Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time [Paperback]

Professor Bernard Knox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0300074239 | ISBN-13: 978-0300074239

In this widely praised book, an eminent classicist examines Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus in the context of fifth-century B.C. Athens. In attempting to discover what the play meant to Sophocles' contemporaries-and in particular in disentangling Sophocles' ideas from Freud's psychoanalytical interpretations-Bernard Knox casts fresh light on its timeless and universal nature. For this edition, Knox has provided a new preface and a list of suggested readings. "What a joy it is to welcome this book back in print. As perennial as Sophocles' great play itself, Knox's work has never gone out of date, and never will."-Robert Fagles Reviews of the earlier editions: "A superb analysis, demonstrating that when classical study is aware of Freud and the techniques of modern literary criticism, it can be as exciting nowadays as it must have been during the Renaissance."-New Yorker "A superb critical and textual investigation."-New York Times "One of the major contributions to Sophoclean and to Greek studies in recent years."-Virginia Quarterly Review "A magnificent contribution ... which is really required reading."-Cedric Whitman, American Journal of Philology "A brilliant piece of work combining the best of classical scholarship with the best of modern literary criticism."-John E. Rexine, Hellenic World

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300074239
• ISBN-13: 978-0300074239
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,282,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a true tour de force., December 6, 2002

By 

Graham Henderson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time (Paperback)

The superlative reviews from publications as disparate as the New York Times, the New Yorker and Hellenic World (!)should be sufficient inducement to convince anyone with the least interest in Sophocles and "Oedipus Tyrannus" to buy this book.

Bernard Knox is perhaps the greatest living classicist and he may just be one of the greatest of all time. He writes with an ease and lucidity that renders the most difficult subject available to the lay reader. He has an uncanny facility to sum up in a paragraph a subject that has occupied him for twenty or thirty pages. Indeed one of the delights of this book is that at the end of each section there appears a wonderfully pithy summation.

When this book was first published it (surprisingly) received immediate and positive reviews from the New York Times and the New Yorker. But it was almost universally ignored by the classical community who were perhaps annoyed at the twitting they received in Knox's introduction. Dismayed by the appearance of an article entitled "The Carrot in Classical Antiquity", Knox had lashed out at the "excessive technicality" of his colleagues. This will remind many of us of Victor Davis Hanson's brilliantly polemical attack on the classical establishment in "Who Killed Homer".

Time, however, was on Knox' side and he went, on, as I said, to become a giant in his field. In 1998, "Oedipus at Thebes" was republished for a new and grateful generation of students.

This is a true tour de force. Knox took as his starting point a statement made by Walter Headlam. Headlam had claimed that "when embarking on the elucidation of a Greek text, the scholar should first learn the text by heart and the read the whole of Greek literature looking for parallel passages." Sounds almost preposterous. Right? Well Knox actually did this. The result is a reading of "Oedipus Tyrannus" that is not only breath-taking in its magisterial sweep, but which, as far as I am concerned offers the first coherent explanation of what the play is about (but see also Charles Segal's sensitive reading - "Tragic Heroism and the Limits of Knowledge"). Knox has lovingly burnished Sophocles somewhat tarnished reputation and has ensured that Oedipus Tyrannus takes its place in the pantheon of the greatest works of literature.

But Knox is also careful to point out the relevance of the play for modern readers -- yet another reminder (and it is despairing that we need them) that the classics should be taught in our schools and read by all of us. Here is Knox on the subject: "A play, however, which suggests that, for all its great achievements, human ingenuity may be fatally flawed, does not seem irrelevant for an age that lives in dread of atomic and biological warfare, not to mention the nightmare possibilities offered by the latest developments in genetics."

The reason I read this little book is that I had started to read Sophocles' plays in the Chicago collection, "The Complete Greek Tragedies", edited by Grene and Lattimore. I became immediately bogged down in "Oedipus Tyrannus" and I began to suspect he had more to do with the translation than anything else.

The dust jacket of this collection contains superlatives about Grene's translations. We are gushingly told at one point that the Greekless reader needs "no other translation." Well allow me to politely differ. As I read Knox's book, using it as a tool to annotate Grene's translation, I came to see that time and again Grene had, for what could only be poetic purposes, obscured the true meaning of the text. In so doing he presents a version of the play that is VERY far from what Sophocles must have intended.

So, for those of you about to embark at University (or at home) on a study of Sophocles let me suggest two things. 1. Buy Knox and read him FIRST. 2. Buy Fagles' translation of Sophocles and not Grene (it is anything but unpoetic as has been suggested elsewhere). You won't be disappointed. I think you will emerge with far more respect for Sophocles and Greek society in general.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The primary source on Oedipus and Greek Tragedy!, March 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time (Paperback)

This is by far the best (critical) text ever written on Sophocles and Greek tragedy. This book delves into the Oedipus myth and covers many themes in the Oedipus, particularly the primary theme between fate and free will, which is a direct refutation to Freud and his conception of the myth: in "The Interpretation of Dreams," Freud labels the Oedipus a "tragedy of fate." His claim is certainly controversial and Knox deals with it in a very thorough manner. Oedipus at Thebes not only displays an apt critical analysis, but also displays a very unique writing style: very elequoent, yet easy to understand. This text is useful for research as well as for pleasure purposes. Bernard Knox also delivers a wonderful analysis of the Oedipus in the Introduction/Notes to Fagles' translation of "The Three Theban Plays."

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Regretfully Pulped, April 5, 2011

By 

Don Reed "Don" (Cliffside Park NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time (Paperback)

Oedipus At Thebes, Sophocles' Tragic Hero & His Time, Bernard Knox; Yale University Press, Inc. (1957)

"The plague, whether or not the chorus is right in calling it Ares [a Greek god], is of course, in the last analysis, from a religious point of view, the will of the gods, but Sophocles is clearly insisting, by his unparalleled image of the arrows of Apollo as allied against his plague & his equally unparalleled identification of the plague with Ares, that the plague is not to be understood as Apolline interference, that is the work of the play's external factor."

This is my nomination for one of the ten worst written sentences of the 20th century*.

OED was regretfully pulped on April 4th 2011 - about ten minutes after reading commenced.

*DEATH BY COMMAS: "The plague, 1... Ares [a Greek god], 2... analysis, 3... view, 4... gods, 5... insisting, 6... Ares, 7... interference, 8 ... factor."

P.S.: "Do not join independent clauses by a comma" is advised by Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style." A period - breaking this tsunami of gibberish into two sentences - is necessary after "gods, 5."

And somehow, the "tags" option did not appear, so here goes:

Oedipus, Sophocles, Apollo, Greek Theatre, Bernard Knox, Spanish Civil War, Yale University, Sigmund Freud, World War II