Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Oedipus Tyrannus)

Performance (Video)

English Translations

  • D. Kovacs, Sophocles: Oedipus the King. A New Verse Translation (Oxford, 2020) [Google Books preview]
  • M. R. Anspach (ed.), The Oedipus Casebook: Reading Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, with a new tr. by W. B. Tyrrell (East Lansing, 2019/20) [Google Books preview] [WorldCat]
  • D. Kiriakopoulos (with S. Zucchi), with [Jebb’s] Greek text on facing pages (Singapore / USA: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights, 2017) [Google Books preview]
  • F. Nisetich in Lefkowitz and Romm (2016) [Google Books preview]
  • I. Johnston, rev. version (2014; orig. 2007) [Performance with attribution allowed] [Online at Johnstonia]
  • R. Pollack and D. Vine, Tyrant Oidipous (Roskilde, Denmark: EyeCorner Press, 2012) [Official website] [WorldCat]
  • D. Mulroy (2011) [Review by Green (NYROB, 5.10.2012)]
  • F. McGuinness, Oedipus, a new version, from a literal version by C. McGrogarty (London: Faber & Faber, 2008) [WorldCat] [more of an adaptation?] [Review of stage performance at NT in Hollywood Reporter] [Review of same in Telegraph] [Packet of material on the NT staging] –> subsequently, McGuinness turned the whole trilogy into an opera with composer Julian Anderson [Guardian]
  • F. Ahl, Two Faces of Oedipus: Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and Seneca’s Oedipus (Ithaca, NY, 2008) [Google Books preview] [WorldCat] [Review by Thomas in BMCR]
  • G. Theodoridis (2005) [Online at BacchicStage]
  • I. McAuslan and J. Affleck, Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus [tr., comm.] (Cambridge, 2003) [WorldCat]
  • R. Blondell, King Oidipous (Focus, 2002) [Google Books preview]
  • K. McLeish, King Oedipus and Oedipus at Kolonos, ed. by M. Sargent (London, 2001)
  • P. Meineck and P. Woodruff, Oedipus Tyrannus (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000) [Google Books preview]
  • N. Rudall, Oedipus the King (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000)
  • D. W. Myatt, Oedipus Tyrannus [tr., interp., comm.] (Shrewsbury, 1991) [Online at david.myatt.tripod.com]
  • C. Stace, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus (Birmingham, 1987)
  • R. Bagg, Oedipus the King (Amherst, 1982)
  • S. Berg and Diskin Clay, Oedipus the King, GTNT (Oxford, 1978) [Google Books preview]
  • P. Vellacott, Sophocles and Oedipus: A Study of Oedipus Tyrannus with a New Translation (London, 1971) [WorldCat]
  • L. Berkowitz and T. F. Brunner, Oedipus Tyrannus (New York: Norton, 1970)
  • T. Gould, Oedipus the King [tr., comm.] (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1970)
  • P. Roche, Oedipus the King (New York, 1968)
  • F. K. Wilson, Oedipus Tyrannus (Bath, 1966)
  • C. R. Walker, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus (New York, 1966)
  • K. McLeish (tr., adapt.), Four Greek Plays [incl. Oedipus the King and Antigone] (London, 1964)
  • K. Cavander, Oedipus the King, with intro by T. F. Driver (San Francisco, 1961) [WorldCat]
  • P. D. Arnott, Oedipus the King and Antigone (New York, 1960; repr. Arlington Heights, IL, 1987) [Google Books preview]
  • A. Cook, Oedipus Rex, in Ten Greek Plays (Boston, 1957)
  • F. Storr (tr.), Oedipus the King, with intro by T. Wilder, Limited Editions Club (New York, 1955; repr. New York, 1956) [i.e., most likely reprinting the LCL translation]
  • D. Fitts and R. Fitzgerald, Oedipus Rex (New York, 1949; repr. London, 1951)
  • N. E. Truman, Oedipus the King (New York, 1946) [Google Books preview (snippet)]
  • C. W. Mendell, Oedipus Tyrannus, in Our Seneca (New Haven, 1941) [OpenLibrary]
  • A. J. Hunt (tr.), The Oedipus Tyrannus, with the Greek text as produced in the Bradfield College Greek Theatre, June 1937 (Oxford, 1937) [WorldCat]
  • W. B. Yeats, Sophocles’ King Oedipus (London, 1928) [UPenn PDF]
  • J. T. Sheppard, The Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge, 1920) [archive.org] (rev. “cheap edition” — with less additional material [?] — Cambridge, 1922) [archive.org]
  • G. Murray, Oedipus King of Thebes (London, 1911) [Google Books]
  • anon., Oedipus Tyrannus, Electra, and Antigone, “The Oxford Translation,” rev. ed. (Oxford, 1897) [seems to = Buckley 1849 in complete translations] [Google Books]
  • The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. The Greek Text Performed at Cambridge, 22-6 November 1887, with translations: R. C. Jebb (prose tr.) and A. W. Verrall (verse tr. of chorus parts) (Cambridge, 1887; reperformed and republished Cambridge, 1912) [HathiTrust] [Google Books] [Cambridge Greek Play 1887] [Cambridge Greek Play 1912]
  • E. Conybeare (dial.) and A. W. Verrall (chorus), Oedipus the King [songs as written for musical settings by Dr. Stanford] (London, 1887) [Google Books] [HathiTrust] — missing first page(s)
  • T. Nash, rev. R. Broughton, The Oedipus Tyrannus (Oxford, 1887) [WorldCat]
  • E. D. A. Morshead, Oedipus the King (London, 1885) [Google Books]
  • B. H. Kennedy, The Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge, 1882; repr. Deighton, Bell & Co., 1885) (1884, in Studia Sophoclea Part 2) [Google Books] [note also Kennedy’s edition with commentary, Cambridge, 1885, possibly the origin of the discrepance as to title (?): archive.org]
  • W. W. Newell, King Oedipus (Cambridge, MA, 1881) [Google Books]
  • [E. Fitzgerald], The Downfall and Death of King Oedipus (mostly taken from OT and OC; choruses from Potter’s tr.) (Guildford, 1880-81) [Google Books]
  • G. Volney Dorsey, Oedipus, King of Thebes (Piqua, OH, 1880) [Google Books]
  • L. Campbell, The King Oedipus and Philoctetes of Sophocles (Edinburgh, 1874) [Google Books]
  • anon. [“A first-class man of Balliol college”] [= T. Nash], The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles (Oxford, 1870) [Google Books]
  • R. Mongan, Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus (Dublin, 1865) [Google Books]
  • anon., Sophoclis Oedipus Rex, with annotations (London, 1851) [possibly in Walton’s list by confusion — not a translation of the play but the annotations (of Edward Wunder) having been translated literally into English: Google Books]
  • F. H. C. Doyle, Oedipus, King of Thebes (London, 1849) [Google Books]
  • J. Prendergast (tr.), The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles [Greek text with scholia and translation] (London, 1839) [Google Books]
  • anon. [“a graduate of the University of Dublin”], A Literal Translation of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles (Dublin, 1837) [Google Books] [the translator mentions an earlier translation by (George) Downes, but only Downes’ translations of the OC and Antigone appear to be extant]
  • D. Spillan, Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus and Electra “from the text of Hermann, with a literal Translation and Explanatory Notes” (1830) [WorldCat]
  • T. W. C. Edwards, Sophocles: King Oedipus (London, 1823) [Google Books]
  • G. S. Clarke, Oedipus, King of Thebes (Oxford, 1790) [Google Books]
  • T. Maurice, ‘A Free Translation (in verse) of the Oedipus Tyrannus,’ in Poems and Miscellaneous Pieces (London, 1779) [Google Books]
  • L. Theobald, Oedipus, King of Thebes: A Tragedy (London, 1715; repr. 1765 and NY, 1980) [Google Books]

