Name: 命運、家庭和俄狄浦斯王。速成文學202 (Fate, Family, and Oedipus Rex: Crash Course Literature 202)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T06:35:26.000Z
Duration: 13 min 35 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

Hi! I'm John Green. Welcome to Crash Course Literature. Today we're going to talk about

情態副詞

Oedipus. Leo Tolstoy once famously wrote that "All happy families are alike, but each unhappy

程度副詞

family is unhappy in its own way." And I certainly hope that there's no family as unhappy as Oedipus's.

Ancient Greek playwrights really specialized in the dysfunctional family. I mean, they

had plays about wives killing husbands, parents killing children, children killing parents,

siblings killing each other, and they also wrote tragedies. But it's hard to imagine

a more tragic, dysfunctional family than the Theban clan that Sophocles writes about in

Oedipus the King. I mean, except for the Kardashians.

John from the Past: Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Who are the Kardashians? That sounds exotic!

Oh yeah, Me from the Past! You don't know about the Kardashians. Right now, to you,

the only Kardashian you know is OJ Simpson's defense attorney.

Anyway, don't worry about it. Just imagine a green light on the other side of the bay

that represents the glory you'll never reach. That's the Kardashians!

Okay, so Oedipus is King of Thebes, having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and saved

the city from destruction. But now a plague is devastating Thebes, and various oracles

and bird entrails suggest it's because the murderer of the old king, Laius, still lives

there unpunished. Oedipus decides to investigate the murder, only to discover that -- mind blown --

HE is the one who killed Laius and married his queen, Jocasta. THEN he finds

out that Laius was actually his father, and Jocasta is his mother, so he's had four children

with his mom, fulfilling an earlier prophecy, because bird entrails are never wrong.

It's the old "Accidentally Kill Your Father, Accidentally Marry Your Mother" plot. It goes way back.

Freud can tell you a lot about it in Crash Course Psychology.

Anyway, Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus gauges out his own eyes with her jewelery,

then goes into exile. In subsequent plays, his two sons murder each other and one of

his daughters commits suicide. So... You know, it could have gone better.

So for a little context, theater was a really big deal to the Greeks. I mean, if you were

a male citizen -- not a woman, not a slave -- attending it was your civic duty. It was

sort of like voting, except that it began with ritual animal sacrifice, so it was really

nothing like voting. But this civic duty aspect is interesting, because a lot of the plays

ask really troubling questions about power and control and the wisdom of rulers. Like,

playwrights masked their commentary by setting plays in earlier, mythic eras or in foreign

lands, just like Shakespeare did. But they were quite provocative then, and what's most

important is that the best of them are still interesting now.

Three playwrights would each present four plays: a cycle of three related tragedies,

and then a satyr play, which would be funny and would often involve enormous phalluses and/or poop jokes.

Citizens would watch play after play while judges would determine a winner. So it was

kind of like Sundance or Cannes, but again, with the ritual animal sacrifice, and there

was no multi-million dollar theatrical distribution deals. You know, but there was glory.

Unfortunately, we only have a small portion of these plays today -- many were lost over

the millennia, including some that were destroyed at the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

In Sophocles' day, the cast was made of three male actors, some of whom took on multiple

roles, and also a chorus. Playwrights were typically the director, the composer, the

set designer, and often also the lead actor, although apparently, Sophocles did not appear

in his plays because he was, I guess, a terrible actor.

But the choruses were drawn from the Athenian citizenry, and generally served as like, stand

ins for the audience, asserting conventional wisdom and asking the questions that a typical

audience member might. The actors wore masks that were made of linen and hairs, as well

as enormous robes and platform sandals so you could still see them, even if you were in the cheap seats.

So Sophocles lived throughout nearly all of the fifth century B.C.E, and he wrote 123 plays.

We have seven. Who knows what kind of crazy stuff people got up to in the other ones.

The first person to offer literary criticism of Greek drama was my old nemesis, Aristotle,

whom you'll remember was wrong about everything. This was a guy who believed that people were

naturally born to slavery. Except, he was actually kind of right about a lot of theatre

stuff. It pains me to say this, because I do genuinely despise him, but Aristotle had

a lot of interesting ideas about story. For instance, he noticed that in a lot of stories,

the main character has a recognition and a reversal. He's also responsible for a lot

of classical ideas about tragedy and comedy, and Oedipus fits his definition of tragedy

very well -- probably because it was his favorite play.

Aristotle defines tragedy as, quote, "An imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and

of a certain magnitude." Tragedy is also meant to evoke both pity and fear. I mean, when

Oedipus returns at the play's end wearing a new mask that shows his gouged out eyes,

you feel bad for him; you also feel afraid.

But here's the tricky part. Aristotle wrote that tragedy should afflict a mostly good

character who makes a big mistake. I mean, it can't be about a bad character, because

then you don't feel any pity. And it can't be about a perfect character who does everything

right and still suffers a tragic end, because: one, that wouldn't be very satisfying; and two, it would

imply that the universe doesn't reward goodness and punish evil, which is kind of a terrifying thought.

So instead, it has to be about a good guy afflicted with a hamartia, or a ha-marsha,

depending on how pretentious you are. This word is sometimes mistranslated, including

by the protagonist of my novel, The Fault in Our Stars -- available in book stores everywhere

-- as a tragic flaw. But actually, it's a term from archery that means you aim for the

bulls eye, but you miss. Now, I would argue that in the twenty-five hundred years since

Oedipus, there have been some very good tragedies that evoke fear and pity without the argument

that the universe is interested in the lives of individuals, but you know, this is the classical definition.

So could Oedipus really... Uh oh, my desk disappeared. That means it's time for the

An open letter to the tragic hero, a type of character, of course, exemplified by Chewbacca.

He was a wookie. He was strong. He was loyal. He was a great man, or at least, a great wookie.

But it was his loyalty, a desirable trait, that also, ultimately, made him kind of a complicated hero.

I mean, Chewbacca made a blood oath to Han Solo, so if you mess with Han Solo, Chewbacca's

gonna rip your arms off. And for those of you who know the Star Wars universe outside

the movies, you already know that eventually, that does prove tragic. Chewbacca, you're

a hero, but it's your heroism that also was ultimately your undoing. Best wishes, John Green.

So, is Oedipus a good character, and does he make a great mistake? Well, let's go to the Thought Bubble.

So, at the beginning of the play, Oedipus definitely seems like an A++ king, I mean,

the priest calls him "the first of men in all the chances of this life." When the priest

comes to tell him about the suffering in the city, Oedipus says he knows about it already:

"I have known the story before you told it."

Oedipus is already worried about what's happening to his people -- in fact, he's dispatched

his brother-in-law, Creon, to visit an oracle and find out the source of the pestilence.

And let's not forget that Oedipus has already saved the city once by answering the riddle

of the Sphinx; the Sphinx had the body of a woman, the wings of an eagle, and a really

bad temper. She had the habit of killing everyone who answered her riddle incorrectly. So, I mean, you know,

it takes a measure of courage to try to answer the riddle. He's a good guy; he's a great king, right? Meh.

I mean, when Creon gives answers that Oedipus doesn't like, Oedipus accuses him of plotting

against him. He also has some harsh words for the blind seer, Tiresias, when Tiresias

correctly names Oedipus as the source of the contagion. When the shepherd is brought to

Oedipus and resists revealing the truth of Oedipus' birth, because he knows it will upset