Hamlet & Oedipus Part 2
Hamlet & Oedipus Part 2 The Raven returns: His gear is only half-unpacked. His room, apart from the reading light over his desk, is almost completely dark, and the rest of the house is empty, everyone else is still away.
The Irrational
The Triumph of the Sphinx – her cruel and irrational power over human life, one of the key themes in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. She was often represented on the tombs of young men, as here. She is the most formidable enemy Oedipus has to face at Thebes.
Getting Away From The Dark Side: Oedipus and Hamlet
One of the best commentaries on Sophocles’ hero, Oedipus, and the Vision of the play can be found in the Penguin Classics reprint: SOPHOCLES. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. The fabulous translation of these works by Robert Fagles has none of the self-conscious ‘classicism’ and ‘Ancient’ staginess of so many others.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Earlier this year there were major floods in Colombia. The site of Garcia Marquez’ novels was awash; rivers were swollen, houses and people were swept away, whole villages were blotted out. Day after day the world turned to water. Indeed there was so much water running through Colombia that for those of us living in chronically dry places, stricken by drought and bushfire, it was like something from the Bible, something you believed in but could hardly imagine happening in the same space and time that you yourself lived in. Almost beautiful, until the statistics hit home.