Freer Adaptation

  • S. Shepard, A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations) (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2016) [WorldCat] [DPS] [Oedipus as a noir thriller?]
  • J. P. Rothery, Inside the Seed (Vancouver, BC: Talonbooks, 2016) [WorldCat] [a comic political thriller]
  • S. Rao et al., Oedipus the King [retold for young audiences] (Getty / Tara, 2004; 2nd ed. Chennai, 2015 [WorldCat])
  • G. Jandrell, Thebes: (after Sophocles and Aeschylus), commissioned by “The Faction” [“interpreting classical texts with a contemporary aesthetic”] for Rep Season 2014 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) [Google Books preview] [WorldCat]
  • E. McLaughlin (tr., adapt.), Oedipus (New York: Playscripts, 2012) [Playscripts] [Online at Arion 12.3 (Winter 2005)? — very close if not identical] [WorldCat] [more of an adaptation?]
  • C. Teevan, The Kingdom (London: Oberon Books, 2012) [WorldCat] [Irish setting]
  • S. Coates and R. M. Flynn, The Odyssey, Oedipus, and Others; or, Greek Story Theatre: Four Plays (New York: Playscripts, 2009) [WorldCat]
  • D. Mahon, Oedipus: A Version of Sophocles’ King Oedipus and Oedipus at Colonus (County Meath, Ireland, 2005) [WorldCat] [more of an adaptation: see discussion here]
  • D. Greig, Oedipus the Visionary (Edinburgh, 2005) [WorldCat] [setting: South Africa] [Discussion on YouTube by TheatreofPhil]
  • F. Galati, Oedipus Complex [adapted from Freud and Sophocles] (Ashland, OR: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2004) [WorldCat]
  • L. Lochhead, (Theatre Babel’s) Thebans: Oedipus, Jokasta, Antigone (London, 2011 [WorldCat]; orig. performed at Edinburgh Fringe 2003 [WorldCat])
  • B. Morrison, Oedipus and Antigone by Sophocles (Halifax, 2003) [Review of stage performance] [unclear whether it’s meant as a translation or an adapation, but because it combines the two plays, and the writer admittedly has no Greek, I classify it as an adaptation]
  • R. Orloff, Oedi: A Comedy in One Act (New York: Playscripts, 2003) [WorldCat]
  • A. Burgess (tr., adapt.), Sophocles: Oedipus the King (Minneapolis, 1972) [description of the nature of this work]
  • Dryden and Lee, Oedipus (1679) [from Sophocles, Seneca, and Corneille] [Online at EEBO] [Wikipedia]

Greek Texts and Scholarly Commentaries

Newer Scholarship

  • M. Dorati, Finestre sul futuro. Fato, profezia e mondi possibili nel ‘plot’ dell’Edipo Re’ di Sofocle, Filologia e critica 101 (Pisa, Rome: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2015) [Review by Finglass in BMCR]
  • A.-B. Renger, Oedipus and the Sphinx: The Threshold Myth from Sophocles through Freud to Cocteau (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013) [Review by Lecznar in BMCR]
  • F. Macintosh, Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus, Plays in Production (Cambridge, 2009) [WorldCat] [Review by Condello in BMCR]

 

  • B. Manuwald, Sophokles: König Ödipus, Griechische Dramen, (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012) [Review by Finglass in BMCR]
  • F. G. Giannachi (ed.), Sofocle: Edipo Re. I canti, I canti del teatro greco 3, (Pisa/Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2009) [Review by Finglass in BMCR]