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GLAVNI PROGRAM

36

OEDIPUS REX

TRAGEDY OF ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY The political motif is intensified with second entrance of Creon. He has heard the terrible accusations that the monarch (tyrannos), Oedipus, has levelled against him. Earlier, we note the distinctive quality of Créons mask with its laurel crown. It is a matter of some importance whether Creon's mask is different in any way on his second appearance. It would be unusual if his costume where changed at all without some clue in the text. In fact, the text does draw special attention to Créons mask. As soon as Oedipus sets eyes on Creon, he immediately makes a pointed reference to Créons mask: „Have you such a face (prosopon) of effrontery that you have come to my house, when you are palpably my murderer and openly the robber of my kingship (tyrannis)?" It is a reminder for the audience of the tacit threat that Creon poses to Oedipus. (...) Josh Beer: Sophocles and the Tragedy of Athenian Democracy (Praeger-Greenwood, Westport 2004) It is the overthrow of the tyrannos, of man who seized power and thought himself "equated to the gods". The bold metaphor of the priest introduces another of the images which parallel in their development the reversal of the hero, and which suggest that Oedipus is a figure symbolic of human intelligence and achievement in general. He is not only helmsman, ploughman, inventor, legislator, liberator, revealer, doctor - he is also equator, mathematician, calculator. One of Oedipus' favorite words is „measure" and this is of course a significant metaphor: measure, mensuration, number, calculation - these are among the most important inventions which have brought man to power. Aeschylus' Prometeus, the mythical civilizer of human life, counts number among the foremost of his gifts to man. Bernard Knox: Sophocles'Oedipus (In: Tragic Themes in Western Literature, ed. by Clint Brooks, Yale UP, 1955) Edited by Svetislav Jovanov VIDA OGNJENOVIC was born in Dubocke near Niksic, grew up and went to school in Vojvodina and Serbia. She finished elementary school in Vrsac and grammar school in Sremski Karlovci. She graduated literature from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade (1963), and directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade (1965). She began her post graduate studies at Sorbonne in Paris, and received her Master's degree at the University of Minnesota, USA (1972). She worked as an assistant at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade from 1974 till 1979. In 1977 she was nominated Head of the Drama of the National Theatre in Belgrade and after that stayed as a director in that same theatre. As a visiting professor she taught at Universities in Los Angeles (UCLA, 1981 -1982), Chicago (UIC, 1997-1998). On her lecturing tours, she visited all the major Universities in the USA (1985,1991,1997,1999). She is a full professor at the Academy of Art in Novi Sad. She directed a great number of theatre performances, TV and radio dramas, many of which were her original plays. She wrote many dramas, which were staged and performed many times, and