover his identity. Between four and five hundred years after Sophocles' play was first performed, Seneca composed a fine, but neglected and often disparaged Latin tragedy on the same subject, which, in some ways, comes closer to our common understanding of the Oedipus myth. Now, modern readers can compare the two versions, in new translations by Frederick Ahl.Balancing poetry and clarity, yet staying scrupulously close to the original texts, Ahl's English versions are designed to be both read and performed, and are alert to the literary and historical complexities of each. In approaching Sophocles anew, Ahl is careful to preserve the richly allusive nature and rhetorical power of the Greek, including the intricate use of language that gives the original its brilliant force. For Ahl, Seneca's tragedy is vastly and intriguingly different from that of Sophocles, and a poetic masterpiece in its own right. Seneca takes us inside the mind of Oedipus in ways that Sophocles does not, making his inner conflicts a major part of the drama itself in his soliloquies and asides. Two Faces of Oedipus opens with a wide-ranging introduction that examines the conflicting traditions of Oedipus in Greek literature, the different theatrical worlds of Sophocles and Seneca, and how cultural and political differences between Athenian democracy and Roman imperial rule affect the nature and conditions under which the two tragedies were composed. This book brings two dramatic traditions into conversation while providing elegant, accurate, and exciting new versions of Sophocles' and Seneca's tragedies.

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An advanced critical introduction to Greek tragedy for those who do not read Greek. Combines the best contemporary scholarly analysis of the classics with a wide knowledge of contemporary literary studies in discussing the masterpieces of Athenian drama.

While Gus and his team at Ratcliffe Street Police Station are looking into the life histories of the dead men, George is getting impatient and decides to take matters into her own hands. Her methods are somewhat unorthodox and her discoveries bizarre, making it all the more difficult to piece together the elusive connection between the killer and his ever-increasing number of victims.

Described as the Mona Lisa of literature and the world's first detective story, Sophocles' Oedipus the King is a major text from the ancient Greek world and an iconic work of world literature. Aristotle's favourite play, lauded by him as the exemplary Athenian tragedy, Oedipus the King has retained its power both on and off the stage. Before Freud's famous interpretation of the play - an appropriation, some might say - Hölderlin and Nietzsche recognised its unique qualities. Its literary worth is undiminished, philosophers revel in its probing into issues of freedom and necessity and Lacan has ensured its vital significance for post-Freudian psychoanalysis. This Reader's Guide begins with Oedipus as a figure from Greek mythology before focusing on fifth-century Athenian tragedy and the meaning of the drama as it develops scene by scene on the stage. The book covers the afterlife of the play in depth and provides a comprehensive guide to further reading for students.