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Analysis of Sophocles’ Antigone

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 29, 2020 • ( 0 )

Within this single drama—in great part, a harsh critique of Athenian society and the Greek city-state in general—Sophocles tells of the eternal struggle between the state and the individual, human and natural law, and the enormous gulf between what we attempt here on earth and what fate has in store for us all. In this magnificent dramatic work, almost incidentally so, we find nearly every reason why we are now what we are.

—Victor D. Hanson and John Heath, Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom

With Antigone Sophocles forcibly demonstrates that the power of tragedy derives not from the conflict between right and wrong but from the confrontation between right and right. As the play opens the succession battle between the sons of Oedipus—Polynices and Eteocles—over control of Thebes has resulted in both of their deaths. Their uncle Creon, who has now assumed the throne, asserts his authority to end a destructive civil war and decrees that only Eteocles, the city’s defender, should receive honorable burial. Polynices, who has led a foreign army against Thebes, is branded a traitor. His corpse is to be left on the battlefield “to be chewed up by birds and dogs and violated,” with death the penalty for anyone who attempts to bury him and supply the rites necessary for the dead to reach the underworld. Antigone, Polynices’ sister, is determined to defy Creon’s order, setting in motion a tragic collision between opposed laws and duties: between natural and divine commands that dictate the burial of the dead and the secular edicts of a ruler determined to restore civic order, between family allegiance and private conscience and public duty and the rule of law that restricts personal liberty for the common good. Like the proverbial immovable object meeting an irresistible force, Antigone arranges the impact of seemingly irreconcilable conceptions of rights and responsibilities, producing one of drama’s enduring illuminations of human nature and the human condition.

Antigone is one of Sophocles’ greatest achievements and one of the most influential dramas ever staged. “Between 1790 and 1905,” critic George Steiner reports, “it was widely held by European poets, philosophers, [and] scholars that Sophocles’ Antigone was not only the fi nest of Greek tragedies, but a work of art nearer to perfection than any other produced by the human spirit.” Its theme of the opposition between the individual and authority has resonated through the centuries, with numerous playwrights, most notably Jean Anouilh, Bertolt Brecht, and Athol Fugard grafting contemporary concerns and values onto the moral and political dramatic framework that Sophocles established. The play has elicited paradoxical responses reflecting changing cultural and moral imperatives. Antigone, who has been described as “the first heroine of Western drama,” has been interpreted both as a heroic martyr to conscience and as a willfully stubborn fanatic who causes her own death and that of two other innocent people, forsaking her duty to the living on behalf of the dead. Creon has similarly divided critics between censure and sympathy. Despite the play’s title, some have suggested that the tragedy is Creon’s, not Antigone’s, and it is his abuse of authority and his violations of personal, family, and divine obligations that center the drama’s tragedy. The brilliance of Sophocles’ play rests in the complexity of motive and the competing absolute claims that the drama displays. As novelist George Eliot observed,

It is a very superficial criticism which interprets the character of Creon as that of hypocritical tyrant, and regards Antigone as a blameless victim. Coarse contrasts like this are not the materials handled by great dramatists. The exquisite art of Sophocles is shown in the touches by which he makes us feel that Creon, as well as Antigone, is contending for what he believes to be the right, while both are also conscious that, in following out one principle, they are laying themselves open to just blame for transgressing another.

Eliot would call the play’s focus the “antagonism of valid principles,” demonstrating a point of universal significance that “Wherever the strength of a man’s intellect, or moral sense, or affection brings him into opposition with the rules which society has sanctioned, there is renewed conflict between Antigone and Creon; such a man must not only dare to be right, he must also dare to be wrong—to shake faith, to wound friendship, perhaps, to hem in his own powers.” Sophocles’ Antigone is less a play about the pathetic end of a victim of tyranny or the corruption of authority than about the inevitable cost and con-sequence between competing imperatives that define the human condition. From opposite and opposed positions, both Antigone and Creon ultimately meet at the shared suffering each has caused. They have destroyed each other and themselves by who they are and what they believe. They are both right and wrong in a world that lacks moral certainty and simple choices. The Chorus summarizes what Antigone will vividly enact: “The powerful words of the proud are paid in full with mighty blows of fate, and at long last those blows will teach us wisdom.”

As the play opens Antigone declares her intention to her sister Ismene to defy Creon’s impious and inhumane order and enlists her sister’s aid to bury their brother. Ismene responds that as women they must not oppose the will of men or the authority of the city and invite death. Ismene’s timidity and deference underscores Antigone’s courage and defiance. Antigone asserts a greater allegiance to blood kinship and divine law declaring that the burial is a “holy crime,” justified even by death. Ismene responds by calling her sister “a lover of the impossible,” an accurate description of the tragic hero, who, according to scholar Bernard Knox, is Sophocles’ most important contribution to drama: “Sophocles presents us for the first time with what we recognize as a ‘tragic hero’: one who, unsupported by the gods and in the face of human opposition, makes a decision which springs from the deepest layer of his individual nature, his physis , and then blindly, ferociously, heroically maintains that decision even to the point of self-destruction.” Antigone exactly conforms to Knox’s description, choosing her conception of duty over sensible self-preservation and gender-prescribed submission to male authority, turning on her sister and all who oppose her. Certain in her decision and self-sufficient, Antigone rejects both her sister’s practical advice and kinship. Ironically Antigone denies to her sister, when Ismene resists her will, the same blood kinship that claims Antigone’s supreme allegiance in burying her brother. For Antigone the demands of the dead overpower duty to the living, and she does not hesitate in claiming both to know and act for the divine will. As critic Gilbert Norwood observes, “It is Antigone’s splendid though perverse valor which creates the drama.”

Before the apprehended Antigone, who has been taken in the act of scattering dust on her brother’s corpse, lamenting, and pouring libations, is brought before Creon and the dramatic crux of the play, the Chorus of The-ban elders delivers what has been called the fi nest song in all Greek tragedy, the so-called Ode to Man, that begins “Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man.” This magnificent celebration of human power over nature and resourcefulness in reason and invention ends with a stark recognition of humanity’s ultimate helplessness—“Only against Death shall he call for aid in vain.” Death will test the resolve and principles of both Antigone and Creon, while, as critic Edouard Schuré asserts, “It brings before us the most extraordinary psychological evolution that has ever been represented on stage.”

When Antigone is brought in judgment before Creon, obstinacy meets its match. Both stand on principle, but both reveal the human source of their actions. Creon betrays himself as a paranoid autocrat; Antigone as an individual whose powerful hatred outstrips her capacity for love. She defiantly and proudly admits that she is guilty of disobeying Creon’s decree and that he has no power to override divine law. Nor does Antigone concede any mitigation of her personal obligation in the competing claims of a niece, a sister, or a citizen. Creon is maddened by what he perceives to be Antigone’s insolence in justifying her crime by diminishing his authority, provoking him to ignore all moderating claims of family, natural, or divine extenuation. When Ismene is brought in as a co-conspirator, she accepts her share of guilt in solidarity with her sister, but again Antigone spurns her, calling her “a friend who loves in words,” denying Ismene’s selfless act of loyalty and sympathy with a cold dismissal and self-sufficiency, stating, “Never share my dying, / don’t lay claim to what you never touched.” However, Ismene raises the ante for both Antigone and Creon by asking her uncle whether by condemning Antigone he will kill his own son’s betrothed. Creon remains adamant, and his judgment on Antigone and Ismene, along with his subsequent argument with his son, Haemon, reveals that Creon’s principles are self-centered, contradictory, and compromised by his own pride, fears, and anxieties. Antigone’s challenge to his authority, coming from a woman, is demeaning. If she goes free in defiance of his authority, Creon declares, “I am not the man, she is.” To the urging of Haemon that Creon should show mercy, tempering his judgment to the will of Theban opinion that sympathizes with Antigone, Creon asserts that he cares nothing for the will of the town, whose welfare Creon’s original edict against Polynices was meant to serve. Creon, moreover, resents being schooled in expediency by his son. Inflamed by his son’s advocacy on behalf of Antigone, Creon brands Haemon a “woman’s slave,” and after vacillating between stoning Antigone and executing her and her sister in front of Haemon, Creon rules that Antigone alone is to perish by being buried alive. Having begun the drama with a decree that a dead man should remain unburied, Creon reverses himself, ironically, by ordering the premature burial of a living woman.

Antigone, being led to her entombment, is shown stripped of her former confidence and defiance, searching for the justification that can steel her acceptance of the fate that her actions have caused. Contemplating her living descent into the underworld and the death that awaits her, Antigone regrets dying without marriage and children. Gone is her reliance on divine and natural law to justify her act as she equivocates to find the emotional source to sustain her. A husband and children could be replaced, she rationalizes, but since her mother and father are dead, no brother can ever replace Polynices. Antigone’s tortured logic here, so different from the former woman of principle, has been rejected by some editors as spurious. Others have judged this emotionally wrought speech essential for humanizing Antigone, revealing her capacity to suffer and her painful search for some consolation.

The drama concludes with the emphasis shifted back to Creon and the consequences of his judgment. The blind prophet Teiresias comes to warn Creon that Polynices’ unburied body has offended the gods and that Creon is responsible for the sickness that has descended on Thebes. Creon has kept from Hades one who belongs there and is sending to Hades another who does not. The gods confirm the rightness of Antigone’s action, but justice evades the working out of the drama’s climax. The release of Antigone comes too late; she has hung herself. Haemon commits suicide, and Eurydice, Creon’s wife, kills herself after cursing Creon for the death of their son. Having denied the obligation of family, Creon loses his own. Creon’s rule, marked by ignoring or transgressing cosmic and family law, is shown as ultimately inadequate and destructive. Creon is made to realize that he has been rash and foolish, that “Whatever I have touched has come to nothing.” Both Creon and Antigone have been pushed to terrifying ends in which what truly matters to both are made starkly clear. Antigone’s moral imperatives have been affirmed but also their immense cost in suffering has been exposed. Antigone explores a fundamental rift between public and private worlds. The central opposition in the play between Antigone and Creon, between duty to self and duty to state, dramatizes critical antimonies in the human condition. Sophocles’ genius is his resistance of easy and consoling simplifications to resolve the oppositions. Both sides are ultimately tested; both reveal the potential for greatness and destruction.

24 lectures on Greek Tragedy by Dr. Elizabeth Vandiver.

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Early Modern Antigones: Receptions, Refractions, Replays

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Robert S. Miola, Early Modern Antigones: Receptions, Refractions, Replays, Classical Receptions Journal , Volume 6, Issue 2, June 2014, Pages 221–244, https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clt015

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Early modern reimaginings of Antigone's story often focus on Creon the tyrant, or fragment the tale into rhetorical or moral lessons. They often overlook Antigone herself or transform her into a pious family supporter or a doomed romantic. They begin in humanist receptions of Greek tragedy, especially the seminal works of Camerarius and Melanchthon. Latin translations of Sophocles by Gabia, Winshemius, Ratallerus and others present other variations. The reimaginings continue in various refractions by Erasmus and others, fragmentary appropriations of the Antigone mythos. And they culminate in dramatic replays, Continental and English versions of the Antigone story by Alamanni, Garnier, Watson, and May. As Antigone herself said prophetically to Ismene, καλῶς σὺ μὲν τοῖσ, τοῖσ μὲν δ’εγὼ’δόκουν φρονεῖν (l. 557, ‘Some thought you reasoned rightly, others thought I did’). Pervasive patterns of early modern deflection, recontextualization, and refiguration show that most early moderns, implicitly or explicitly, sided with Ismene.

It has, I believe, been given to only one literary text [Sophocles’ Antigone ] to express all the principal constants of conflict in the condition of man. These constants are fivefold: the confrontation of men and of women; of age and of youth; of society and of the individual; of the living and the dead; of men and of god(s). (Steiner 1984 : 231)

The brilliance to which George Steiner here pays tribute has often obscured Antigone ’s participation in the larger mythopoesis of the Theban saga and the ill-fated Labdacid house. Laius, Jocasta, Oedipus, the Seven against Thebes, Creon, Antigone, Ismene, Haemon, and the Sons of the Seven appear frequently and diversely in Greek literature and iconography. 1 They figure in the Theban epic cycle— Oedipodea , Thebaid , and Epigoni —as well as in other poetry, prose, and drama. Aeschylus fashioned two tetralogies on these subjects (one including his Seven against Thebes ); Sophocles, two other Theban plays ( Oedipus and Oedipus at Colonus ); and Euripides, Phoenissae and a largely lost Antigone . In Latin Seneca contributed Phoenissae and Oedipus , and Statius, his influential Thebais .

These versions conceived variously the conflicts that make up the Antigone story. Antigone herself is barely present in the remains of the epic cycle, and there, as elsewhere, her mother is Euryganeia not Jocasta (West 2003 : 38–41). In his Antigone Sophocles depicts the conflict between Creon and Antigone over burial of Polynices’ body, but others portray Thebes and Athens fighting over the burial of the enemy dead. Many retellings, including those of Sophocles elsewhere and Euripides, portray Antigone as the compliant, dutiful daughter of Oedipus, accompanying her blind father to his death in Colonus. Although motivated by love of family and the gods, this good daughter little resembles the angry, contemptuous rebel of Sophocles’ Antigone . Commenting on modern stage versions, Mee and Foley ( 2011 : 6–7) aptly observe: ‘ Antigone has always been already adapted, and the current tradition of adapting, remaking, and remixing stories based on Greek myths thus corresponds to what was, even in Antiquity, understood to be a continuously evolving tradition’.

