El Œdipe de Pierre Corneille: una reescritura clásica de Edipo rey

Abstract

The Myth of Oedipus is a heroic tale about Destiny and power. Configurated in the Mycenaean Age, between the eighteenth and twelfth centuries b. C.., this myth is strongly imprinted in Western drama. Its plot is at the base of one of the greatest tragedies ever written: Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, c.430 b. C. A paradigmatic Greek tragedy, this Sophoclean masterpiece is the reference for every play about the fateful government of the Theban hero; Destiny and politics are indeed in the center of the dramatic structure. Pierre Corneille’s Œdipe, written in 1659, is an adaptation of the Greek plot into the French monarchical context of the seventeenth century. This paper explores Corneille’s Œdipe in order to analyse the most important hypertextual transformations, giving the play a completely contextual perspective. In fact, Pierre Corneille’s Œdipe is a drama where the Sophoclean plot is revaluated according to the air du temps of seventeenth-century France.