Lettura dell’Edipo a Colono

Abstract

A reading of Oedipus at ColonusThis tragedy represents the most sublime case of a katastrophé, i.e. ofa radical change in the life of a man (and the nature around him sharesthis change). The foreigner, the exiled, he who was banished from hishome, just arrived to the bottom of his despair, becomes, by an extraordinaryGrace, the Benefactor of the city, its guardian daimon. Thistragedy sounds in every verse like an invocation for a lyterios God, fora God whose name may be Love and Redeemer. But this invocationremains in tragic contradiction to the evident inability of Creon, Oedipus,and his sons to change themselves. No conversion in them andtherefore no change for the destiny of Thebes. The tragedy does not endin Colonus but with the final ruin of Oedipus’ family. Sophokles’ Antigonemust be read after Oedipus at Kolonos.