In the Antigone that has become central to this tradition, Mark Griffith demonstrates (8–9), Sophocles virtually reinvented the received myths, altering the conflict from national to familial, amplifying the role of the gods, adding Ismene and Eurydice, dramatizing Antigone’s betrothal to Haemon, her condemnation, and her eventual suicide. The plot of Euripides’ lost Antigone reflected or created another tradition entirely: as Aristophanes of Byzantium notes, ‘she [Antigone] is detected in company with Haemon and is joined with him in marriage; and she gives birth to a child, Maeon’ (Collard and Cropp 2008 : 161). And in this tradition Antigone came to a very different end, at least as we infer from Hyginus (who perhaps also echoes the lost Antigone plays of the younger Astydamas and Accius): recognizing Maeon, Creon realizes that Haemon has not killed Antigone, as ordered, but married her; Haemon then kills Antigone and himself ( Fabulae 72). Ion of Chios, additionally, reported Antigone’s death with Ismene by burning in Hera’s temple (Page 1983 : 383). 2

Sophocles, then, created precisely those aspects of the Antigone story which moderns like George Steiner have found so admirable and compelling: the struggle between those mighty opposites, Creon and Antigone (and all the conflicts comprehended therein), the ethical ambivalences, the paradoxical character of Antigone herself, fierce and pathetic, defiant and obedient, uncompromising protagonist and innocent victim, heroic even unto death. Precisely these aspects of the play, however, many early moderns found disturbing and objectionable. Powerful literary, moral, and cultural imperatives then demanded moral certainties and practical exempla from ancient tragedy, not ethical ambivalence, the depiction of universal human conflicts, and that complicated and threatening female lead. Consequently, many early modern commentators and translators flattened the play into an object lesson about the abuse of power, simply reading Creon as a tyrant who suffers condign punishment for his stubbornness and pride. Others deployed an aggressive strategy of fragmentation: they mined the play for memorable sayings, rhetorical figures, and moral bromides, all removed from context.

For such readers Antigone herself posed even greater problems. What useful lessons, after all, could they draw for patriotic, patriarchal Christian audiences about a political rebel who claims allegiance to a higher law than that of the state, a female who defies males and duly constituted family authority, and a condemned woman who hangs herself in despair? Most early modern commentators and translators betray a deep unease with Sophocles’ female hero: some accord Antigone faint and qualified praise; some overlook or ignore her entirely; some domesticate her into a pious family supporter or a doomed romantic; and, finally, some simply dismiss her as a vicious sinner. As Antigone herself said prophetically to Ismene, καλῶς σὺ μὲν τοῖς, τοῖς μὲν δ’εγὼ ’δόκουν φρονεῖν (l. 557, ‘Some thought you reasoned rightly, others thought I did’). 3 Most early moderns, implicitly or explicitly, sided with Ismene.

Meaning … is always realized at the point of reception.     (Martindale 1993 : 3)

The initial point of reception for Antigone in the early modern period is the humanist recovery of classical drama, especially Sophocles, and subsequent translation of Greek tragedy into Latin. 4 The Aldine press issued the editio princeps of Sophocles in 1502 and Turnebus’ Paris edition of 1552–3 incorporated the Triclinian recension (Lloyd-Jones and Wilson 1990b : 1). Joachim Camerarius wrote an influential commentary on the Theban plays ( 1534 ), reprinted in Henri Estienne’s 1568 edition and elsewhere. Few readers in early modern Europe had sufficient Greek to read Sophocles in the original so Latin translations flourished, including those by Gentian Hervé (1541), Giovanni Gabia (Venice, 1543 ), Veit Winshemius (Frankfurt, 1546 ), Georgius Ratallerus (Lyons, 1550), Johannes Lalamantius (Paris, 1557), and Thomas Naogeorgius (Basle, 1558). 5 These translations, according to the dictum traduttore , traditore , subtly and pervasively redefined the conflicts, fit the Greek text to alien political and religious hermeneutics, and presented various Antigones, as well as Creons, Haemons, Ismenes, and choruses, to their readers. Meditating on the migration of classical texts across times and cultures, Jan Parker ( 2011 : 13) has aptly observed, ‘From the start the question was not so much a celebration of great and humane texts passed down (tradition) and reinvented in/ incorporated into other cultures (translation) but of the potentially rebarbative, politically dangerous, irritant, painful, or at least challenging nature of such texts (trauma): a painful, ongoing marking effect of such texts sometimes lost and sometimes made potent in reception’.

At ubi uir bonus & honestatis uirtutisque amans, indignum in malum impellitur quasi fatali ui, aut peccata vel non voluntate, vel ignoratione quoque commissa, poenas extremas sustinent, tum & metus & misericordia talibus ab exemplis homines inuadit, et lamenta horroresque excitantur. ( 1534 : sig. B3) But when a good man, loving honesty and virtue, is driven to an undeserved end as by the force of fate or by sins committed involuntarily or ignorantly, and these sustain extreme punishments, then both fear and pity by such examples seize men and laments and dread are aroused.

Reflecting this Aristotelian conception of Greek tragedy, Camerarius sees Antigone as the good protagonist unjustly destroyed. Rejecting Ismene early on (ll. 69ff.), she is ‘magnanima’ ( 1534 : sig. I3, ‘great souled’), not only unmollified by her sister’s speech but made even more vehement by it. Her intention to commit a holy crime (ὅσια πανουργήσασ’, l. 74) Camerarius copiously expands in Latin paraphrases that suggest her impossible dilemma: ‘in sancto facinore’, ‘honestum furtum, piam fraudem’ ( 1534 : sig. I3, ‘in holy wickedness’, ‘honest theft’, ‘pious fraud’). Her challenge to Ismene draws the sympathetic rhetorical question: ‘How much more just is it to obey the command of the gods than that of men?’ ( 1534 : sig. I3). But Camerarius cannot be unequivocally positive. He explains the Chorus’ strange mixture of approbation and accusation (ll. 871–4) as follows: ‘Non probat factum Antigonae omnino Choribus, quod contrarium fuerit edicto regio’ ( 1534 : sig. L3v, ‘The deed of Antigone is not altogether approved by the Chorus, because it was contrary to the royal edict’). Camerarius praises the elegant verses that celebrate the right of magistrates and notes the paradox: the Chorus calls Antigone piam puellam but denies her right to civil disobedience ( 1534 : sig. L4).

Camerarius may have reservations about Antigone but he casts Creon as the unqualified villain. Creon changes the inhuman counsel of his mind late (‘Sero … mutat animi sui inhumanum consilium’, 1534 : sig. I1v). Creon’s imperious dismissal of his son against the Chorus’ warning draws this censure: ‘That insane man does not respect himself nor his only son, the hope of the kingdom . … How could the character of the raving tyrant be described more graphically?’ (‘ille insanus neque se neque unicum filium spem regni respicit. … Quomodo potuisset magis graphice tyranni rabiosa persona describi?’, 1534 : sig. L1v). Tiresias later reproves Creon’s savagery (‘saeuitiam’), warning that such stubbornness (‘pertinaciam’, 1534 : sig. L7) will cause great evils.

The translation of Greek tragedy into Latin effected a pervasive domestication and dislocation that supported the Aristotelian moral reading. Greek terms that define ethical conflicts yield to Latin substitutes that evoke alien associations and referents, and thus reframe and alter the tragedy. Words deriving from σεβ- (εὐσέβεια, εὐσέβειν), for example, denoting ‘worship, honor, and reverence’, recur throughout the play. The semantic field, according to Griffith ( 1999 : 39), includes honoring obligations owed to gods, but also to parents, the dead and others. The various recurrences express the contradictory claims of the principals and define their conflicts. Creon demands reverence for political authority, οὐ γὰρ σέβεις, τιμάς γε τὰς θεῶν πατῶν (l. 745, ‘you show no reverence, trampling on the honors due to the gods’); he blasphemously concludes, πόνος περισσός ἐστι τὰν Ἅιδου σέβειν (l. 780, ‘it is wasted effort to reverence things in Hades’). Antigone must reverence her family (τοὺς ὁμοσπλάγχνους σέβειν, l. 511) and reverence itself (oἷα πρὸς οἵων ἀνδρῶν πάσχω, / τὴν εὐσέβίαν σεβίσασα, l. 943, ‘what things I suffer from what men for revering reverence’).

Antigone’s cruelly paradoxical summary of her own predicament occurs earlier as well and defines her plight, τὴν δυσσέβειαν εὐσεβοῦσ’ ἐκτησάμην (l. 924, ‘For acting reverently I have been convicted of irreverence’). Camerarius renders this as ‘pietate obtinui impietatis crimen’ ( 1534 : sig. L5, ‘for piety I have acquired the charge of impiety’). So, similarly, Gabia in his Latin translation of the play: ‘impietatem pie me gerens acquisiui’ ( 1543 : sig. N, ‘acting piously I have attained impiety’). 6 But the change to pietas , that roughly parallel Roman virtue, imaged by the offering of sacrifice on Roman coins, diminishes the range of σεβ- possibilities, excluding its higher frequencies wherein Greek worship, like Antigone herself, could be emotional, infatuate, dangerous, self-enlarging, self-transcending. Inevitably evoking images of pius Aeneas carrying Anchises out of the burning city and his reluctant abandonment of Dido, Roman pietas connotes rational acceptance of responsibility, submission to duty, and suppression of self. It echoes with Christian associations of the Italian pieta , of the Virgin cradling her dead son, in sorrowful acceptance, not in defiant worship. And in romance languages the softer associations of derivatives—‘piety’, ‘pity’— shaped later portrayals especially Garnier’s Antigone ou La Pieté (1580).

Translation into Latin effected other changes in the moral issues and ethical conflicts of the tragedy. After experiencing the catastrophe, the Chorus says, οὐκ ἀλλοτρίαν / ἄτην, ἀλλ’ αὺτὸς ἁμαρτών, (ll. 1259–60, ‘his ruin came not from others, but from his own error’, tr. Lloyd-Jones). Creon laments, ἰὼ / φρενῶν δυσφρόνων ἁμαρτήματα / στερεὰ θανατόεντ’ (1261–3, ‘Woe for the errors of my mistaken mind, obstinate and fraught with death!’, tr. Lloyd-Jones). Ἁμαρτία or ἁμάρτημα, ‘fault’, can mean ‘unwitting error’, as Lloyd-Jones suggests, since the verb ἁμαρτάνειν sometimes signifies ‘to miss the mark’, especially of a spear throw. The blame in στερεὰ (‘stubborn’, hard’) finds balance perhaps in the doom of the relatively rare θανατόεντ’ (‘deadly’), self-reproach mingling with lament in the agitated dochmiacs of Creon’s cry. Ἁμαρτία or ἁμάρτημα of course, can also signify a willfully committed crime. Creon’s self-reproach and many other actions of the play vacillate between these two poles of meaning and defy translation. Ismene proclaims that she and Antigone commit an equal offense (ἴση … ’ξαμαρτία, l. 558); Creon thinks Antigone has been guilty of crime (ἁμαρτάνειν, l. 914) in burying her brother. Tiresias claims that all men either make mistakes or do wrong (τοὐξαμαρτάνειν, l. 1024), but then they must repair the damage and act wisely.

Again, translation into Latin constricts the delicate interplay of meanings in the Greek, and simplifies the rich palette of possibilities. In Gabia’s version of the climactic passage, the Chorus sees ‘non alienam / Calamitatem, sed ipse peccans’ ( 1543 : sig. Nvii, ‘not the disaster of another but he himself sinning’). Creon, accordingly, laments, ‘Heu mentium imprudentium, / Peccata firma, / Letalia’ ( 1543 : sig. Nvii, ‘O the hard and deadly sins of imprudent minds’). Similarly Ratallerus has the Chorus refer to Creon’s ‘culpa’ (‘fault’). Creon exclaims: ‘O menteis ter stolidas! / O peccata atrocia!’ ( 1570 : sig. I2v, ‘O triply stupid mind! O terrible sins!’). Ἁμαρτία or ἁμάρτημα become simply ‘sin’, Creon, simply a sinner. And the mysterious power of ἄτη (l. 1260), ‘bewilderment, delusion, punishment, crime, ruin’, so powerfully and fearfully conjured in the second stasimon and again here, becomes simply deserved punishment. Negating the possibility of extenuation and ambivalence, these changes diminish Sophoclean awe at the dangerous incomprehensibility of the gods and the world, and at the plight of wretched mortals, poised precariously between fate and freedom, error and crime. Such narrowing of scope was inevitable in the Judaeo-Christian universe in which Antigone and Creon now appeared. The Vulgate had long since settled the translation of ἁμαρτάνω as ‘pecco’ and ἁμαρτία and ἁμάρτημα as ‘peccatum’. And the King James translation of the New Testament dutifully followed suit, rendering the fifty-three appearances of the Greek words as ‘sin’ or, in three verses, ‘trespass’ 7

The linguistic and cultural drift of humanist reception and Latin translation had another far-reaching consequence for Creon in early modern renderings, evident already in Camerarius’ commentary. Tiresias once refers to Creon as belonging to the breed of tyrants (τυράννων, l. 1056, ‘absolute rulers’). The Greek τύραννος, sometimes interchangeable with βασιλεύς (’king’) can apply to gods, to members of the royal family, and also, as in Plato and Aristotle, to evil rulers. Tiresias certainly hints at the pejorative meaning in his reproach. Excluding the neutral or positive possibilities, however, later ages freighted the term ‘tyrant’ with political and moral opprobrium. The tyrant became diametrically opposed to the just king in European political discussions about obedience, sovereignty, the social contract, the nature and limits of state power, civil responsibility, the possibility of justifiable rebellion and even regicide. Many discussions, like the influential one of Aegidius Romanus Colonna ( De regimine principum , Venice, 1502 ) itemized the contrasts between tyrant, who ruled for himself, and just king, who ruled for the good of the commonweal. ‘Tyrant’ appears as a term of reproach throughout Shakespeare’s histories and tragedies.

Camerarius’ characterization of Creon as tyrannus thus marks him for early modern readers as an evil ruler, though Sophocles’ Creon does show flexibility (l. 771), and much of what he argues about the ruler and the state would have been orthodox political theory in early modern Europe as well as in ancient Greece. This characterization shapes the reception of the entire play, moreover, since tragedy, according to contemporary poetic theory, taught precepts for good governance (‘de gubernanda bene Rep. praecepta’) by showing the fall of great kings (‘magnorum regum casus’) and changes in kingdoms (‘mutationes Regnorum’), as Ratallerus, explained in the prefatory epistle to his translation ( 1570 : sig * 3). Philip Sidney, of course, expressed these ideas in his An Apology for Poetry (wr. c . 1579): Tragedy ‘maketh Kinges feare to be Tyrants, and Tyrants manifest their tirannicall humors’ (Smith 1971 : 1: 177). Accordingly, Ratallerus all but ignores Antigone in his prefatory summary of the play: Sophocles shows us in this tragedy that the plague of princes and republics is τήν ἀβουλίαν ( 1570 : sig. 8v, ‘ill-advisedness’, ‘thoughtlessness’). Creon rules for his pleasure (‘pro libidine’), does not yield to sound counsel (‘sano consilio’), rejects the good advice of Tiresias and suffers ruin. Ratallerus ends with the moral wrap-up: The man whom reason could not instruct, the outcome, “misfortune at last accepted, renders wiser’ (‘malo tandem accepto sapientiorem reddidit’, 1570 : sig. 8v). The tragedy of Antigone becomes deflected into the tragedy of Creon.

