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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 4 page paper examines two scholarly papers on "Oedipus Rex," which have come to opposing views of the character. It argues in favor of Dodds's interpretation over Vellacott's. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVTwoVue.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
various interpretations are possible, and theres no way to say that this one or that is the "correct" one. This paper discusses the opinions of two scholars, Vellacott and Dodds,
and which has made more convincing arguments than the other. Discussion First things first: both men sometimes write in Greek without translating the terms, which is extremely annoying and means
that the reader, unless he knows the meaning of "??a?p?," for example, is going to miss some critical information. As a matter of fact, Dodds says that "[A]s we all
know, the meaning of ??a?p? is ambiguous" (1127). We do? Well, maybe some of us do, but how would someone who cant read Greek know that? (The obvious pun will
not appear in this paper.) Vellacotts basic argument, based on what he calls "the incident at the banquet" (1121) is to show us that Oedipus was "consciously guilty" (1121). That
is, Vellacott believes that Oedipus knew that he had killed his father and married his mother, but that he and Iocasta had constructed a sort of "fantasy life" in which
they could ignore this horrible truth and live together in peace and love. He bases his argument on the fact that Sophocles added in a mention of a banquet scene,
in which a drunk calls Oedipus a "bastard," thus forcing him to the extreme of looking for the cause of the plague on the city when he already knows that
hes guilty. It is the fact that the truth is revealed in public, not that it is revealed, that causes the ultimate tragedy. If no one came to know of
the crimes, Vellacott implies, Oedipus and Iocasta would have gone on as they were, knowingly guilty, but with the knowledge buried so deeply they could ignore it. Doddss paper is
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