Oedipus the King

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The plot of the play consists of nothing other than the gradual rising and artistically protracted revelation–similar to the work of psychoanalysis–that Oedipus is himself the murderer of Laius, but also the son of the murdered man and Jocasta. King Oedipus, who has slain his father and married his mother, is only the wish-fulfillment of our childhood.
Sigmund Freud, Interpretation of Dreams

To me personally, Oedipus is a kind of symbol of the human intelligence, which cannot rest until it has solved all the riddles–even the last riddle, to which the answer is that human happiness is built on an illusion.
E R Dodds

The histrionic basis of Sophocles’ art is what makes it so crucial an instance of the art of the theater in its completeness.
Francis Fergusson

Oedipus is a man totally committed to his own freedom to be who he thinks he must be, to live up to his own notion of heroic greatness. He’s Oedipus, whose greatness manifests itself in being totally true to itself, without duplicity.
Ian Johnstone