Contemporary understanding of Aristotle’s poetics, translation into post-classical Latin, and Christian doctrine all combined to re-shape Greek tragedy in the early modern period. The Christianizing impulse reaches a culmination in Philipp Melanchthon’s Adhortatio … de legendas tragoediis & comoediis (wr. 1545), which argues that ancient tragedies do not teach kings precepts for governing the republic well, but instead teach everyone the art of living well (‘doctrina de gubernatione vitae’, 1555 : sig. a3v). Falls of kings and changes in kingdoms have universal moral application, illustrating the folly of human nature, the inconstancy of fortune, the calm endings of the just and, contrarily, the grievous punishments of the wicked ( 1555 : sig. a2). Contradicting Camerarius, who classified only undeserved suffering as tragic, Melanchthon argues that Greek tragedies depict just punishments for ‘depraved passions’ (‘pravis cupiditatibus’, 1555 : sig. a2v). Considering such examples, audiences should turn their rude and wild minds toward moderation and self-control (‘ad moderationem et frenandas cupiditates’, 1555 : sig. a2). He asserts that all Greek tragedy teaches one universal truth, ‘quam Vergilius reddidit: “Discite iustitiam”, monui, “et non spernere divos”’ (‘as Vergil rendered it, “Learn Justice,” I advised, “and do not scorn the gods”’ [ Aen . 6. 620], 1555 : sig. a2v). The plays reveal the guiding presence of ‘aliquam mentem eternam’ ( 1555 : sig. a2v, ‘some eternal mind’) that always dispenses deserved punishments and rewards. In this view, the calamities that befall mortals like Oedipus, Antigone, Medea, Orestes, and Electra, the capricious and cruel acts of the gods, not to mention the mysterious force of ἄτη, like a wave rolling up from the dark depths of the sea to ruin all ( Antigone 584–92), only proclaim the justice and providence of the almighty Christian God.

Melanchthon’s ideas found specific application in the Sophocles edition produced by his student, Veit Winshemius, Interpretatio Tragoediarum Sophoclis ( 1546 ). The preface repeats the argument of the Adhortatio , again adducing the Vergilian sententia and the ‘mentem aeternam’ ( 1546 : sig. A3v) that urges us to check passions and live justly. The preface to the play identifies its main question: ‘Whether one must obey the dictates of religion and piety even if prohibited by tyrants or magistrates’ (‘Vtrum religioni & pietati obediendum sit, etiamsi id Tyranni vel Magistratus prohibeant’, 1546 : sig. O1). The tyrant asserts the necessity of obeying authority but his argument is merely a specious excuse for savagery (‘saevitiam’, 1546 : sig. O1v). Like all tyrants Creon does not observe ‘modus’ (‘limit’, ‘moderation’). His punishment teaches how much evil stubbornness and savagery bring (‘quantum mali illi pertinacia & saeuicia attulerit’, 1546 : sigs. O1v–O2).

The play illustrates other lessons of Christian morality. In the famous πολλὰ τὰ δεινά speech, Sophocles says that man advances sometimes to evil, sometimes to good (τοτὲ μὲν κακόν, ἄλλοτ’ ἐπ’ ἐσθλὸν ἕρπει, l. 367), or in Winshemius’ translation, ‘aliquando ad malum, interdum ad bonum uertit’ ( 1546 : sig. P2). The substitution of ‘uertit’ for ἕρπει ‘turns’ for ‘advances’, emphasizes the individual moment of moral choice rather than our back and forth movement through time, human life shuttling inevitably between good and evil. A dour Protestant warning in the margin points the moral: ‘cor hominis prauum & inscrutabile’. ‘the heart of man is depraved and inscrutable’. Fallen humanity chooses sin. In this Antigone , moreover, the titular character fades from consideration; Creon learns a hard lesson, ‘ne tyranni putent sibi impune omnia licere’ ( 1546 : sig. R2, ‘Tyrants must not think that they can do all things with impunity’); and the audience sees in his fate the perils of ‘pertinacia’ or ‘stubbornness’, the sin that evokes the just punishment of God. Such interpretation leaves little scope for pity, for terror, or for tragedy, at least as Aristotle, Camerarius, and many since have conceived it.

Let us take a classic, any classic, in our native literature or in another. Chances are that we did not first come into contact with it in its unique, untouchable, “sacralized” form. Rather, for most (if not all) of us the classic in question quite simply was, for all intents and purposes, its refraction, or rather a series of refractions: the comic strip, the extract in school anthologies and anthologies used in universities, the film, the TV serial, the plot summary … .     (Lefevere 1981 : 73)

Lefevere here usefully expands upon his general definition of refractions as ‘texts that have been processed for a certain audience (children, e.g.) or adapted to a certain poetics or a certain ideology’ ( 1981 : 72); for him, refractions of classics, as the deep root frangere implies, often appear as fragments—extracts, anthology pieces, summaries—dislocated from original contexts and deployed to new purposes. Early moderns appropriated ancient myth in just this piecemeal way. Winshemius, for example, commends Antigone for its brilliant images and descriptions, descriptions of duty, justice, and religion, its wealth of orations and wise sayings ( 1546 : sig. O2). Ignoring theatrical and performance issues as well as context, he, like other humanists, reads the play as a series of excerptable moral instructions and rhetorical figures rather than as a unified drama. His marginalia insistently call attention to ‘querelae’ and ‘sententiae’, as well as to rhetorical modes and devices: ‘narratio’ ( 1546 : sig. O3v), ‘conclusio’ ( 1546 : sig. O4v), ‘occupatio’ ( 1546 : sig. O6v), ‘confutatio’ ( 1546 : sig. O8v), ‘similitudo’ ( 1546 : sig. P8v) ‘collatio & amplificatio’ ( 1546 : sig. Q4), ‘exempla’ ( 1546 : sig. Q4v). Winshemius also marks commonplaces (‘loci communes’), usually general reflections on human life in the choral speeches. The πολλὰ τὰ δεινά speech, for example, shows that the human mind tries and dares all (sig. P1v); Creon’s speech to Antigone (ll. 473ff.) supplies a ‘locus de pertinacia’ ( 1546 : sig. P4), an enduring example of the unreasoning stubbornness that he, as well as many fallen readers, embodies.

This entirely typical adoption of rhetoric as a guiding hermeneutic atomizes the play into a series of individual and transferable figures, lessons, and arguments. Like other ancient texts, the plays of Sophocles furnish memorable passages for later generations, usually translated, always removed from original context. In Marliani’s ( 1545 ) collection of sentences, for example, Antigone supplies nine pages of Latin sayings on reverencing Gods, obeying magistrates, the difficulties of aging, the evils of money, and so forth. Erasmus’ monumental Adagiorum chiliades provides a similar set of refractions. The 1533 edition (and those thereafter) contain a series of twenty-three annotated proverbs featuring Sophocles’ Antigone , these fragmentary encounters constituting an important early modern reading of the play. 8

Erasmus clearly reads the play as Creon’s tragedy. Glossing ‘Prima felicitatis pars sapere’ ( 1536 : V.i.87, ‘Wisdom is the chief part of happiness’), Erasmus writes, ‘De Creonte dictum est, qui dum mauult animo suo quam rectis consiliis obtemperare & suos & se funditus perdidit’ (‘This was said of Creon who preferred to obey his own mind rather than wise counsels and destroyed utterly his family and himself’). Creon speaks with an impious mind (‘impio animo’, 1536 : V.i.95) and is guilty of offenses against the gods (‘offensis diis’, 1536 : V.i.97). Quoting Creon’s demand for absolute obedience, καὶ σμικrὰ καὶ δίκαια καὶ τἀναντία (l. 667, ‘in small things and in just things and their opposites’), Erasmus comments, ‘Vox autem tyranni est non principis. Neque enim princeps est, qui praescribit inusta,’ ( 1536 : V.ii.5, ‘This is the voice of a tyrant not a prince. For he is not a prince who orders unjust things’). Creon learns justice too late ( 1536 : V.1.88), suffers divine vengeance for his wickedness ( 1536 : V.i.89), and realizes ἀνάγκῃ δ’ οὐχὶ δυσμαχητέον (l. 1106, ‘one cannot fight against necessity’), or against ‘fata’, ‘the fates’, as Erasmus translates the word. He comments further, ‘Nemo potest uitare quod deus nobis immittit’ ( 1536 : V.i.90, ‘No one can escape what God sends to us’). 9

The shift from necessity to the fates to God describes the familiar Christian arc of interpretation that underlies humanist receptions of antiquity. Like Melanchthon, Erasmus reads Antigone as a story of deserved punishment, an object lesson against tyranny, obstinacy, and impiety. He several times explicitly evokes a Judaeo-Christian context. Summarizing Creon’s fall ( 1536 : V.i.99), Erasmus cites Proverbs 16.18, ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall’ (KJV). Glossing τὸ μαντικὸν γὰρ πᾶν φιλάργυρον γένος (l. 1055, ‘all prophets are a greedy tribe’), he takes a satirical jab at corrupt ministers in the contemporary church ( 1536 : V.i.92). And finally, he applies Creon’s saying, θεοὺς μιαίνειν οὔτις ἀνθρώπων σθένει (l. 1044, ‘no mortal has the power to pollute the gods’), to current controversies over the Incarnation. This saying, Erasmus declares, is a good response to those who think it improper that God lay in the womb of the Virgin ( 1536 : V.i.95, ‘in matrice virginis’) and came into the world as a human being. The magical poetics of refraction, characterized by fragmentation, decontextualization, Christian didacticism, and an emphasis on rhetoric, enable Creon the tyrant, just for a moment, to play orthodox theologian.

As these examples illustrate, early moderns eclectically appropriated ancient texts to new ends, freely reconstructing ancient characters in the process. In England Creon frequently appears as this or that negative exemplum. Richard Harvey numbers him among ‘those reproachful and shameful men’ who disrespect priests ( 1590 : sigs. V1v–V2). Writers also condemn his refusal to bury all the Argive dead, not just Polynices, and recall his deserved slaying by Theseus—neither event dramatized in Sophocles’ play. In Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’ the wife of Capaneus (one of the Seven) calls him full of ‘yre and of iniquite’ ‘To done the deed bodyes vyllanye’ ( 1542 : sig. Ci[v]) and recalls Theseus’ revenge. Likewise, Thomas Cooper in his popular Thesaurus Linguae Romanae & Brittanicae remembers Theseus and praises Argia, Polynices’ wife, who performs the burial with Antigone ( 1578 : sig. Eeeeeee.v). Shakespeare’s and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen , features Creon’s nephews, Palamon and Arcite, escaping the ‘most unbounded tyrant, whose successes / Makes heaven unfeared’ (I.2.63–4). In his court, ‘sin is justice, lust and ignorance / The virtues of the great ones’ (II.2.106–7). Llodowick Lloyd sees a general lesson in Creon’s death, ‘The ende of Tirants is to die in tyrannie’ ( 1573 : sig. Yy4). Thomas Taylor, departing from Statius who has Theseus bury Creon, observes poetic justice in an alternate ending: Theseus finally ‘served him [Creon] with the same sauce’, forbidding burial and leaving his carcass as prey for beasts and birds ( 1642 : sig. Ddd2v).

Haemon also comes to new life in surprising figurations. Adducing Antigone 1226–34, Haemon’s abortive impulse to kill Creon, Aristotle explained that this incident exemplified the fourth and least tragic type of plot, wherein someone is about to commit a crime knowingly but does not. Aristotle declares such a plot both repugnant and untragic because it lacks suffering ( Poetics 1453b–1454a), a conclusion echoed by Castelvetro (Bongiorno 1984 : 179–82) among others. Despite such ignoble casting, Haemon also became in the popular imagination a romantic lead who died for love. Though Sophocles’ Antigone movingly laments the fate of dying unwed, she shows little interest in her betrothed; Euripides’ Antigone breaks off the engagement and threatens to kill Haemon if forced to marry him ( Phoe . l. 1675). Moreover, anger and frustration at his father, as much as love of his fiancée, motivate Haemon’s suicide in Sophocles’ play. But Thomas Watson, who translated Antigone into Latin, saw Haemon as a type of true lover who suffers for love in his sonnet sequence Hekatompathia ( 1582 : sig. D3v). Later in the sequence Watson recalls his description of Haemon to express ‘the particular miseries that befall him who loveth’. Sonnet 79 elaborates upon these miseries, revealing in detail the passion the drives one to fall from love and all its laws, ‘And gentle death is only end of woe’ ( 1582 : sig. K4). William Bosworth goes even further, rewriting the story into a full-blown amatory pastoral fiction: Haemon, ‘the fairest boy / Of Thebes city’ ( 1651 : sig. C5v) loves Antigone, ‘Whose face from sable night did snatch the day / And made it day’ ( 1651 : sig. C6v). Antigone dies for love of Haemon; he laments: ‘ther’s some mishap / Hath sure enforc’t the Fatall Nymphes to crap / Their still still brittle threads’ ( 1651 : sig. D1v). After composing an elegy, he expires on her tomb, his blood becoming a columbine. Sophocles’ Haemon finally gets conceived and played by Nick Bottom the weaver.

