O texto da tragédia grega Édipo Rei de Sófocles, do século V a.C., permite até os dias de hoje inúmeros estudos sobre seu mito, face a tamanha riqueza existente em seu mitologema. Pressuposto a tantas pesquisas existentes, elaboramos uma visão inerente aos estudos realizados, compondo uma dissertação comparativa, revisitando o texto de Sófocles e incluindo uma nova ótica sobre a tragédia do rei de Tebas. Porém, antes de mergulharmos na essência do mito, procuramos entender a tragédia grega e seu período de existência. Da mesma forma, investigamos o homem Sófocles, artista e poeta na sociedade em que viveu, e suas relações sociais e políticas com seu amigo e estrategista Péricles. Ponto imprescindível da dissertação é a constatação de que Sófocles fundiu em um só personagem feminino a figura das duas esposas de Laio, condensadas em Jocasta. Tornada mãe e esposa de Édipo, o personagem de Jocasta aumentou profundamente o efeito dramático desejado pelo autor grego, criando um dos maiores textos trágicos da antiguidade que chegaram até hoje. Sem perder a essência do texto sofocliano, decodificamos o mito em suas diversas vertentes, situamos as condições sociais nas relações da mulher no século V a.C., e, assim, estabelecemos as relações que envolveram Édipo e Jocasta no conjunto poético da tragédia reelaborada por Sófocles. / The text of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, 5th century BC, allows us, until the present days, to make innumerous studies about its myth, due to the immense richness of its mythologem. Considering so many existing researches, we have elaborated a vision inherent to the studies already done, writing a comparative dissertation, revisiting Sophoclestext and throwing some new light upon the tragedy of the King of Thebes. However, before plunging into the essence of the myth, we have tried to understand the Greek tragedy and its existing context. In the same way, we have investigated the man Sophocles, artist and poet in the society he lived in, and his social and political relationship with his friend and strategist Pericles. The essential point of the dissertation is the thesis that Sophocles has melted, in a single feminine character, the profiles of the two wives of Laius, condensed in Jocasta. Transformed into mother and wife of Edipo, the character Jocasta deeply increased the dramatic effect desired by the Greek author, creating one of the greatest tragic text of antiquity that have arrived to present days. Without losing the essence of the sophoclean text, we have decoded the myth in its various aspects, contextualized the social conditions of the womens relations in the 5th century BC, and, finally, we have established the relations that involved Edipo and Jocasta in the poetic set of the tragedy re-elaborated by Sophocles.

O texto da tragédia grega Édipo Rei de Sófocles, do século V a.C., permite até os dias de hoje inúmeros estudos sobre seu mito, face a tamanha riqueza existente em seu mitologema. Pressuposto a tantas pesquisas existentes, elaboramos uma visão inerente aos estudos realizados, compondo uma dissertação comparativa, revisitando o texto de Sófocles e incluindo uma nova ótica sobre a tragédia do rei de Tebas. Porém, antes de mergulharmos na essência do mito, procuramos entender a tragédia grega e seu período de existência. Da mesma forma, investigamos o homem Sófocles, artista e poeta na sociedade em que viveu, e suas relações sociais e políticas com seu amigo e estrategista Péricles. Ponto imprescindível da dissertação é a constatação de que Sófocles fundiu em um só personagem feminino a figura das duas esposas de Laio, condensadas em Jocasta. Tornada mãe e esposa de Édipo, o personagem de Jocasta aumentou profundamente o efeito dramático desejado pelo autor grego, criando um dos maiores textos trágicos da antiguidade que chegaram até hoje. Sem perder a essência do texto sofocliano, decodificamos o mito em suas diversas vertentes, situamos as condições sociais nas relações da mulher no século V a.C., e, assim, estabelecemos as relações que envolveram Édipo e Jocasta no conjunto poético da tragédia reelaborada por Sófocles. / The text of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, 5th century BC, allows us, until the present days, to make innumerous studies about its myth, due to the immense richness of its mythologem. Considering so many existing researches, we have elaborated a vision inherent to the studies already done, writing a comparative dissertation, revisiting Sophoclestext and throwing some new light upon the tragedy of the King of Thebes. However, before plunging into the essence of the myth, we have tried to understand the Greek tragedy and its existing context. In the same way, we have investigated the man Sophocles, artist and poet in the society he lived in, and his social and political relationship with his friend and strategist Pericles. The essential point of the dissertation is the thesis that Sophocles has melted, in a single feminine character, the profiles of the two wives of Laius, condensed in Jocasta. Transformed into mother and wife of Edipo, the character Jocasta deeply increased the dramatic effect desired by the Greek author, creating one of the greatest tragic text of antiquity that have arrived to present days. Without losing the essence of the sophoclean text, we have decoded the myth in its various aspects, contextualized the social conditions of the womens relations in the 5th century BC, and, finally, we have established the relations that involved Edipo and Jocasta in the poetic set of the tragedy re-elaborated by Sophocles.

