A Literature Review Study of the Creative Structure of Oedipus the King
Abstract
Oedipus the King is one of the three great tragedies of ancient Greece, and Aristotle gave it a high evaluation in his work Poetics. The core of this article is to study the creation structure and plots of Oedipus the King from Aristotle’s theory of tragedy. This article is divided into three parts: introduction, literature review and conclusion. Through these three parts, the author will summarize the current research status, research views and shortage of Oedipus the King. Through the research, the author finds that Oedipus the King has three main characteristics in the plot: the closed dramatic structure, the application of “retrospective method” and the perfect use of “sudden turn” and “discovery”. In addition, the current scholars’ research mainly focuses on the external drama conflicts of Oedipus the King, but the internal reasons for the series of “action” of Oedipus are not studied enough. Therefore, the author believes that only when scholars have a deep understanding of the definition of “action” in the Poetics can they obtain the creative research results of Oedipus the King.
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