Refractions of Antigone from Sophocles’ play and other representations also appear in various early modern contexts. Arguing that one should give reasons for anything that seems incredible, Aristotle quoted Antigone’s troublesome assertion that she would not defy the edict for husband or son since she could replace them but, her parents being in Hades, she could not replace her brother (ll. 906–12, Rhet . 3.16. 1417a32–3). Though this reasoning contradicts her claim of obedience to divine law, William Vaughan praises it as an expression of fraternal love ( 1600 : sig. A2). Archbishop of Ireland James Ussher cited the lines to clarify the nature of hell and thereby refute Roman beliefs about Purgatory (1624: sigs. Aaa1v–Aaa2). Focusing on devotion to her father in exile from other parts of the tradition, many early modern writers praise Antigone as an exemplar of filial piety. Robert Albott, includes her in a list of good children who properly rendered back benefits to their parents ( 1599 : sig. P8). Defending women against male detractors, Alexandre de Pontaymeri recalls Antigone’s constancy, ‘of such merite, as all men together cannot boast anything to come neere it’, and her piety: ‘christianity as yet never conceived the like’ ( 1599 : sig. C). 10

A few writers had more extended encounters with Antigone. In the first performance of a Greek tragedy in English, Jocasta at Gray’s Inn (1566), Euripides’ Phoenissae mediated through Lodovico Dolce, George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh present Antigone as a conventionally pious young girl. Antigone’s kiss of her brother’s corpse shows ‘the fruites of true kyndly love’; her decision to accompany Oedipus, ‘the duty of a childe truly perfourmed’ (Cunliffe 1969 : vol. 1: 320–21). 11 In Phineas Fletcher’s complicated allegory of the human being, The Purple Island , Antigone appears also as an exemplar of active virtue. Listing various works of charity—feeding, clothing, sheltering the poor, and the like—Fletcher recalls Antigone as the culminating example of the last corporal work of mercy, burial of the dead. Those who perform this work of charity imitate ‘that royall maid’ of Thebes, who defied ‘wilfull Creon’ and buried her brother with ‘dainty hands’ ( 1633 : sig R3). A character in George Chapman’s The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois appropriates Antigone to very different ends. There the political manipulator Baligny defends conspiracy, rebellion, and regicide, adducing first the example of Brutus, ‘Gods iust instrument’; he then recalls ‘sweet Antigone’, who valued the eternal laws of God over the laws of kings, which ‘alter euery day and houre’ ( 1613 : sig. D2). Cynically plotting, Baligny casts Antigone as religious rebel and republican hero.

What childe is there that, comming to a Play and seeing Thebes written in great Letters vpon an olde doore, doth beleeue that it is Thebes ?     (Sidney, ed. Smith 1971 : 1: 185)

All poetry including drama, Philip Sidney explains, presents not historical truth but patent fiction, ‘imaginatiue groundplot of a profitable inuention’. The poet ranges freely within the zodiac of his wit to bring forth for his readers ‘things either better then Nature bringeth forth, or, quite a newe, formes such as neuer were in Nature’(1: 156). Following Sidney’s prescription, early modern playwrights enjoyed full freedom to ‘invent’ (from invenire ) ancient myths, i.e. ‘to discover’ and ‘to create’ them anew, to ‘replay’ them in new contexts to new audiences. Playwrights variously reimagined Thebes and Sophocles’ Antigone to serve various poetic, political, and moral purposes.

Luigi Alamanni’s Tragedia di Antigone ( 1532 ), for example, an early translation into Italian, adapts the play to prevailing poetic fashions. Alamanni expands the third stasimon, an 18-line choral song on the power of eros, into a 45-line love lyric. 12 In Sophocles’ song Eros, whom neither mortals nor immortals can escape (ll. 787–90), drives all mad, wrenches men’s minds from justice, and causes the quarrel between Creon and Haemon. Alamanni refigures this dark, destructive power as Petrarchan amor : ‘Oh qual perpetuo amaro, / Oh qual giogo aspro e duro / Sente colui che te dentro riceve!’ (Spera 1997 : ll. 1018–20, ‘Oh what perpetual bitterness, what a harsh and hard yoke, feels the one who receives you within’). Even the fishes in the sea feel the burning fire (‘ardente foco’, Spera 1997 : l. 1007) of love. This is the love Alamanni sings about in his sonnet sequence, the love that places the lover between ‘dolcezza’ and ‘dolore’, ‘tra speranza & timor, tra riso & pianto’ ( 1532 : 188, ‘sweetness and sorrow, between hope and fear, between laughter and weeping’). Alamanni’s aged chorus does not sing of the strange power that disrupts human life but gives avuncular advice about a familiar malady in conventional lyrical terms.

Bench’io non credo mai ch’altro tormento Possa sentir più greve un cor gentile Che non morir con fama eterna e lode. (Spera 1997 : ll. 142–4) Although I do not believe that a gentle heart can suffer any torment more grave than to die without eternal fame and praise.

Vostre patrie a veu ses nourricieres plaines, De chevaux, de harnois, et de gendarmes pleines: Elle a veu ses coustaux reluire, comme esclairs, D’armets estincelans, de targues, de bouclers Ses champs herissonner de picques menassantes .     (Beaudin 1997 : ll. 794–8) Your country has seen her nourishing plains full of horses, arms, and soldiers; she has seen her hills shine like lightning with gleaming armor and shields, her fields bristling with menacing pikes.

edipe : J’ay ma mere espousée, et massacré mon pere. antigone : Mais vous n’en sçaviez rien, vous ne le pensiez faire. edipe : C’est une foraicture, un prodige, une horreur. antigone : Ce n’est que fortune, un hazard, une erreur.     (Beaudin 1997 : ll. 129–32) oedipus : I married my mother, and slew my father. antigone : But you knew nothing, you did not intend to do it. oedipus : It is a crime, a monstrosity, an abomination. antigone : It is only a misfortune, an accident, an error.

creon : Qui vous a doncques fait enfreindre cette loy? antigone : L’ordonnance de Dieu, qui est nostre grand Roy. creon : Dieu ne commande pas qu’aux loix on n’obeïsse. antigone : Si fait, quand elles sont si pleines d’injustice.   Le grand Dieu, qui le Ciel et la Terre a formé,   Des homes a les loix aux siennes conformé .              (Beaudin 1997 : ll. 1806–11) creon : Who then made you disobey this law? antigone : The command of God, who is our great King. creon : God does not command that one disobey the laws. antigone : He does, when they are full of injustice.   The great God, who formed heaven and earth,   To his laws men’s laws must accord.

In England Thomas Watson’s Antigone ( 1581 ) recalls humanist receptions in its translation into Latin and didacticism (Camerarius even appears in a note, 1581 : sig. G1), but reaches new conclusions by new methods—Pomps (allegorical processions that illustrate morals) and Themes (short choral essays). 14 Together these comprise a masque-like afterpiece that morally anatomizes the four principal characters and the action. Creon again appears as the stubborn tyrant as the First Pomp depicts his folly in the form of a morality play: Justice ignores Equity, succumbs to Rigor, Obstinacy, and Impiety, and then suffers the Scourge and Late Repentance. The Theme attributes Creon’s downfall to ‘caecam philautian’ ( 1581 : sig. H4, ‘blind self-love’). As in earlier refractions, Haemon appears as the Lover, swept away in the Third Pomp by Cupid to Temerity, Impudence, Violent Impulse and Death. The corresponding Theme draws a dour moral: ‘amare simul & sapere vix cuiquam dari, interitus Haemonis docet’ ( 1581 : sig. I2v, ‘Haemon’s death teaches that it is scarcely granted to any man to love and be wise at the same time’). Remarkably Ismene emerges as the hero of the play: she follows Reason to Piety, Obedience, Security, and Happiness. The Theme celebrates the quiet life, and says that her example teaches ‘quae corrigere non possumus, ea attenare ne velimus’ ( 1581 : sig. I1v, ‘that we should not want to alter those things we cannot’).

Watson’s Antigone receives open condemnation. A loquacious Nature prefaced the play with this judgment: ‘Sed misera nondum cernit, affectum rudem / Debere patriae legibus locum dare’ ( 1581 : sig. B4, ‘But the wretched woman does not see that raw passion should give way to the laws of a country’). The many conflicts of the Greek play here get reduced to a clash between ‘rudem affectum’ and civil law. Divine mandate does not motivate Antigone in this version but ‘livis affectus’ ( 1581 : sig. H, ‘light emotion’), as the Second Pomp, puts it. This ‘affectus’ leads the Lofty Spirit to Transgression, Contumacy, Hatred, and Punishment. The Theme states the moral verdict succinctly: ‘Quam sit malum publico magistratus edicto non parere, Antigonae exemplum docet’ ( 1581 : sig. H4v, ‘The example of Antigone teaches what an evil thing it is to disobey a public magistrate’s edict’). Watson Poeta perfectly articulates Sidney’s claims about the poet’s freedom to create ‘groundplot of a profitable inuention’ for moral ends: ‘Conficta vitae debitum nostrae docet. / Persona cursum; quid decet, quid non sequi’ ( 1581 : sig. G3v, ‘The fictional character teaches the proper course of life, what is fitting, what not to pursue’). This Antigone carries the moralizing impulses of humanist reception to their furthest logical conclusion: unvoiced discontent turns to outright denunciation.

Yee powers of loue, bee all auspicious now. Hymen, redeeme the wrongs thou hast done Our house already; had I neuer seene Young Aemon’s face, nere knowne his matchlesse worth, No other man or minde had ere had power To warm Antigones cold breast with loue. ( 1631 : sig. B4)

The love affair culminates in a tomb scene that melodramatically mimics the end of Romeo and Juliet . Like Juliet, Antigone drinks a vial of poison; before it takes effect, she speaks, ‘I would, my dearest Aemon, / Be gone with thee rather then liue; but fate / Too cruel, fate preuents it’ ( 1631 : sig. E3v). Aemon then reprises Romeo to Paris (‘tempt not a desperate man’, V.3.59), ‘Doe not in vaine torment a desperate man’ ( 1631 : sig. E4). He too resolves to join his beloved ‘in the other world / To wedd thee there’ ( 1631 : sig. E4v), the poison again followed by the blade. 15 The expansion of Haemon and the invention of the love affair re-channel Antigone’s submerged and unsettling eroticism into conventional literary categories. The bride of Acheron, the sister who resolves to lie with her brother, dwindles into the pathetic lead in familiar love stories. 16

Thomas May inherits from Garnier political concerns also relevant to Caroline England—the nature and limits of monarchical rule, the origins of sovereignty, the role of citizens and constitutional authority. Though May enjoyed royal and courtly patronage, both Norbrook ( 1993 ) and Pocock ( 1999 ) have characterized him as a thoughtful, essentially republican respondent to the many political shifts of his age. Britland ( 2006 ) more specifically demonstrates that May’s Antigone articulates the political concerns of the late 1620s and 1630s, especially the fear of foreign invasion along with the duty of foreign aid, the problem of unheard speech, and the necessity of good counsel. The play reflects deeply on monarchy, opposing the tyrant Creon to the just ruler Theseus. After defeating Creon, Theseus significantly refuses the Theban scepter and turns the city over to its people. ‘No; still let Thebes be gouern’d by her owne; / Twas not our warres intention to enthrall / Your land, but free it from a tyrants yoake’ (1581: sig. E5v). Here May ‘investigates the concept of monarchical autonomy at a time when Charles was in the process of recalling what would be the last of his early parliaments’ (Britland 2006 : 142–3). Below all is another king, Pluto, ‘whose baleful Monarchy / The still repaired ruines of mankinde / Through euery age encrease’ (1581: sig. D2). And above all kings is “the will of heaven, the rule of nature” (1581: sig. D5v).

May’s desire to point a moral leads not to Watson’s extra-textual condemnation of Antigone but to a pervasive refashioning of action and character. The play begins with Antigone guiding Oedipus, then dramatizes the war against Thebes and Antigone’s defiance, and finally ends with her death and Theseus’ revenge on Creon. In addition to recuperating Antigone into conventional romantic narratives, May denies to his ‘Theban princesse’ two essential characteristics of the Greek prototype: allegiance to chthonic deities and a fiercely independent capacity for action. Diminishing Antigone’s role in the burial, this replay renders her harmlessly, even cloyingly, ‘pious’.

Sophocles’ Antigone professes her allegiance to Zeus and to Justice who lives with the gods below (ἡ ξύνοικος τῶν κάτω θεῶν Δίκη, l. 451). Unforgettably, she visualizes her death as a wedding: ἀλλά μ’ ὁ παγ- / κοίτας Ἅιδας ξῶσαν ἄγει / τὰν Ἀχέροντος / ἀκτάν (ll. 810–13, ‘Hades who puts all to bed is taking me living to the shore of Acheron’). Ἀχέροντι νυμφεύσω (l. 816, ‘I shall be the bride of Acheron’). The tomb is her bridal chamber (ὦ τύμβος, ὦ νυμφεῖον, l. 891). May, contrarily, associates his princess with heaven: Aemon says she bears ‘a heauen aboue / A heauen of vertue, that is proofe against / The furies rage, and fortunes vtmost spite: / You are aboue them all’ ( 1631 : sigs. B3v–B4). ‘Diuine Antigone’ speaks with a ‘heauenly voyce’ ( 1631 : sig. B4). The glance is upwards to the Christian afterlife where Haemon hopes her goodness will lift him as well, ‘higher than the power of fate can reach’ ( 1631 : sig. B4). To enforce the difference between the two Antigones, May transfers chthonic worship to witches (imported from Macbeth ), ‘blacke interpreters / Of Stygian counsells’ ( 1631 : sig. C8) who pray to the gods below. On stage they speak a charm to ‘affright / All pious loue from hence’ ( 1631 : sig. C8v), invoke Tartarus, Avernus, black night, and the horrors of Hades, and, instead of putting a corpse to rest, use ‘damned arts’ ( 1631 : sig. D3) to make a carcass speak. The redefinition of the supernatural and the redirection of the allegiances cancels Antigone’s subversive devotion to chthonic deities and flattens her into a Christian paradigm, ‘a lasting patterne / Of piety to all succeeding times’ ( 1631 : sig. B4v). The much repeated epithet ‘pious’ acts like a talisman to ward off the danger that Sophocles’ Antigone poses to established political, social, and religious order.

That Antigone acted with defiant independence. Opposing her foil Ismene and haughtily rejecting her belated offer of complicity (ll. 546–7), she embodies the isolated splendor of the Sophoclean tragic hero. 17 May, however, deletes Ismene from the story and introduces Argia, Polynices’ wife, who appears with other Argive wives (Ornitus, Deiphile), and petitions Theseus for redress against the tyrant Creon. A chorus of Argive women lament their unburied husbands and pray for justice ( 1631 : sigs. D3v-D5). Argia, not Antigone, resolves courageously to perform the burial ritual for Polynices: ‘No longer time, no danger shall withstand / That act, which loue, and my chast fires command’ ( 1631 : sig. C). After Argia appears on stage with her husband’s body, Antigone joins her ( 1631 : sig. C5v), relegated to a distinctly subordinate role in the civil disobedience and in the religious ritual. Giving precedence to the wife over the sister, the play ratifies rather than challenges traditional gender roles and affirms rather than subverts the traditional institution of marriage. 18

The earliest literary response to Sophocles’ Antigone may be the last scene of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes , probably a post-classical addition after 386 BCE (Hutchinson 1985 : 211). 19 There Antigone’s resolution to defy the edict splits the chorus into two opposing halves: the first, grouped around her and Polynices’ corpse, sympathize with Antigone’s view; the second, grouped around Eteocles’ corpse, fears conflict. The halves exit separately.

