Abstract

At the beginning of his essay "On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex," E. R. Dodds tells us what prompted him to write it. As Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, he served as an examiner in the annual undergraduate honors trials, and as such posed the following question: "In what sense, if in any, does the Oedipus Rex attempt to justify the ways of God to man?"1 He divided the responses into three categories. The first of these, the largest group, held that the play demonstrates that the universe is just, and that Oedipus received the punishment he deserved. The second group regarded the play as demonstrating that man lacks free will and is "like a puppet in the hands of the gods." The third group...