Oedipus Rex (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)

Greek...Charlie Harper... Good

The book arrived quickly. It is as described, good print and no missing page. After multiple uses, pulling out of school bag and tossing it around the book pages stay together and the cover is still in great shape.

This paperback book was purchased for use AP high school, English. it is nice that it comes in a paperback that is inexpensive and can be used for highlighting passages without breaking the bank.

My prior exposure to Oedipus Rex goes back to my school days, which is about half way back to the period when the play was written (or so it feels). That was in some English teacher (you-shouldn't-enjoy-what-you-read-in-my-class) approved translation. And I recall we spent more time with Antigone.Mulroy attempts to translate the play into a verse form the evokes how the Greeks would have experienced it on stage. It seems to me that he largely succeeds; his translation seems quite stageable. One challenge is that Greek audiences would have had a cultural context for interpreting the play that we lack. Fortunately, the translator provides a concise but excellent introduction that prepares the modern reader to understand the play.The play itself tells, at times elliptically, the story everyone sort of knows. Oedipus is prophesied to kill his father the king, so he is sent off to die. Instead he ends up adopted by another king. When he learns of the prophesy he flees to avoid killing his "father". He ends up in his real homeland and kills his real father, then marries his mother. The play covers his learning the truth. It would be a shorter play if he was a little quicker on the uptake.Although I understand its historical significance, I have trouble warming up to ancient Greek literature. It tends to be limited by the constraints of prophesies and way the gods are believed to direct the action. I recommend this translation of an important piece of literature. But I consider reading it to be more for self-eduction than for entertainment. At least it elevates the work above the I-want-you-to-suffer versions sometimes inflicted on students.If you are looking for a few laughs on this subject, consider:  Oedipus Rex

This play truly is a tragedy..It's a bit sick and twisted as well if the reader understands old English. Laius is told by an Oracle that he will be slain by his son. Oedipus, is told some years later, that he will slay his father and marry his mother. Oedipus leaves his parents and travels far to avoid this prophecy from coming true.What I liked best about this play, is that it shows that even when one tries to avoid something, sometimes that thing just can't be avoided. The Fates are twisted and play sick games and this play just makes that all the more clear. It centers around Apollo as the god to look to, since Apollo was known to have the best seers in all of Greece, and it's two of his Oracles that deliver the tragic prophecies.The story is truly sad and it's a bit depressing when the reader thinks of all the things Oedipus endured in his life, just for his wife who seemed to have known all along to withhold the information he sought.I'm a big fan of the Greece myths and plays.. and I definitely want to delve more into the Theban Plays.I give this book 5 of 5 paws

The book is good. The story is good. The one thing I absolutely hate and can't stand though is the cover. It's disgusting. Anybody who sees it and didn't read Oedipus Rex will stare at you in a weird way. If you can buy it without this "interesting" cover, go for it.

This is my favorite of the ancient Greek tragedies. It is a must-read, plain and simple. I can't speak for the translation. I'm not familiar enough with other editions to comment on it.

Loved this book

Fate or our decisions? Oedipus is a king facing a disease in his realm. A seer gives him the source, and he goes down a path he will soon regret.The beginning took a while to get used to the style but a good read, with a compact format. Good quick read.

Written before the common era. Still, the emotions it tells is fascinating. Great work

great service and goods

Prophecy and fate feature in key roles, and perhaps a moral of it should be – do not try and cheat your fate for you will fail, and fail disastrously. Oedipus – a man who should have everything including a loving wife, a palace, and a reputation for bravery – attempts to cheat the seers who prophecy he will murder his father and marry his mother. Although the cast is fairly small and the action is over a short time, with reference to past events, it pulls in the reader quickly. One soon begins to feel for Oedipus, although he is somewhat arrogant, and by the end of the play the tragedy is all pervasive. Death, shame, fate and the whim of the gods – just what a reader needs for perhaps one of the most well-known and tragic stories from antiquity, Oedipus Rex is a play of epic proportions.

Dover thrift edition in such a price. Amazing!