LA PESTE COME PRETESTO ERMENEUTICO. EDIPO ALLA RICERCA DI SE STESSO

Abstract

The present paper returns to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, starting with the plague that afflicts Thebes at the beginning of the play. The pestilence, in which it is probable that we should recognise a Sophoclean innovation, is the hermeneutic pretext that Sophocles uses to set the tragedy as a path of progressive recognition of the truth by Oedipus. The last part of the article tries to develop some ideas on the terms in which Oedipus Rex can help to understand the dynamics triggered by the COVID pandemic.