Oedipus

Classicist Lowell Edmunds and folklorist Alan Dundes note that ""the Oedipus tale is not likely to ever fade from view in Western civilisation, as the tale continues to pack a critical family drama into a timeless form."" Looking beyond the story related in Sophocles' drama - the ancient Theban myth of the son who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother - this book examines variations of the tale from Africa and South America to Eastern Europe and the Pacific. Taking sociological, psychological, anthropological and structuralist perspectives, the 19 essays reveal the complexities and multiple meanings of this centuries-old tale. In addition to the well-known interpretations of the Oedipus myth by Sigmund Freud and James Frazer, this casebook includes selections by an international group of scholars. Essays on a Slavic Oedipus myth by Friedrich Krauss and on a Gypsy version by Mirella Karpati, for example, stress the psychological stages of atonement after the Oedipus figure learns the truth about his actions. Anthropologist Melford E. Spiro investigates the myth's appearance in Burma and the significance of the mother's identification with the dragon (the sphinx figure). Vladimir Propp's essay, translated for the first time from the Italian, and Lowell Edmunds's theoretical review discuss the relation of the Oedipus story to the larger study of folklore. The result is a casebook for students of folklore, classical mythology, anthropology and sociology.