ABSTRACT
The legendary Oedipus is the most obvious instance of a character who has been important both in drama and in Freudian theory, and that is why the author have chosen him as a point where the relation between psychopathology and poetry in the widest sense may conveniently be considered. First of all, Oedipus has a unique story, most of which did not interest Freud at all. When Sophocles' play opens, Oedipus, as King of Thebes, is obliged to dig up the facts of the old murder, and to face them, one by one, as they reveal the terrible things he has done. Sophocles assumes the complex order of the Greek city-state, for that is the basis of Oedipus's role as king and father of his people. The young Oedipus and the neurotic aging Jocasta seem to have been designed by Cocteau in order to be understood according to Freud's favorite complex.
