LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Oedipus: Plays
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Lucius Annaeus Seneca’s Oedipus, freely adapted by Professor Michael Elliot Rutenberg, is the first translation of this Roman tragedy to interpolate excerpts from Seneca’s moral philosophies into the text. This juxtaposition of Seneca’s calm, rational thought with the passionate, highly theatrical language of his play, creates an exciting synergy of powerful emotional and intellectual appeal.
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: Laura Whitehead (1998) saw these contrasts--but holds Claudius the most worthy of blame: "Oedipus is much more decisive than Hamlet. It takes the entire play before Hamlet makes up his mind, and then it is Claudius who brings about the finale, not Hamlet. Oedipus is quick to judge and make decisions before he really thinks about them.
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As the play unfolds, then, both Oedipus’ virtues and his weaknesses will lead to his ultimate downfall. The audience can see that Oedipus’ sense of responsibility for his city-state drives his search for the truth, and because of this the hero gains sympathy—even when he is at his most arrogant, and especially at his fall from power.
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At the time Sophocles wrote Oedipus Tyrannus, Athens was in fact still recovering from a plague, just such as that described in the opening to Oedipus Tyrannus. The play is almost certainly a response to events of that time period. Pericles, the head of state of Athens at the time, died of the illness that swept through the city. The question is, did Sophocles see Oedipus as a representation of Pericles? Thirty-two years before Pericles and Ephialtes were the joint heads of state, who brought about democratic reforms ushering in the freethinking period of unparalleled intellectual and artistic energy. But Ephialtes was murdered and, though Pericles was accused of the crime, the actual murderer was never brought to justice.
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Sophocles describes Oedipus as a cliff assailed by storms, beaten by the wind and rain. Yet he survived the worst storms that fate sent. Sophocles’ story of Oedipus is a celebration of the human spirit. In this, his last play, Oedipus shows the true greatness of a man who endures in spite of his tragic knowledge about both the universe and himself. Sophocles shows the courage of a human being who refuses to give up. Oedipus is vindicated by the gods in his final transformation.
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There is the heavyhanded business of the literally blind "seer" vs. Oedipus' metaphoric blindness, and then all the "light" and "darkness" interplay. But there are many other true dramatic ironies in this play .... The important matter here is to distinguish true dramatic irony from what the media like to bandy about smugly as ostensible irony, which is usually nothing more than coincidence, or not even that. Here's an example from Walter Scott's "Personality Parade" in Parade Magazine:
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