Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. Originally, to the ancient Greeks, the title was simply Oedipus (Οἰδίπους), as it is referred to by Aristotle in the Poetics. It is thought to have been renamed Oedipus Tyrannus to distinguish it from Oedipus at Colonus, a later play by Sophocles. In antiquity, the term "tyrant" referred to a ruler with no legitimate claim to rule, but it did not necessarily have a negative connotation.
Louis Bouwmeester as Oedipus in a Dutch production of Oedipus Rex, c. 1896
Painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres depicting Oedipus after he solves the riddle of the Sphinx. The Walters Art Museum.
Joseph Blanc, The murder of Laïus by Oedipus, 1867, Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Bénigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods
Tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.
Mask of Dionysus. Greek, Myrina, 2nd century BCE.
Scene from the tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. Roman fresco in Pompeii.
Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) King Lear, Cordelia's Farewell
French actor Talma as Nero in Racine's Britannicus.