Oedipe en monarchie: tragédie et théorie juridique à l’âge classique by Christian Biet

Biet, Christian. Oedipe en monarchie: tragédie et théorie juridique à l’âge classique.

Oedipus is too important to be left to tragedians. That is indeed the feeling a contemporary reader could have, when considering the twenty-six plays inspired by Sophocles and Seneca written during the 17th and 18th centuries. Even for the best authors, Corneille, Racine or Voltaire, their versions of Oedipus or of the Thdbalde did not add a lot to their fame. Nevertheless it is impossible not to be struck by the great number of adaptations, as if writing an Oedipus was a sort of “rite de passage” for tragedians (actually it was for Racine and Voltaire their very first tragedy). What was then the point of Oedipus in Ancien Régime monarchy?