The divided response forecasts the deep tension underlying early modern receptions, refractions, and replays of the Antigone story. Admirers like Camerarius may believe Antigone a noble figure, punished unjustly, but they cannot approve the civil disobedience. Instead, they consistently focus attention on Creon the tyrant, a simpler, safer target for humanist moral readings. The relative silence of both Erasmus and Melanchthon on Antigone remains telling. Though both resist the temptation to portray her as a negative examplar, neither can trumpet her virtue or much lament her fate.

Such deflection signals the deep and pervasive unease lurking beneath early modern readings of Antigone , generating new emphases, new fragmentations, and new adaptations ever increasingly distant from the Sophoclean prototype. Many simply mine the play for memorable sayings, rhetorical figures, or moral lessons. Others give Sophocles’ Antigone a new identity altogether: Alamanni makes her a donna angelica , Garnier, an intellectual figure of pieté , Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh, the good daughter and sister. Thomas Watson finally condemns Antigone outright. Thomas May follows with a refashioning so radical as to repudiate entirely the Sophoclean heroine. These two apparently eccentric variations actually culminate the long tradition of discontent, apparent in the deflection, recontextualization, and refiguration that underlies humanist receptions, later refractions, and theatrical replays.

Other threatening heroines from Greek tragedy undergo similar refiguration and reappropriation. ‘The English Renaissance’, writes Purkiss ( 2000 : 33), ‘was not particularly interested in, even alienated by, the Medea of Euripides and Seneca’. Repulsed by the child-killing, most early moderns focus instead on Ovid’s adolescent Medea, who struggles with sexual desire and sinfully commits fratricide. Others more pruriently recall her magical potion and the sexual rejuvenation of Aeson. Another transgressive female, Sophocles’ Electra also experiences similar transformation (Hall 1999 ). John Pikeryng’s Horestes (perf. 1567) excludes Electra from the story of her brother’s revenge, and both John Heywood’s The Second Part of the Iron Age (1632) and Thomas Goffe’s The Tragedy of Orestes (perf. 1609–19) reduce her to insignificance. Inga-Stina Ewbank has remarked that Goffe’s ‘play does not so much “reuiue” Euripides, or Seneca, as turn the ‘tale’ of the House of Atreus into a kind of palimpsest of Jacobean popular drama, with an emphasis on Clytemnestra’s concupiscence’ ( 2005 : 47). Translating Sophocles’ Electra in 1649 Christopher Wase makes the play a royalist allegory, with the executed Charles I as Agamemnon, Cromwell as Aegisthus, Prince Charles as Orestes, and Charles’ imprisoned daughter Elizabeth as a helpless Electra. Surveying Sophoclean Electras in Britain up to the present, Edith Hall ( 1999 : 264) concludes, ‘Electra herself, rather than Orestes, only began to be fully appreciated with the rise of the woman’s movement’ in the late nineteenth century. Earlier, through the eighteenth century, playwrights turned avoided adapting Electra partly because of ‘its unshrinking presentation of feminine aggression. Contemporary audiences had similar difficulties with Euripides’ Medea , who was totally unacceptable unless the crime of infanticide was either deleted altogether, or ameliorated by an exculpatory fit of madness, as in Richard Glover’s adaptation of 1767’ ( 1999 : 271).

Such works, along with the receptions, refractions, and replays of Antigone, reveal the paradoxical dynamic evident in all early modern representations of antiquity: acts of appropriation always involve, to a greater or lesser degree, acts of denial.

1 See Fraisse ( 1974 : 5–19); Griffith ( 1999 : 4–12); Hornblower and Spawforth ( 2003 ); Brill’s New Pauly ( 2002–10 ), svv. ‘Antigone’, ‘Creon’, ‘Oedipus’; and Hall ( 2011 ). I am grateful to the readers of this journal, Loyola University of Maryland’s ‘Scholarly Engagements’ series, and David J. Jacobson for careful readings and helpful suggestions.

2 Contradicting Sophocles directly, ancient Theban legend identified the place where Antigone dragged Polynices’ body, significantly left unmoved in the play (Pausanius IX. 25. 2).

3 I quote Antigone from Lloyd-Jones and Wilson ( 1990a ). Unless otherwise noted all translations are my own.

4 I use the term ‘reception’ here to refer to these primary appropriations, early humanist publications of Greek drama and translations into Latin, though it is capable of wider application; in Lorna Hardwick’s helpful formulation, reception can encompass ‘the artistic or intellectual processes involved in selecting, imitating, or adapting ancient works—how the text was “received” and “refigured” by artist, writer or designer; how the later work relates to the source,’ as well as ‘the broader cultural processes which shape and make up those relationships’ ( 2003 : 5). See also Hardwick and Stray ( 2011 ). Grafton ( 1997 ) provides an illuminating series of case studies in early humanist readings of antiquity.

5 In his edition of Calvy de La Fontaine’s French translation of Antigone, Mastroianni ( 2000 ) helpfully reprints the Latin translations of Hervé, Ratallerus, and Lalamantius.

6 See also Hervé (Mastroianni 2000 : 266) ‘Quae cum pie feci, iam dicor impia’ (l. 942, ‘Because I have done these things piously, I am now called impious’). Fraisse ( 1974 : 21–2) notes precedent for ‘pius’ Antigone in Oedipus’s amazed question, ‘Aliquis est ex me pius?’ (Seneca, Phoenissae , l. 82, ‘Is someone born from me pious?’).

7 Matt. 18. 15, Luke 17. 3, 4. For the data on translations of Greek in the Vulgate and the King James version I have used the LexiConc search tool of the Blue Letter Bible database, < http://www.blueletterbible.org .>.

8 I cite the 1536 edition, the last revised by Erasmus himself, by proverb number; I cite the quoted Greek from Lloyd-Jones and Wilson ( 1990a ).

9 Erasmus here practices what he preaches. In De Ratione Studii he advises just such a policy of selective reading and deflection: ‘Atque ita fiet (si modo sit ingenii dextri praeceptor), vt etiam se quid inciderit quod inficere possit aetatem illam, non solum non officiat moribus, verumetiam vtilitatem aliquam adferat, videlicet animis partim ad annotationem intentis, partim ad altiores cogitations auocatis’ ( 1971 : 139, ‘And it shall come about (if the instructor has a ready wit) that if he encounter some passage that can corrupt the young, not only will it not harm their morals, but, in fact, it may confer some benefit, namely, by his turning their attentive minds partly to annotation, partly to higher reflections’.

10 Helena Faucit’s portrayal of Antigone (1845–6) moved Thomas de Quincey to similar raptures, ‘Holy heathen, daughter of God before God as born … idolatrous, yet Christian lady’, as quoted by Hall and Macintosh (2005: 329–30). Hall and Macintosh show further how this performance and production embodied Victorian ideals.

11 See Miola ( 2002 ). On Greek and Latin tragedy in English see Braden ( 2010 ) and Pollard ( 2012 ).

12 On Alamanni’s adaptation see Mastrocola ( 1996 : 49–67) and Spera ( 1997 : 87–121). Other early modern Italian versions include plays by Guido Guidi (n.d.) and Luigi Trapolini (1581).

13 For the political context discussed below see Jondorf ( 1969 ), Mueller ( 1980 : 17–32), and Beaudin ( 1997 : 7–18); for the literary context of Cinquecento France see Mastroianni ( 2004 ). Other early modern French versions include plays by Calvy de Fontaine (1542), Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1572), and Jean de Rotrou (1639).

14 See Smith ( 1988 : 224–31), and the excellent edition of Sutton ( 1997 ); Alhiyari’s unpublished translation (Alhiyari 2006 ) is unreliable.

15 Steiner observes similar romanticization in operatic adaptations from the eighteenth-century onwards: ‘Antigone and Haemon, whom Sophoclean tragic economy keeps strictly apart, are joined in cantilenas and duets of desolate ecstasy, false hopes, and adieu.’ In H. S. Chamberlain’s play Der Tod der Antigone (1892), ‘Antigone embraces a Wagnerian Liebestod , a death in and through Eros. Her cadence, her words almost, are Isolde’s: “Who has lived like Antigone, cannot live longer; / Who has loved like Antigone, cannot love again”’ ( 1984 : 155).

16 Steiner ( 1984 : 160–62) well notes hints of the incest theme in Jean de Rotrou’s La Thébaide (1639).

17 On contrasting Sophoclean notions of heroism see the classic treatment of Knox ( 1964 : 1–116).

18 Racine’s Iphigénie (1674) likewise revises Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis to fit contemporary moral categories: there the invented character Eriphile dies in Iphigeneia’s place. Thus Racine avoids what he regarded as the implausible substitution of the stag, punishes Eriphile for jealous rivalry, and reward Iphigenia’s virtue (Michelakis 2006 : 221–2).

19 Like other scholars, Edith Hall ( 2011 : 59) believes that a compressed version of Sophocles’ play ‘seems also to have been grafted onto the end of Euripides’s Phoenician Women (409 BCE)’. But Mastronarde ( 1994 : 509ff.) has argued well for the authenticity of the ending.

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Antigone: An Interruption Between Feminism and Christianity

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• Published: 08 August 2014
• Volume 21 , pages 309–316, ( 2014 )

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• Simon Goldhill 1  

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There is an extensive feminist tradition of reading Sophocles’ Antigone within a framework of political theory in response to Hegel’s influential comprehension of the play in the 19th century. More than thirty articles have been published in recent years, and several significant books, in which Antigone, the heroine, has been made an icon and battleground of feminist theory. This article aims to take a quite different tack to illumine the force of this debate and its potential significance for the modern feminist political approach to ancient tragedy. It sets out to investigate two central interlinked questions which have been underappreciated in the continuing response to Hegel: first, the place of religion in Hegel’s reading of Greek tragedy; and, second and more importantly, following from this first question, the role of teleological thinking in the political use of tragedy in modern thought.

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Lacoue-Labarthe, "The Caesura of the Speculative", in Typography, Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics , ed C. Fynsk: 208–35, Cambridge, Mass, 1989; Schmidt, On Germans and Other Greeks: Tragedy and Ethical Life , Bloomington, 2001; Peter Szondi, An Essay on the Tragic , trans P. Fleming, Stanford, 2002; Terry Eagleton (2003) Sweet Violence , Oxford; Goldhill (2012) Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy , Oxford, 137–263; Billings (2014) The Genealogy of the Tragic: Greek Tragedy and German Philosophy , Princeton.

Honig (2009) “Antigone’s Laments, Creon’s Grief: Mourning, Membership and the Politics of Exception”, Political Theory 37: 5–43; (2011) “Ismene’s Forced Choice: Sacrifice and Sorority in Sophocles’ Antigone ”, Arethusa 44: 29–68; (2013) Antigone Interrupted , Cambridge; Goldhill (2006) “Antigone and the Politics of Sisterhood” in Zajko and Leonard, eds., Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought, Oxford, 2006, 141–62.; Goldhill (n.1); Goldhill (2014) “The Ends of Tragedy”, PMLA (forthcoming).

Goldhill (n. 1), especially 132–200.

Schelling (1989) The Philosophy of Art , trans D. Stott, Minneapolis, 254.

Schelling (n.4) 89.

Paolucci and Paolucci (1962) Hegel on Tragedy , New York. 165–7. See Pippin (1988) Hegel's Idealism: the Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness , Cambridge.; Beiser (2002) German Idealism: the Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781–1801 , Cambridge, Mass.

Steiner (1961) The Death of Tragedy , London; Williams (1993) Shame and Necessity , Berkeley and Oxford. On Nietzsche see Silk and Stern (1981) Nietzsche on Tragedy , Cambridge.; Schmidt (2001) On Germans and Other Greeks: Tragedy and Ethical Life , Bloomington.

On Hegel’s Christianity see Hodgson (2012) Shapes of Freedom: Hegel's Philosophy of World History in Theological Perspective , Oxford; Krell (2005) The Tragic Absolute: German Idealism and the Languishing of God , Bloomington; Lewis (2011) Religion, Modernity and Politics in Hegel , Oxford; Shanks (1991) Hegel's Political Theology , Cambridge; Shanks (2011) Hegel and Religious Faith: Divided Brain, Atoning Spirit , London. In general on Victorian Christianity, a huge bibliography could be given: good starting points for the evangelical revival are Bradley (1976) The Call to Seriousness: the Evangelical Impact on the Victorians , London; Bebbington (1989) Evangelicism in Modern Britain: a History from the 1730s to the 1980s , London; Ward (1992) The Protestant Evangelical Awakening , Cambridge; on Tractarianism, Chadwick (1990) The Spirit of the Oxford Movement , Cambridge; Nockles (1994) The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1760–1857 , Cambridge; and for a full bibliography Crumb (2009) The Oxford Movement and its Leaders: a Bibliography of Secondary and Lesser Primary Sources , Lanham; in general for the politics see Paz (1992) Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian Britain , Stanford; Parry (1986) Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 1867–1875 , Cambridge; Machin (1987) Politics and the Churches in Great Britain 1869–1921 , 2nd edition, Oxford; Reed (1996) Glorious Battle: The Cultural politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism , Nashville.

Schelling (n.4) 258.

Schelling (n.4) 262.

Hegel (1967) The Phenomenology of Spirit , trans. J. Baillie, intro. G. Lichtheim, New York., New York, 490. On this paragraph, Rudnytsky (1987) Freud and Oedipus , New York, 162 writes tellingly that “All the parallels between Freud and Hegel come to a head in this passage.”

Hegel 15.551.

Billings (2013) "The Ends of Tragedy: the Oedipus at Colonus and German Idealism", Arion 21: 111–29 is an exception: I am pleased to be able to thank Joshua Billings here for many productive conversations on German Idealism and tragedy. See also Holmes (2013) “Antigone at Colonus and the End(s) of Tragedy”, Ramus 42: 23–43.

