WEDNESDAY091113: HOMEWORK READING…

1. For tonight, please read in your Penguin Classics edition of Oedipus Rex, pp. 133-143 (please start on page 133 with the paragraph that begins “Sophocles’ play has served modern man…”; please stop at the end of the paragraph on page 143 that concludes with the phrase “… the thing measured and found wanting.”). This reading selection is from the great classical scholar (and WWII British spy) Bernard Knox’s introduction to our translation the play (by Robert Fagles) and specifically where he (Knox) discourses on the deeply rooted mythical origins of the play, the play’s protagonist as all-around hero, and the relation of the play and its hero to the Athenian culture at large and its beliefs and philosophy.