This study is about three French plays in which Jocasta, the mother and wife of Oedipus, is shared as a main character: La Thébaïde (The Theban Brothers) by Jean Racine, La Machine Infernale (The Infernal Machine) by Jean Cocteau, and Le Nom d’Oedipe (The Name of Oedipus) by Hélène Cixous. Jocasta has always been overshadowed by the tragic destiny of Oedipus since the onset of Sophocles’ works. Although these three plays commonly focus on describing the character of Jocasta, there are some remarkable differences among them in terms of theme, style, and stage directions. In The Theban Brothers, Racine’s 17th century play, Jocasta is described as a deathlike mother, while Cocteau’s Jocasta, in The Infernal Machine, is portrayed as an “extravagant, liberal, and hilarious” lady. In The Name of Oedipus, Cixous portrays Jocasta as a woman possessing hermaphroditic characteristics, ushering in a new era of resistance to the age-old paternal hierarchy. As for style, Racine’s neoclassical play shows a strict respect for the three unities of time, space, and action. Cocteau’s avant-garde play neglects all these rules, while Cixous goes even further by destroying the order of languages, as illustrated by her “feminine writing.” Freed from Western orthodoxy, Cixous wants to contribute to the creation of cosmic unity. Her deconstructionist play intends to regenerate the world by establishing a new order and new point of view towards universality. The stage directions of these plays are also an important key to better understanding theatrical evolution. It is through the stage directions, indicated both implicitly and explicitly in these three plays, iv that enables us to appreciate the theatrical transformation in terms of visualization as well as metaphysics. In sum, the transformation of theme, style, and stage devices in portraying their own Jocastas demonstrates that while these three plays are deconstructional to one another, each denying the existing value and orders of their respective time periods, they are also constructional in that they all attempt to open a new horizon of theatre

Euripides’ Phoenissae is a challenging work that is often overlooked by scholars of Greek drama. This study analyzes how the concept of autochthony occupies a central thematic concern of the play. On the one hand, autochthony unites humans to soil, political claims to myths, and present to past. On the other hand, autochthony was often invoked to exclude foreigners, women and exiles from political life at Athens. We observe a similar dichotomy in the Phoenissae. Autochthony unites the episode action–the story of the fraternal conflict—with the very different subject matter of the choral odes, which treat the founding myths of Thebes. By focalizing the lyric material through the perspective of marginalized female voices (Antigone and the chorus), Euripides is able to problematize the myths and rhetoric associated with autochthony. At the same time, Antigone’s departure with her father at the play’s close offers a transformation of autochthonous power into a positive religious entity. I suggest that a careful examination of the many facets of autochthony can inform our understanding of the Phoenissae with respect to dramatic structure, apparent Euripidean innovations, character motivation, stage direction and audience reception. / text

"Exclusion in Sophocles" dass Exklusion als Motiv sich durch alle erhaltenen Sophoklesstücke zieht nebst einiger der längeren Fragmente. Auffällig ist die Vielfalt des Motivs, welches sich auf einen Ausschluss aus der Familie (Elektra), der Stadt (Ödipus-Dramen), der Armee (Philoktet), der Gemeinschaft der Menschen (Tereus) und noch vieles Weitere bezieht. Diese Arbeit sammelt, ordnet und analysiert sophokleische Exklusionsszenarien. Insbesondere wird der Gebrauch von Tropologien des Un/Menschlichen in der extrinsischen Charakterisierung der tragischen Protagonisten herausgestellt sowie damit verbundene Metaphern des Pathologischen, Monströsen, Bestialen und sog. Primitiven als Marker und Auslöser von strukturellen Exklusionen. Dabei wird das Exklusionsmotiv nicht als vollendete Tatsache erfasst, sondern als dynamischer und sich teilweise über ganze Plots hinweg erstreckender Prozess, als Narrativ eines ehemals gut Eingegliederten und von der Gemeinschaft nach und nach Exkludierten. Gleichwohl diese Entwicklung vom tragischen Protagonisten in eloquenten und selbstdarstellerischen Reden vehement kritisiert wird, erwächst im Bereich der Metaphern und rhetorischen Bildsprache der Gemeinschaft eine regelrechte Ausradierung und Neuzuweisung seiner Identität. Durch eine vergleichende Gegenüberstellung beider Standpunkte stellt sich heraus, wie tiefgreifend die als Exkludierend handelnde Gemeinschaft in das Vorantschreiten des tragischen Geschehens involviert ist und die Dramen eben nicht nur—wie in zahlreichen Forschungsstandpunkten festgehalten—die Manci des Exkludierten Protagonisten als moralische Fabel vorführen. / Social exclusion as a literary theme is common to all of Sophocles' fully extant plays as well as some of the longer fragments. The variety of settings is wide, between exclusion from the family like for example in Electra, exclusion from the city as in the case of Oedipus, from a regiment of the armed forces like in Ajax or Philoctetes, or even humankind, like with Tereus. This inquiry sets out to present, taxonomize and unpack Sophoclean discourses of exclusion and their attaining literary tropes of the pathological, the bestial, the brutish, the monstrous, and the so-called uncivilized. The aim is to demonstrate how deeply implicated the whole cast of characters and their language are in the process of a tragedy unfolding, rather than the causes of tragedy being lodged in the doings of one protagonist alone. One key point argued here is that, instead of taking 'the isolation of the tragic hero' as fait accompli, exclusion is a dynamic process that often takes up the entire plot arc of a tragedy. In the space of extrinsic characterization, it is argued that a process of rhetorical erasure and overwriting of identity takes place, where peer groups gradually dismantle a formerly well-established identity and re-assign a new and undesirable one. It is shown how the protagonists seek to resist, lament or somehow negotiate this process through long and expansive speeches of futile self-reinstatement. In the synthesis of both, it is argued that Sophocles' deployment of the theme puts a critical spotlight on the rhetorics of exclusion and its discourses of the bestial, the brutal, and especially the pathological, which embed and frame the work's overall literary, cultural and dramatic effects.