Oedipus Rex Oedipus Rex Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus ( IPA: [oidípuːs týranːos]), 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 another of Sophocles' plays, "Oedipus at Colonus". In antiquity, the term “tyrant” referred to a ruler, but it did not necessarily have a negative connotation. Of his three Theban plays that have survived,
Tragedy imagination which was ‘so encompassing, so receptive to the plurality of diverse orders of experience.’ When compared to the drama of Greek antiquity and French classicism Shakespeare’s forms are ‘richer but hybrid'. Aristotle wrote in his work "Poetics" that tragedy is characterised by seriousness and involves a great person who experiences a reversal of fortune ("Peripeteia"). Aristotle's definition can include a change of fortune from bad to good as in the "Eumenides", but he says that the change from good to bad as in "Oedipus Rex" is preferable because this induces pity and fear within the spectators. Tragedy results in