Tag Archives: Oedipus

The Stories We Tell Our Robots

By Robin Bates | Published: April 10, 2018

My sons have a podcast–“The Stories We Tell Our Robots”–which links literature with such developments as bitcoin, chatbots, airline pricing, and the like. Their rating system ranges from utopia to apocalypse.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Darien Bates, Sophocles, technology, Tobias Wilson-Bates | Comments closed

Lit Comforts an ALS Sufferer

By Robin Bates | Published: June 23, 2017

This past March an ALS sufferer spoke eloquently, shortly before her death, about how she turned to Sophocles, Kafka, and Shakespeare for comfort.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged ALS, death and dying, Franz Kafka, Hamlet, Lynette Williamson, Metamorphosis, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

My Cataract Surgery Recalls Oedipus, Lear

By Robin Bates | Published: February 5, 2017

Recent cataract surgery had me recalling all those literary passages where sharp objects get poked into people’s eyes. The real drama, however, was renegotiating my professional identity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged cataract surgery, eyes, King Lear, Medicine, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Panicked by Trump? Turn to Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: February 28, 2016

As Trump panic starts to set in, pundits are turning to literature to get an understanding of how it has all happened. This past week saw references to “Oedipus,” “Frankenstein,” “War and Peace,” and “Slaughterhouse Five.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Frankenstein, GOP, Kurt Vonnegut, Leo Tolstoy, Marco Rubio, Mary Shelley, Presidential politics, Slaughterhouse Five, Sophocles, War and Peace | Comments closed

Jeb! Agonistes: An Unsettling Parallel

By Robin Bates | Published: November 1, 2015

Does Jeb Bush resemble at the moment Samson Agonistes? His rivalry with Marco Rubio also resembles any number of Shakespeare tragedies. There’s an Oedipus parallel as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 2016 election, GOP, GOP primary, Henry IV Part II, Jeb Bush, John Milton, Joseph Campbell, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Marco Rubio, politics, Samson Agonistes, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Germany vs. Greece, a Greek Tragedy

By Robin Bates | Published: September 27, 2015

Novelist Tim McCarthy argues that the economic collision between Germany and Greece reenacts a number of the classic Greek tragedies, most notably “Oedipus” and “The Oresteia.” But Athena may not intervene in this instance.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Oresteia, Sophocles | Comments closed

Are the Gods Out to Destroy Manziel?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 20, 2014

The epic fail in Johnny Manziel’s first NFL start invites Sophoclean analogies. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus also comes to mind.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Football, Johnny Manziel, NFL, Sophocles, Sports | Comments closed

Oedipus in Iraq

By Robin Bates | Published: June 24, 2014

America’s blindness in instigating the Iraq War, now proving to be an abject failure, resembles that of Oedipus.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Iraq War, Oedipal conflict, Sophocles | Comments closed

Top 10 Hellish Child-Parent Relationships

By Robin Bates | Published: March 26, 2014

Top 10 Literary Parent-Child Relationships from Hell.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "All that Rises Must Converge", "Daddy", "Letter to a Dead Father", Aeschylus, Brothers Karamazov, D. H. Lawrence, Euripides, Flannery O'Connor, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Hamlet, King Lear, Medea, Midsummer Night's Dream, Oresteia, parents and children, Phillip K. Roth, Portnoy's Complaint, Richard Shelton, Romeo and Juliet, Sons and Lovers, Sophocles, Sylvia Plath, William Shakespeare | Comments closed