The Oedipal Drama of Tirso's La república al revés

This study examines the intertextual relationship between Tirso de Molina's La república al revés and the Oedipus myth, particularly as depicted in the dramas of Sophocles and Seneca. Though this legend seems conspicuous by its absence from the Golden Age Spanish stage, Tirso appears to have made use of Sophocles's and Seneca's treatments of it in composing República. The protagonist, the corrupt Byzantine emperor Constantino VI, exhibits many parallels to Oedipus, just as his mother Irene recalls Oedipus's mother Jocasta, as well as his uncle Creon. Both doomed Greek monarchs infect the kingdoms they rule with their inner moral corruption, and both ultimately serve as the sacrificial victims whose cathartic punishments purify their realms. República concludes with the restoration of prosperity and sociocultural order under Irene, who had ruled prior to Constantino's assumption of power and who now resumes the throne she had unwillingly renounced in his favor; likewise, Oedipus is succeeded by Creon, who had governed Thebes before Oedipus claimed the throne by solving the Sphinx's riddle. República's debt to the Oedipus canon is fundamental to this underrated comedia. (CBW)