Hegel (1944) Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion , 3 vols, trans. J. Sibree, New York. 103. On Hegel’s Christology, see Shanks (n. 8 1991).

Hegel (1975) Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art , 2 vols, Trans B. Knox, Oxford, II: 1219.

Hegel (n.19) II; 1219.

Bachofen (1967) Myth, Religion and Mother Right: Selected Writings of J.J. Bachofen , trans. R. Manheim, Princeton, 181.

See, for example, Butler (2000) Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death , New York; Honig (n.2 2013); both with extensive bibliography. See also Mills (1996) "Hegel's Antigone ", in Mills ed (1996) Feminist Interpretations of Hegel , University Park, PA, 59–88; Benhabib (1996) “On Hegel, Women and irony", in Mills ed (1996): 25–44; Chanter (1995) Ethics of Eros: Irigaray's Rewriting of the Philosophers , New York; Speight (2001) Hegel, Literature and the Problem of Agency , Cambridge; Elshtain (1982) “Antigone’s Daughters”, Democracy 2: 39–45., (1989) “Antigone’s Daughters Reconsidered: Continuing Reflections of Women, Politics and Power” in White ed (1989) Life-World and Politics: Between Modernity and Post-Modernity , West Bend, Indiana, 222–36, (1996) “The Mothers of the Disappeared: an Encounter with Antigone’s Daughters”, in Jensen ed (1996) Finding a New Feminism: Rethinking the Woman Question for Liberal Democracy , Lanham, Md., 129–48; Kirkpatrick (2011) “The Prudent Dissident: Un-Heroic Resistance in Sophocles’ Antigone ”, The Review of Politics 73: 401–24; Engelstein (2011) “Sibling Logic; or, Antigone Again”, PMLA 126: 38–54; and for recent politicized readings, Ahrensdorf (2009) Greek Tragedy and Political Philosophy: Rationalism and Religion in Sophocles’ Theban Plays , Cambridge., 85–150; Badger (2013) Sophocles and the Politics of Tragedy: Cities and Transcendence , London, 71–94.

Honig (n. 2 2013).

See Goldhill (n.1 2013) 31-2 for the analysis and implications of this linguistic and ideological commitment to self.

Thanks to the participants in the APA session where this paper was delivered. A far longer version of the analysis of Hegel will be published in PMLA later in 2014.

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Antigone Study Guide

Sophocles (c. 497/6- 406/5 BC) is, along with Aeschylus and Euripides, one of the three ancient Greek tragic playwrights by whom complete plays survive. He won at least twenty victories in the tragic competitions, and never came third (last), a feat which suggests that he was the most successful of the three. Seven complete plays of his survive, of which Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus are the most well-known and frequently performed. The following three essays explore the play's themes and context.

Sophocles' Antigone in Context by Professor Chris Carey

Greek tragedy is a remarkable fictional creation. We are used to a theatre which can embrace past and present, fictitious and historical, bizarre fantasy and mundane reality. The Athenian theatre was far more limited than this. Like virtually all Greek poetry at all periods in antiquity, its subject matter was heroic myth. Invented plots with fictitious people and events were very few (and not found before the late fifth century). Historical tragedy (the staple of theatre from Shakespeare to the present) again was very rare. With very few exceptions, tragedy was about heroes. For Greeks at any period, the world of the heroes meant the world which they met in epic poetry, and especially Homer, the ultimate Greek classic.  

Because we are so used to Greek tragedy, we don't usually stop to notice how strange all this is. The heroes are members of a superior elite. And the epic world is always ruled by kings. It has assemblies, and they matter; but they don't have power. Hereditary monarchy had become a rarity in Greece long before the rise of tragedy. So the epic world was politically remote. In fact, of all Greek states in the classical period, Athens was probably the furthest removed from the political world of epic. In democratic Athens public policy and legislation were in the hands of the mass assembly. Yet for two hundred years and more mass audiences sat in the theatre of Dionysus and watched plays about kings sponsored by the democratic state.

The issue is of course more complicated than this. Firstly, the world of the epic was a very familiar world to the Athenian audience. Epic poetry was performed every year at the civic festivals, which meant that the heroic age was a shared possession for the vast audience in the Athenian theatre, not just the property of an educated elite. Secondly, the world inside the plays and the world in which the audience lived were engaged in a complex and shifting relationship. In any attempt to represent or even to understand the past, the present acts as frame which shapes presentation or perception; we may or may not be aware of it, but it is always there. Literature which deals with the past therefore has a foot in two worlds. This includes Greek tragedy. Tragedy is riddled with anachronisms, on politics, gender, ethnicity, status, even technology (people in tragedy write letters and suicide notes, for instance, while in the epic world writing is completely absent except for one very mysterious passage in Homer's Iliad ). The effect is to make the tragic world a middle space where heroic past and present meet.

This makes the tragic stage an ideal space to explore political issues of interest to democratic Athens. Not all tragedy is political and not all of the political questions are unique either to Athens or to democracy. But Athens (with rare exceptions) was unusual among the classical Greek states in its openness to dispute and dissent and Athenian drama is almost unique in Greek literature in its ability to explore areas of actual or potential political tension.

This is true in the case of Antigone . Anyone in the audience listening to the newly appointed regent Creon might well catch echoes of contemporary sentiments about loyalty to the city. The rhetoric of devotion to the city above all else and at any cost which Sophocles puts in his mouth sounds very like the rhetoric of the democratic statesman Pericles in the historian Thucydides (Pericles even goes so far as to claim that we should all be lovers of the city). The sentiment has a powerful appeal. This was a world of citizen soldiers and a citizen was expected to fight and if necessary die for the city. As Creon says: 'This land - our land - is the ship that preserves us and it is on this ship that we sail straight and as she prospers, so will we.' But his insistence on loyalty to the state to the exclusion of all other allegiance prolongs into the present the rifts of the past and proves disastrous for the next generation of the family and robs him of his family.

The issue of burial which forms the focus for conflict in this play had political echoes. Burial was a vitally important aspect both of family and of civic life. For the city it was a means both of honouring devotion and also of punishing disloyalty. The world of this play is not just postwar but post-civil-war. The dead Polynices came with a foreign army to take his home city by force and died in the attempt. In Sophocles' Athens anyone executed for treason could not be buried in Attica. So some features of the play probably sounded very familiar. Democratic Athens demanded a lot of its citizens and at the probable date of Antigone this was visible especially in the treatment of the dead. As far as we know Athens monopolized its war dead to a degree unmatched by any other Greek state. Where most Greek states simply buried their dead on the battlefield, Athenian practice was to collect and burn the dead and bring the bones home. They then held a state funeral and buried the war dead in communal state graves (excavations for the new Athens metro unearthed one such burial just a decade ago) with no designation of family, just the name of their tribe. The war dead are now the property of the city. At the same time private grave memorials almost disappear. It looks as though only public burials, and specifically those for the dead warriors, matter. But by tradition the family not only buried its dead but also made offerings every year at the family tombs; and the job of preparing the dead and the lead in mourning fell to the women. By the late fifth century the private memorials, including memorials for those who died in war, become more common, and it looks as though the tensions between the demands of the state and the needs of the family have been resolved. But tensions there probably were and death and burial was one of the key areas. Issues such as family or individual versus state are Greek issues as well as Athenian issues. But they were probably present in Athens to an unusual degree and were at their most visible at the time Antigone was performed in the late 440s.

Antigone is not about Athens' burial of the war dead. And it is not about contemporary democratic ideology. It is a story about a clash of wills, a clash of principles and a clash of loyalties. About power and its limits and legitimacy. About commitment, tenacity and integrity. And it is not a sermon. It throws up more questions than it answers. It could play in any theatre of the Greek world, as it has played in countless theatres in many languages since. But for its Athenian audience the echoes of contemporary areas of tension gave it an added intensity.

Questions and Activities:

• How would the experiences of ancient Greek theatrical audiences have differed from those of modern ones? How might that affect our appreciation of Sophocles' Antigone ?
• If you were to translate the basic story of the play into modern Britain, what aspects would you change, what would you retain, and why?
• What difference would it make if Antigone were staged in a contemporary setting, rather than the distant past? 

Antigone and Creon in Conflict by Dr. Dimitra Kokkini

Antigone is a play full of intensity. Audience (and scholarly) responses have always been conflicted when it comes to analysing both characters' arguments. For some, secular law and rationality, as expressed by Creon, are right, while Antigone's religious approach is to be rejected as irrational. For others, Antigone's argument is the only one with validity. The remaining views recognise various degrees of legitimacy in both arguments, eventually proving the impossibility of the task in discerning right from wrong in this conflict.

Despite the fact that this explosive clash highlights the vast differences between Creon and Antigone in terms of world views and loyalties, it also brings to the fore their similarities in terms of characterisation. Creon continuously asserts his power, both in terms of social and gender status; he is the ruler of the city, in fact, its defender in what is seen an unlawful attack by Polyneices against his own fatherland (the gravest of sins in civic terms). Moreover, he is a man, faced with an insubordinate, stubborn, powerless female who is also a member of his own family and under his jurisdiction and protection. Antigone, on the other hand, continuously asserts the validity on her argument in religious and moral terms, being, at the same time, constantly aware of her limitations due to her gender and position in the city and her own family. Yet, although they both take pains to highlight the unbridgeable gap between them, contrasting civic/rational (Creon) and family/religious (Antigone) duty, they are remarkably similar in the way they approach and respond to one another. Both are characterised by unyielding stubbornness, a deep belief in the rightness of their own value system, and complete failure in identifying any validity whatsoever in each other's argument. Both insist on upholding their respective values with obstinate determination to the end: Antigone dies unchanged, whereas Creon's change of heart comes too late having first caused the destruction of his entire family.

More importantly, neither of them are easily relatable - or indeed sympathetic - characters. Antigone is often too self-righteous, obsessed with honouring Polyneices at all costs. She is dismissive of Ismene, almost indifferent to her betrothed, Haemon. Creon is equally obsessed with administering what he perceives as justice, as well as upholding his law and punishing the offender, he is cruel and dismissive towards his son. It is easier for us, the audience, to identify with Ismene, Eurydice or Haemon. Ismene, a foil for Antigone and her exact opposite, is arguably less determined and daring than her sister; but she is also much closer to an everyday person, aware of her limitations and hesitant to challenge authority and the laws imposed by a ruler. Antigone may be admirable for her bravery and resolution, but she is also extraordinarily distant to ordinary human beings. Although she presents herself as a weak woman and speaks of all the typical female experiences she will be missing with her untimely death, she functions more like a symbol - some say she is almost genderless. Ismene, however, appears to be more human, displaying a more conventional kind of femininity, which renders her pitiful but also more relatable as a character.

In a similar way, we feel more pity and sympathy for Haemon than we do for the two protagonists. His attachment to her is evident in a rare tragic instance of a young man being in love, but it is hardly reciprocated. Antigone's fixation on honouring Polyneices leaves little room for the development of any other relationship. Haemon fights, unsuccessfully, with his father in an attempt to save his betrothed and, when this fails due to Creon's refusal to repeal his decision, his response is rash and emotional. This is a young man in love, who is denied his chance to be with his beloved and, on seeing her dead decides to take his own life out of grief. In contrast with Antigone, whose suicide is consistent with her characterisation throughout the play and is directly related to her immovable value system, Haemon's suicide is full of pathos and his motivation feels more easily understandable in terms of personal relationships and youthful desperation. His death functions as the trigger for Eurydice's suicide, the culmination of Creon's catastrophic decisions and Antigone's unyielding position. Her appearance on stage is limited to one scene, with her uttering one single question to the Messenger before departing in silence, ominously, after the death of her son is confirmed, never to reappear on stage.

Antigone and Creon are caught in an impossible circle of stubbornness, miscommunication and destruction. Together, they manage to cause utter grief and ruin for their family caught in a conflict of ever-increasing intensity as they pull further and further apart. Antigone's death and Creon's remorse cause pity and reveal the utter futility of their conflict at the end of the tragedy; but the fate of the other characters, the innocent bystanders entangled in this mighty clash of wills, beg for our sympathy and compassion as much as the protagonists, if not more.

1. Which character from the play do you sympathise with the most and why?

2. 'Creon and Antigone are more similar than different to one another'. To what extent do you agree with this claim?

3. To what extent must tragedy always depend on conflict?

Conflict and Contrast in Sophocles' Antigone by Dr. Tom Mackenzie

Perhaps more than any other Greek tragedy, Sophocles' Antigone has captured the interests of philosophers, ranging from Aristotle (fourth century BC) to Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and beyond. Most famously, the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) saw the tragedy as depicting, at its core, a conflict between the abstract principles of the household (the oikos) and the state (the polis), embodied in the characters of Antigone and Creon respectively. When we come to watch the play, it is not hard to see why this interpretation has proven immensely influential. On a purely formal level, the two characters dominate the action more than any of the others. It is their decisions - Creon's to impose the sanction against burying Polyneices, and Antigone's to bury him nonetheless - that cause the events of the narrative. Antigone is the eponymous heroine whose initial speech opens the play, whilst Creon receives more lines than any other character and is the exclusive focus of our attention after Antigone's departure in the latter part of the tragedy. The two characters thus bookend the action onstage, a structuring device that seems to illustrate the contrast between them. It is sometimes claimed that Greek tragedy typically focusses on a single character, but if that is the case, then Antigone is an exception to this tendency, for Creon and Antigone appear to be of equal concern.

Many aspects of the play can be taken to suggest that the two characters are indeed representative of certain contrasting principles. Perhaps the most obvious contrast is that between male and female: Ismene initially opposes Antigone's act of defiance partly on the grounds that they are women, and so 'cannot fight against men'. Creon further emphasizes the gender division in claiming that Antigone will be 'the man' and not him, if she is to challenge his authority with impunity. Several other statements of his also betray this anxiety. Antigone's defiance of her uncle, her closest living male relative, markedly transcends the normal behaviour expected of women in fifth-century Athens, a notoriously patriarchal society with severe restrictions on the freedom of women. The contrast in genders also evokes wider political and cosmic polarities: women's influence was supposed to be restricted to the oikos, whilst Athenian politics was exclusively a male activity: the welfare of the city was thought to be the responsibility of free males alone. Antigone's act is one of loyalty towards a close relative, a member of her oikos - but it is seen by Creon as an act against the interests of the state. His edict was pronounced in order to protect Thebes, and he explicitly criticises anyone who 'values a loved one greater than his city', a statement which inevitably recalls Antigone's defiance. Indeed, part of this initial speech was quoted by the fourth-century Athenian orator Demosthenes as a positive, patriotic sentiment, a fact which may suggest that Creon, at least at this point in the play, could be taken to embody civic values.

