Oedipus at Colonus

Thanks to the advances in modern literary scholarship, we are at some distance from ancient tradition, according to which characters in plays were studied as individuals, quite independently of both the compositional style and the dynamic of any individual play. But it still remains true that no play can operate – in the theatre or in the reader’s imagination – without the role of the actor. Whatever our theories concerning the reading of fiction or of human personality, there are always roles to play, which offer us critics something paradoxically solid to discuss. I, for one, have recently 1 suggested that what gives theatre its particular appeal is the fact that, although the spectators know full well on one level that what they are watching is entirely fictitious, drama invites them to construct models of reality. As the spectators vividly imagine the motifs, ideas and passions suggested by the characters’ words, they participate in what one might term a ‘metaphysical’ construction.