429 BCEGreek Drama
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles · 496–406 BCE · Greece
Originally Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (Ancient Greek)
Why it matters
A king vows to hunt down whoever is responsible for the plague on his city, chasing the investigation with a relentlessness that will not let him stop even as the clues start pointing somewhere he never expected. Aristotle's model tragedy and drama's most perfect plot: every step toward the truth taken freely, every step foreordained.
At a glance
tragedydrama
Difficulty 5/10fast pace100 pagesCompact and propulsive; only the choral odes and mythic backstory need footnotes.
Deep dive
Every step the hero takes toward solving the mystery is a step the audience already knows will destroy him, and Sophocles builds the whole play out of that gap.