Yet Antigone herself does not see the conflict as one between the oikos and the polis so much as one between the man-made laws of the city, and the unwritten, permanent laws of the the gods. It is to these unwritten laws that she appeals in justifying her actions against Creon's proclamations. The Greek word for 'laws', nomoi, has a broader scope than the English term conveys - it can be translated as 'conventions' or 'customs' and can cover the religious duties such as burial of the dead. There is nothing metaphorical about such 'unwritten' nomoi: Aristotle even quotes Antigone in recommending lawyers to appeal to unwritten laws when the written laws are against them. For Antigone, there is a conflict between these unwritten laws, and those pronounced by Creon.

Accordingly, the two characters have different conceptions of justice and the just. The Greek word for justice, dikē, and its related adjectives, occur frequently throughout the play. Both Creon and his opponents, Antigone and Haimon, appeal to dikē to support their decisions. Creon seems to identify justice with the will of the ruling party, whilst for Antigone and Haimon, it is a super-human concept that is independent of the arbitrary decisions of any mortal ruler. This dispute reflects contemporary debates surrounding the nature of justice: Plato, writing in the first half of the fourth century BC, depicts the fifth-century thinker Socrates as arguing that justice is natural and objective, against opponents who argue that justice is simply the will of the more powerful. In Sophocles' play, there is little doubt that Creon's conception of justice is proven inadequate. That the downfall of his family and his personal suffering come as a direct result of his actions is assumed by all remaining characters at the end of the play. His folly reveals a central predicament in Sophoclean drama and in Greek theology: there is a divine, cosmic system of justice, but it is one that is usually impossible for mortals to understand until it is too late. The motif of 'learning too late' is commonplace in Greek tragedy, and Creon conforms to this literary convention, as the chorus' statements at the end of the play make clear. Only a select few mortals - notably the blind prophet Teiresias - can have a privileged, albeit still limited, understanding of this system before the catastrophes unfold.

'Justice', or rather dikē, in this sense of 'divine order' was taken by some early Greek philosophers as a governing principle, not only of ethical behaviour, but also of the rules of physics. Anaximander (early 6th century BC) saw the universe as composed fundamentally from opposite qualities - such as the hot and the cold, the dry and the wet - that give each other 'justice and reparation' for injustices committed, as a result of which some balance is maintained in the universe. Similarly, Heraclitus (late 6th century BC) saw 'justice' as keeping the Sun within its established limits. Viewed in this context, we can see Creon's actions as violations of this cosmic order: the deceased Polyneices ought to be buried, but Creon prevents that from happening; conversely, he orders Antigone to be entombed whilst still alive. After his punishment, he himself becomes, in the words of the messenger, a 'living corpse'. The balance is thus settled for Creon's blurring of the distinction between the living and the dead by refusing Polyneices' burial.

This enactment of cosmic 'justice' might be taken to support the notion that Creon and Antigone embody contrary principles. Yet their actions can also be explained by recognisably human motivations: Antigone no longer fears death, and even expresses suicidal thoughts, because of the immense suffering that she has experienced in the form of her family's tribulations; Creon is a new ruler who is paranoid that his rule is not accepted - he refuses to back down as he fears it will undermine his authority. The characters appeal to general principles, which place their specific conflict in a wider cosmic context - it is perhaps this feature which has aroused such philosophical interest in the play - but they are not reducible to those principles alone. Creon is a flawed and inconsistent ruler, and Antigone's ultimately self-destructive act is detrimental to her household, for it prevents her from continuing the family line. The play thus presents conflicts of principle and of character, but offers no easy resolutions: Antigone's desire for Polyneices' burial may be vindicated by the course of the narrative, but the gods still allow her to perish. In developing the imagined consequences of these conflicts of both character and principle, Sophocles unsettlingly exemplifies one of the virtues that Aristotle identified in the plots of great tragedies: that the course of events seems inevitable, but only in retrospect.

Questions and activities:

1. Should you be more loyal towards your family or towards your country? Come up with reasons in support of both sides of the argument - how do your reasons compare with what is said by Antigone and Creon?

2. If we do not agree with traditional Greek beliefs about the the gods and justice, how does that affect our appreciation of the play?

3. Given that she knows that this action will lead to her death, is Antigone right to bury Polyneices? Explain your answer with reference to the text.

4. I've learned through my pain (Creon): What exactly has Creon learned? Does the play make this clear and does it matter?

Suggested Reading and Further Resources

An enormous amount has been written on Greek tragedy in general, and on Sophocles' Antigone  in particular. The following may be recommended as accessible introductions to the play and the genre:

• Brown, A.,  Sophocles' Antigone (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1987) - an edition of the Greek text with translation and commentary.
• Cairns, D.,  Sophocles: Antigone (London: Bloomsbury, 2016) - a recent introduction to the play.
• Griffith, M., Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge: CUP, 1999) - an edition and commentary of the Greek text, with an introduction that is accessible to the Greekless reader.
• Hall, E., Greek Tragedy: Suffering Under the Sun (Oxford: OUP, 2010) - a recent introduction to the genre, with specific discussion of Antigone on pp. 305-9.
• Scodel, R. An Introduction to Greek Tragedy  (Cambridge: CUP, 2010) - another recent introduction to the genre, with specific discussion of Antigone  on pp. 106-119.

The above works may be consulted for more advanced bibliography. 

• Short clips of professor Felix Budelmann (Oxford University) discussing Sophoclean drama, and Antigone in particular, are available  here .

Sophocles’ Antigone and the promise of ethical life: tragic ambiguity and the pathologies of reason

• August 2017
• Law and Humanities 11(2):1-23

• Erasmus University Rotterdam

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Books — Antigone

Essays on Antigone

Antigone, a classic Greek tragedy by Sophocles, explores themes of loyalty, justice, and civil disobedience. This powerful play provides a rich ground for literary analysis and critical essays, making it a popular choice for students and scholars. Here are some well-organized Antigone essay topics to consider. Whether examining the complex character dynamics, the moral and ethical conflicts, or the significant use of symbolism, each topic offers a unique perspective on the play’s timeless relevance. Delving into these topics can deepen understanding of Sophocles' intentions and the play's impact on both ancient and modern audiences.

Top 10 Antigone Argumentative Essay Topics in 2024

• The Clash Between Divine Law and Human Law: Analyze how the conflict between divine law and human law drives the plot of "Antigone" and discuss its relevance to modern legal and ethical dilemmas.
• Antigone as a Feminist Icon: Argue whether Antigone can be considered a feminist character in the context of ancient Greek society and modern feminist theory.
• The Role of Civil Disobedience: Discuss the portrayal of civil disobedience in "Antigone" and its implications for contemporary social and political movements.
• Creon’s Leadership and Its Consequences: Evaluate Creon’s leadership style, its impact on Thebes, and how it serves as a cautionary tale for modern leaders.
• The Concept of Tragic Heroism: Compare Antigone and Creon as tragic heroes, analyzing their flaws, motivations, and ultimate fates.
• The Intersection of Fate and Free Will: Examine how fate and free will interact in "Antigone" and the extent to which the characters control their destinies.
• The Role of the Chorus: Discuss the function of the Chorus in "Antigone" and its influence on the audience’s perception of the play’s events.
• The Theme of Loyalty and Betrayal: Analyze how loyalty and betrayal shape the relationships and decisions of characters in "Antigone."
• The Impact of Gender Roles: Argue how "Antigone" challenges or reinforces traditional gender roles in ancient Greek society.
• Justice vs. Revenge: Debate whether Antigone’s actions are driven by a sense of justice or a desire for revenge, and how this distinction affects the play’s moral message.

List of Interesting Antigone Essay Topics

Character analysis.

• Antigone's character and her motivations
• Creon's leadership style and its consequences
• Ismene's role and her development throughout the play
• The transformation of Haemon
• Antigone and Creon: A Study of Foil Characters in Sophocles' Tragedy
• The significance of Tiresias as a character
• The theme of civil disobedience in "Antigone"
• Exploring the theme of loyalty and betrayal
• Justice vs. revenge in "Antigone"
• The conflict between divine law and human law
• The role of fate and free will in the play

Symbolism and Motifs

• The significance of burial rituals in "Antigone"
• The use of light and darkness as symbols
• The Complexities of Morality and Duty in Sophocles' Antigone
• The motif of stubbornness and its impact on the characters
• The portrayal of gender roles and their subversion

Social and Political Commentary

• The political implications of Creon's rule
• The role of women in Greek society as depicted in "Antigone"
• The impact of Antigone's actions on Theban society
• The critique of absolute power in "Antigone"

Literary Techniques

• The use of dramatic irony in "Antigone"
• The role of the Chorus and its contributions to the narrative
• The structure of the tragedy and its effect on the audience
• The use of dialogue and monologue to reveal character

Comparative Analysis

• Comparing Antigone to other tragic heroines in Greek literature
• The similarities and differences between Creon and other tragic leaders
• Analyzing the themes of "Antigone" in the context of modern society

As you explore these Antigone essay topics, remember to approach them with curiosity and creativity. Your unique perspective and insights will make your essay stand out. Don't be afraid to think outside the box and delve deep into the themes and characters of Antigone.

Hook Examples for "Antigone" Essays

Introduce the character of Antigone as the tragic heroine of the play. Discuss her noble qualities, her determination to uphold her beliefs, and the tragic consequences of her actions.

Explore the central conflict in "Antigone" between divine law and human law. Discuss how Antigone's defiance of King Creon's decree highlights the clash between moral duty and political authority.

Focus on the character of Creon as a symbol of political power and pride. Discuss how his decisions and hubris lead to tragedy within the play and explore the lessons it conveys.

Analyze "Antigone" from a feminist perspective, highlighting the role of gender and the defiance of traditional gender roles in the play. Discuss how Antigone's actions challenge societal norms.

Examine the role of the Chorus in "Antigone" as a moral compass and commentator on the events of the play. Discuss how the Chorus adds depth to the themes and characters.

Explore the character of Ismene, Antigone's sister, and her role in the tragedy. Discuss her internal conflict and her ultimate fate as a foil to Antigone.

Provide historical and cultural context for "Antigone" by discussing ancient Greek beliefs and values, including the significance of burial rituals and the influence of Greek tragedy.

Highlight the enduring themes of "Antigone," such as the consequences of moral choices, the conflict between individual and state, and the nature of justice. Discuss how these themes resonate with audiences today.

Discuss the relevance of "Antigone" in contemporary society, drawing parallels to issues of civil disobedience, government authority, and individual conscience. Emphasize the enduring impact of the play's themes.

End your essay by summarizing the lessons and insights that "Antigone" offers to readers and audiences. Reflect on the enduring importance of this classic Greek tragedy.

Antigone Thesis Statements to Get Started

• The Clash Between Divine Law and Human Law

In Sophocles' 'Antigone,' the central conflict between divine law and human law highlights the complexities of moral decision-making and underscores the enduring struggle between personal conscience and societal obligations.

• Antigone as a Feminist Icon

Antigone's defiance of Creon's authority and her unwavering commitment to familial duty in Sophocles' 'Antigone' positions her as an early feminist icon challenging the patriarchal structures of ancient Greek society.

• The Role of Civil Disobedience

Sophocles' 'Antigone' presents civil disobedience as a powerful form of resistance against unjust laws, advocating for the primacy of individual moral duty over state-imposed edicts.

• Creon’s Leadership and Its Consequences

Creon's rigid and authoritarian leadership in 'Antigone' serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of absolute power and the importance of humility and flexibility in governance.

• The Concept of Tragic Heroism

Both Antigone and Creon embody elements of the tragic hero in Sophocles' 'Antigone,' with their respective flaws and noble intentions leading to their inevitable downfalls, thereby illustrating the complex nature of human suffering and fate.

• The Intersection of Fate and Free Will

Sophocles' 'Antigone' explores the tension between fate and free will, suggesting that while characters may have control over their actions, they are ultimately bound by the inescapable decrees of destiny.

Creon's Catharsis in Sophocles' Antigone

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The Poor Decision of Antigone to Bury: an Analysis

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Pride Comes before a Fall: Creon's Tragedy in Antigone

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How Egos Compete in Antigone

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First performed in 441 BCE, by Sophocles

Play, Tragedy

Antigone, Ismene, Creon, Eurydice, Haemon, Tiresias

Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, defies King Creon's edict that her brother Polynices, who was deemed a traitor, should not be given a proper burial. She believes that divine law mandates his burial and takes it upon herself to ensure he is buried. This act of defiance leads to a tragic chain of events, culminating in the deaths of Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice. The play explores the consequences of pride and the clash between individual moral duty and state laws.

"Antigone" was written during a time of political tension in Athens, reflecting the conflicts and debates about democracy, power, and individual rights in the city-state. The play remains relevant due to its exploration of universal themes and its powerful commentary on the human condition and societal norms.

• Conflict between individual rights and state power.
• The role of gender and the position of women in society.
• Fate versus free will.
• The nature of justice.
• Loyalty to family versus loyalty to the state.
• Dramatic irony: the audience knows that Antigone's defiance will lead to her downfall, while the characters remain unaware of their impending fate.
• Symbolism: the burial of Polyneices
• Imagery: vivid descriptions of suffering, death, and familial bonds.
• Dramatic dialogue and monologues.

Sophocles' tragedy "Antigone" has profoundly influenced literature, theater, and society. Its exploration of moral dilemmas highlights the clash between individual conscience and societal norms, emphasizing the importance of standing up for one's beliefs. This theme resonates with audiences, inspiring discussions on civil disobedience, justice, and authority. "Antigone" has impacted dramatic techniques with Sophocles' use of dialogue, monologues, and dramatic irony, shaping the tragedy genre. The play's complex characters and their inner struggles have influenced character development in theater and literature. Moreover, "Antigone" has inspired political and social movements. Its themes of rebellion against oppressive regimes and the pursuit of justice serve as rallying cries for activists. The play's examination of power dynamics and loyalty remains relevant in discussions of human rights, democracy, and social justice, making it an excellent subject for an Antigone essay.

