A Critic of Sophocles

Imagine that you're a drama critic and are attending a performance of Oedipus by Sophocles. Basing your comments on contemporary reception of the play (e.g. Aristotle's Poetics), or reviews of later performances and/or criticism, put your observances in the form of a critical review.

Here are some tips for finding resources:

Aristotle's Poetics

Aristotle commented on Sophocles in his Poetics. The original text (English translation, of course!) can be found in various books in the library, including:

Aristotle
(picture credit:
Library of Congress)

040 GRE		Great Books of the Western World : Aristotle I

040 GRE		Great Books of the Western World : Aristotle II

109 ARI		Aristotle. On Man in the Universe: Metaphysics, Parts of animals, Ethics, Politics, Poetics.

Click here for a web site that summarizes Aristotle's notes on Sophocles's Oedipus

Listed below are some books that contain potentially useful info that you could glean for this project.

792 NAR		Nardo, Don, 1947- Greek and Roman Theater / by Don Nardo.

880.8 DAN		Dane, Nathan, 1916- comp. Greek Attitudes.

809.2 GAS		Gassner, John, 1903-1967. Masters of the Drama. A comprehensive and critical study of drama from primitive times to the mid twentieth century with a view to the social and cultural forces at the time of each playwright examined.

882.01 REA		Readings on Sophocles / Don Nardo, book editor.

882 SOP		Sophocles / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Presents critical excerpts on three works by Greek playwright Sophocles, covering various aspects of the plays, and also provides plot summaries, a Sophocles biography, primary and secondary bibliographies, and an index of themes and ideas.

882 WOO		Woodard, Thomas Marion, 1933- ed. Sophocles; A Collection of Critical Essays

882 OBR		O'Brien, Michael John, comp. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Oedipus Rex: A Collection of Critical Essays.

Look for critical commentary in SPX's literary databases, in particular the following:

	Part of the EBSCO family. Consider also the AP Source (even though you may not be enrolled in AP).

	Aimed a bit more at the college level, this may well provide you with some good info nonetheless.

Look in a database such as ProQuest or Ebscohost for modern critical reviews of performances of Sophocles's Oedipus.

		Consider limiting results to "scholarly" and using advanced search options and limiting to document type = review.

Find things like this review of a recent performance of Oedipus by searching for the play title and document type = review.

Here's an example document I found:

OR THIS -->