Close Reading Of Oedipus Rex Essay

A perfect example to use New Criticism or as many would refer to it “close reading” would be Sophocles's Oedipus Rex. This masterpiece is very well-known for the time period it was written in yet we can learn quite a few things about it by looking at the text itself instead of the work as a whole. There are quite a few literary devices that can easily be overlooked while having the background knowledge of the author, setting and time period in mind. By clearing these from our conscience and focusing our attention on the text itself by applying that literary analysis lens we can see that the words and word placement have so much more significance while examining the book this way. Sophocles's demonstrates his idea of fate in his book Oedipus Rex by giving the protagonist the idea that he is in control of his free will but is doomed by the unexpected revelation of the truth in

The use of “concrete” examples is what this lens bases it’s analysis on (135). By using this New Criticism lens in the analysis of Sophocles play Oedipus Rex we can make very clear observations on what the author meant as he created this piece of art without having to look at the background information behind the text. The main idea of this lens is that most of the time background information may confuse the reader into thinking that the text means something completely different that what it is. Without using this lens many people will examine all the information at once and overthink or make wild claims regarding the meaning of the actual text. The idea with this lens is to reduce all that fog in the readers head that doesn’t let the reader assume clearly and cut it down to just one thing, the text. We will take a closer look at the analysis of some examples of the book in the next