Oedipus Variations Studies in Literature and Psychoanalysis

Here is a deeper, richer portrait of Oedipus, the most famous figure in all of Greek Tragedy & the (unconscious?!) hero of the basic myth of psychoanalysis. First, Karl Kerenyi, C.G. Jung's genius mythographer, widens the Oedipus myth's cultural context by introducing unusual dramatic versions that have played in Rome, Paris, Vienna, & London. His authoritative, detailed essays release wonderful insights for even the most casual reader. Then, James Hillman in his Oedipus Revisited essay (based on his lecture at Eranos) takes on Father Freud & his Oedipus complex (i.e. every son wants to kill his father & marry his mother). Hillman inverts the emphasis & asks, "Why do fathers kill their sons?" And what has this myth to do with gay men, since Oedipus's father was said to be the first pederast? Hillman brilliantly proposes that the madness of Oedipus may lie less in his overt crimes than in his - & therapy's - single minded focus upon "figuring out" one's true identity through a remembering of the past. This relentless search for Oedipus to "know himself" is still with us, it still blinds us & still tries to turn people in therapy into Oedipus. Yet Hillman also shows us that, in addition to the curse, murder, incest, & disease, the myth of Oedipus contains beauty, blessing, love, & loyalty. Hillman dreams the myth onward to the second play (written when Sophocles was in his 90's) where, in the anima landscape of Colonus, the blind old king, helped by his daughters, dies.Kerenyi, Karl is the author of 'Oedipus Variations Studies in Literature and Psychoanalysis' with ISBN 9780882142197 and ISBN 0882142194.