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Historical person

Oedipus

mythological figure

Oedipus was a mythical king of Thebes, the son of Laius and Jocasta. An oracle warned that he would kill his father and marry his mother, leading to his abandonment as an infant. Raised away from Thebes and unaware of his parentage, he later killed Laius during a dispute on the road, solved the riddle of the Sphinx and received the Theban throne and Jocasta in marriage.

The discovery of his identity turns kingship and intelligence into tragedy. In the best-known dramatic tradition, Oedipus blinds himself after Jocasta’s death and leaves Thebes, while conflict among his children continues the city’s dynastic crisis. His story became one of the central myths of Greek tragedy and a lasting exploration of knowledge, fate and responsibility.

Henry Treece’s Oedipus grows up separated from the truth of his birth and travels through a harsh, fragmented Greece shaped by prophecy, local kingship and ritual fear. In Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Other Plays, Seven Against Thebes centres on the conflict between the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, whose struggle for Thebes continues the inherited curse of their family and ends in mutual destruction. Sophocles’ The Three Theban Plays brings together Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, three tragedies concerned with the destruction and aftermath of the Theban royal house.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Oedipus (2 series)

Penguin Classics: Ancient World in Order

by various authors 32 books 4.6(13,212)

Penguin Classics: Ancient World brings together foundational works of literature, history, philosophy, drama and poetry from the earliest civilisations through classical Greece and Rome. The wider Penguin Classics series began in 1946 with E. V. Rieu’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, reflecting its original aim of making important texts…

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Mycenaean Greek Trilogy in Order

by Henry Treece 3 books 3.6(70)

The Mycenaean Greek Trilogy retells three groups of Greek myths as violent dynastic histories. Jason follows the Argonauts and the destructive marriage of Jason and Medea. Electra examines the murder of Agamemnon and the revenge taken by his children. Oedipus reconstructs the Theban king’s rise and discovery of…

All books in this series