Is Oedipus Smart ?

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Is Oedipus Smart? Daniels, Charles B. Philosophy and Literature, Volume 30, Number 2, October 2006, pp. 562-566 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/phl.2006.0026 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/phl/summary/v030/30.2daniels.html Access Provided by Curtin University of Technology at 08/04/11 6:05PM GMT IS OEDIPUS SMART? by Charles B. Daniels W hat does it amount to, to ask whether Oedipus is smart, intelligent, clever? I take this to mean that he is quicker than most to gain understanding about difficult matters. Now, does Sophocles in Oedipus Rex portray Oedipus to be an intelligent, clever man? The Yes Answer A “yes” answer to the title question may rest upon three grounds: Y1. Everyone in the play, including Oedipus himself and the citizens of Thebes who have been his subjects for some 15 to 20 years, everyone, that is, save Teiresias, thinks that Oedipus is intelligent. Y2. In both legend and Sophocles’ play, the only person smart enough to solve the Sphinx’s riddle is Oedipus. Everyone in the play, as well as in the play’s audiences, knows that Oedipus has solved the Sphinx’s riddle. This is a major reason why everyone in the play, again excepting Teiresias, believes Oedipus to have a first-class mind. Oedipus is renown for this deed and thought by his subjects to be very clever in doing of it. Y3. John P. Carroll, in his interesting study of the extraordinary number of questions posed by Oedipus in Oedipus Rex (one in each nine lines of text uttered by him), concludes, “King Oedipus was endowed at birth with the heritage of the ‘riddler’s mind,’ which by constant use throughout the course of his life he sharpened and brought to greater Philosophy and Literature, © 2006, 30: 562–566 Charles B. Daniels 563 perfection than it ever had had in his
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