• According to accounts, Sophocles is said to have passed away while reciting a part of his play Antigone.
• In 1944, the French playwright and screenwriter Jean Anouilh released a play titled Antigone, which garnered significant attention despite being staged in Paris under German occupation.
• Sigmund Freud, the influential figure in psychoanalysis, chose to name his daughter Anna Antigone.

Sophocles' "Antigone" is a timeless Greek tragedy, making it a significant topic for essays. The play explores themes like moral dilemmas, justice, and the clash between personal convictions and societal norms. Its multidimensional characters and literary techniques offer rich material for analysis. For those seeking inspiration, numerous Antigone essay examples highlight its enduring relevance and profound insights into human nature and ethics.

1. Murnaghan, S. (1986). Antigone 904-920 and the Institution of Marriage. The American Journal of Philology, 107(2), 192-207. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/294602) 2. Honig, B. (2009). Antigone's laments, Creon's grief: Mourning, membership, and the politics of exception. Political Theory, 37(1), 5-43. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0090591708326645) 3. Rouse, W. H. D. (1911). The two burials in Antigone. The Classical Review, 25(2), 40-42. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-review/article/abs/two-burials-in-antigone/5F435DF66023E724D84BE90BCA655AAA) 4. Meltzer, F. (2011). Theories of desire: Antigone again. Critical Inquiry, 37(2), 169-186. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/657289?journalCode=ci) 5. de Fátima Silva, M. (2017). Antigone. In Brill's Companion to the Reception of Sophocles (pp. 391-474). Brill. (https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004300941/B9789004300941_007.xml) 6. Davis, C. (1995). The Abject: Kristeva and the Antigone. Paroles gelées, 13(1). (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qt465qh#main) 7. Margon, J. S. (1970). The Death of Antigone. California Studies in Classical Antiquity, 3, 177-183. (https://online.ucpress.edu/ca/article-abstract/doi/10.2307/25010605/33738/The-Death-of-Antigone?redirectedFrom=PDF) 8. Marini, F. (1992). The uses of literature in the exploration of public administration ethics: The example of Antigone. Public Administration Review, 420-426. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/976801) 9. Benardete, S. (2014). Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles' Antigone. (https://philpapers.org/rec/BENSTA-7)

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109 Antigone Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best antigone topic ideas & essay examples.

• ⭐ Good Research Topics about Antigone
• 👍 Simple & Easy Antigone Essay Titles

❓ Antigone Essay Questions

• The Role of Women in Antigone Their role in the play, and hence the role of women, stand out as the two act in conjunction with another woman character, Eurydice.
• Antigone Reflection and Analysis This shows she was courageous and determined to bury her brother irrespective of the consequences. Antigone’s mistake was disobeying the law and Creon’s mistake was being arrogant even to his son.
• The Ancient Greek Tragedy “Antigone” The theme raised by Sophocles in the play is the theme of duty and family, which is still relevant to this day.
• Background of Shakespeare’s “Othello” and Sophocles’s “Antigone” Even though Othello is a Moor, he fights for Venice in this war and wins, thus proving his loyalty to the Christian Venice.
• Antigone’s Courage in “Antigone” by Sophocles The current research paper was written in order to analyze Antigone’s courage in the context of the philosophy of Aristotle and overall ideals of the Ancient Greece.
• Civil Disobedience and Pride in “Antigone” by Sophocles The play effectively depicts the theme of civil disobedience through the personality of Antigone, who is willing to break the rules to satisfy her morals standards and conscience. Therefore, the author uses the characters of […]
• Does Antigone Have an Obligation to Obey or Disobey Creon’s Law? The focal point of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the characteristics of Creon and Antigone and compare and contrast their personalities in the image of the two famous comments by each of the […]
• “The Antigone” by Sophocles: Characters and Plot Characters and the plot of The Antigone are highlighted in the play for resolving the problem of morale and pride in human beings and the counter-reaction of gods in response.
• Justice and Inequality in Oedipus Rex and Antigone For instance, in the case of Oedipus Rex, the origin behind the tragedy can be traced to the belief of King Laius in the words of an oracle.
• The Play Antigone: Characterization and Symbolism Antigone’s conviction is that the dead deserve a decent burial in spite of the circumstances that led to their death while Creon’s preoccupation is to enforce the laws of the land that disallow burial of […]
• Faith or Free Will Used in the Movie – Minority Report and the Drama – Antigone In life, people have the freewill to choose what they want; however, in some cases, faith and fate takes the center stage despite the choices made through freewill.
• The Tragic Hero of the Sophocles’ “Antigone” He is viewed as the rescuer of Thebes through his efforts to protect the people and his success in fighting the Argive Army.
• Sophocles’ “Antigone”: The Synopsis of the Play The controversy between the adherence to the state law and the moral norms maintains the conflict between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ play.
• Antigone Analysis: Antigone vs. Creon In the tragedy, one can consider the collision of equally just principles: the interest of the state and the interest of the family, expressed through the feminine principle.
• Antigone and Cordelia’s Stories Cordelia and Antigone are faithful to their ideals to the last, a life in which their faith in justice and the sincerity of their intentions is violated is meaningless.
• Civility, Democracy, Memory in Sophocles’ Antigone In Sophocles’ Antigone, the narrative flow makes the audience empathize with the tragic fate of the characters, deepening the emotional involvement of the readers and viewers.
• The Moral Conflict in Antigone: The Familial Values Against the Law The dilemmatic nature of the argument and the contrast which is created by the personas of Creon and Antigone, characters of the famous Greek myth about Oedipus, are particularly interesting for their potential for interpretation.
• Family Ties and Obligations as the Driver of Antigone’s Actions in Sophocles’ Play It is evident from Antigone’s willingness to sacrifice her life that she is driven by the familial tie, namely, her profound love for her brother.
• “Antigone”: Evaluation and Synthesis The Greek tragedy “Antigone” explores the themes of the conflict between the law and the internal sense of right and wrong.
• “Antigone” by Sophocles and “Blood Wedding” by F. Garcia Lorca The main difference between the two plays is the lack of concrete stage directions in Sophocles’ Antigone. By the means of music and singing, the director expresses all the events and shows the interaction between […]
• Tragedy in Sophocles’ “Antigone” Reverting to the issue of who between the 2 is a tragic hero, it is important to note that the reason for the duo’s demise has some moral and practical backing.
• “Antigone” by Sophocles Is a Play Without a Hero It tells the story of the king Oedipus’ daughter and her uncle Creon, the new king of the city of Thebes. The current essay represents the discussion of the characters of the famous play Antigone […]
• Mythology: The Tragic Hero in Antigone In the Greek tradition, the women were the ones that were concerned with the issues of burial and she wants Ismene to help her to ensure that their brother is properly buried despite the objection […]
• Higher Law in The Antigone Play Antigone strongly believes that the laws of Gods are higher than the laws of the state and that she does right by following the laws of the Gods.
• Antigone Reading Response On the other hand, Antigone looked at things in a totally different perspective from Creon; she believed it was her duty as a woman to bury the body of a family member and proceeded to […]
• The Play “Antigone“ by Sophocles: Summary This contradiction is revealed in the play by confronting the principles of two characters, Creon who felt his powers and used them to the fullest possible extent and Antigone with her actions which were not […]
• Antigone and Creon: Comparison The conflict between Creon and Antigone can serve as the platform for the discussion of the relationship between divine and secular laws.
• Creon and Antigone’s Debate in Sophocles’ Tragedy Exploring the apparent conflict pertaining to the burial of Polyneices I am of the opinion that Antigone had a right to bury her brother.
• The Theme of Divine Law in “Antigone” by Sophocles In this particular case, it can be stated that Creon has learned not to go against the ancient traditions that are valued by the ancient Greek society that he is in since they are part […]
• Medea and Antigone: Literature Comparison However, in spite of the fact that the motivations of Medea and Antigone are considered to be the same, they choose different actions.
• Basic Conflict in Antigone by Sophocle In setting the central characters against each other, Sophocles’ play Antigone embodies a conflict between one’s duty to the state and laws and the responsibility to family and morality.
• Comparison of Antigone With Griselda Additionally their roles in the society including the chores assumed in this context depicted various similarities in the entire contexts. Nonetheless, the depiction of women is still ideal in this context.
• The Main Actor Creon in “Antigone“ by Sophocles Throughout the play, there are hints that Creon who defends his actions as doing them in line with the interests of the people and the gods that he is doing the exact opposed and in […]
• Theories of Desire: “Antigone” by Sophocles This paper takes the modern approach in referring to the relevancy of the play by critically giving an insight on the perspectives of the theories of desire.
• Queen’s Voice: Antigone & Ismene The events that follow clearly indicate how abuse of power by a reckless ruler can lead to oppression of women who often suffer in silence unable to act and the resulting consequence to a society […]
• The Ancient Greek Play Antigone by Sophocle In the play, it is evident that pride is used by people to create laws that challenge the divine law from gods.
• The “Antigone” by Sophocles and Its Historical Context Creon is the antagonist in of the story. She is even willing to die in the name of honor.
• The Villain Comparison: Creon in Antigone and Medea in Medea From such a position the audience is allowed to examine the position of a woman in the society. What this signifies is that the woman is painted as a social misfit and this resulted in […]

⭐ Good Research Topics about “Antigone”

• Family Ties and Law in “Antigone” by Sophocles
• “Antigone”: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
• Julius and “Antigone”: Dynamic Characters in Greek Mythology
• Antigone and Creon: Philosophical War
• The Fight for the Throne in “Antigone” by Sophocles
• “Antigone”: Moral Law vs. Political Law
• The Distinction Between Brave and Coward in “Antigone”, a Tragedy by Sophocles
• Sophocles’ Great Tragedies: “Oedipus” and “Antigone”
• Antigone and Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
• The Modern World and the Legacy of “Antigone”
• “Antigone”: Conformity and Nonconformity
• Differences and Similarities Between “Antigone” and Creon
• Fate vs. Free Will “Antigone”
• Actions, Characters, and Hubris in Sophocles “Antigone”
• Ancient Greek Values: The Case of Antigone
• Creon in a Different Context: In “Antigone” and in “Oedipus King”
• Greek Mythology “Antigone” Moral Obligation and Civil Disobedience
• Agamemnon and “Antigone”’s Tragic Hero Characterization
• Love, Loyalty, and Irony: The Three Major Themes in “Antigone” by Sophocles
• Historical and Social Contexts Influence the Way in Which “Antigone” Is Constructed

👍 Simple & Easy “Antigone” Essay Titles

• Creon: Antigone’s True Tragic Hero
• Dealing With the Devil in “Antigone”
• Reasons for Antigone’s Disobedience in “Antigone”, a Tragedy by Sophocles
• Antigone and Haemon: Love, Religion, and Politics
• The Debates and Controversies Related to the Greek Tragedy “Antigone” by Sophocles
• Antigone’s Morals and Tragic Fate
• The Conflict Between Men and Women in “Antigone”, a Tragedy by Sophocles
• Antigone Challenges the Human Law and Holds the Divine Law as a Greater Authority in “Antigone” by Sophocles
• Sympathy for the Main Character in Sophocles’ “Antigone”
• Greek Religion and the Democratic Government of Athens in the Play “Antigone” by Sophocles
• Sophocles’ “Antigone”, Plato’s “Protagoras”, and Socrates’ “Principles”
• Moral and Political Law in Sophocles’ “Antigone”
• Relationship Between Antigone and Creon
• Light and Darkness Found Within the Gospel of John and in Sophocles’ Drama “Antigone”
• Male and Female Power in Sophocles’ Tragic Play, “Antigone”
• Creon and His Downfall in Sophocles’ “Antigone”
• Antigone Fights for Her Family
• Making Choices and Suffering Consequences in Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett and “Antigone” by Sophocles
• Antigone and Creon, Antagonist, Hero and Anti Hero
• Sophocles “Antigone”: Steadfast Love and Sexuality
• What Does the Play Antigone Say About Human Laws and Religious Laws?
• How Do Human Beings Judge Each Other in the Play Antigone?
• Was Sophocles’ Antigone Justified in Crossing the Line of Human Law to Honor the Divine Law?
• How Does Love Conquer All as Described in Sophocles’s Antigone?
• Why Did Mandela Choose Antigone as a Play in Jail?
• How Do Protagonist Females Use Masculine Characteristics to Overpower Men in Antigone?
• What Personal Characteristics Lead Antigone to Defy Creon in Burying Her Brother?
• How Does the Character’s Strength of Spirit Create the Climax in Death and the Maiden and Antigone?
• In What Significant Ways Are Creon and Antigone Similar?
• What Is Creon’s Fatal Flaw?
• How Could the Tragic Events in Sophocles’ Antigone Have Been Prevented?
• In What Ways Is Ismene Important to the Play?
• How Would You Characterize Creon as a Ruler in Antigone?
• In What Ways Is Haemon Important to the Play Antigone?
• How Might We Interpret Creon’s Character Psychologically? What Personal Characteristics Lead to the Decisions That He Makes?
• What Does Antigone Say About the Place of Women in Society?
• How Should We Regard the Character Antigone? As Prideful and Reckless? As Heroic?
• What Does the Play Antigone Say About Absolute Power?
• How Are Women Portrayed in the Play Antigone?
• What Does the Play Antigone Say About Obligations to Family and Obligations to Authority?
• How Does Antigone Demonstrate Pre-feminist Ethics?
• Why Does Ismene Object to Antigone’s Plan to Bury Polyneices?
• When Does Creon Become Apologetic for His Actions in the Play Antigone?
• What Is the Seeming Reason for Haemon’s Suicide? Does He Kill Himself Only Out of Desperate Love for the Dead Antigone?
• Why Isn’t Creon Killed by the Plague That Befalls Him at the Play’s End?
• What Is Creon’s Tragic Flaw in Antigone?
• Is Antigone Ever Apologetic for Burying Polyneices?
• Why Does Antigone Not Allow Ismene to Join Her in Her Death Sentence?
• What Is the Role of the Chorus in Antigone?
• What Is Unusual About the Watchman’s Speech in Antigone?
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IvyPanda . "109 Antigone Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/antigone-essay-topics/.