Antigone

I re-read Antigone (translated by Richard Emil Braun) today June 17, 2020, before giving my copy to my 16 year old granddaughter to read. Must be the third or fourth time I've read it. It'll be her first.

How remarkable that a 2,500 year old play should still speak to us. Words from Ancient Greece, from a time when that funny old god Zeus was supreme and war was waged as an unthinkable face-to-face brutality of swords, down to our time, our high-tech-global-speed-of-light world with things like DNA and drones. Will there be meaning for my granddaughter's first reading? I think so.

When I first read it at age 14, in another long ago time of the 1970s, I related to it from a budding feminist perspective. Today I see its parallel lessons in show more the massive Black Lives Matter protests. Protesters of thousands and thousands of Antigones (and Antigonuses) buck against a stubborn power that has lost its moral code, refuses to budge, and fights against the divinely inherent rights of humanity. Makes me wonder what parallels my granddaughter might find with the world when she's my age. I can't imagine. But, they will be there.

What I didn't understand in my youth but see clearly now, is that this is a cycle that will -- and must be -- played out by all the generations, all over the world.

At the end, Kreon is personally demolished. Of the pain of his folly and result of his stubbornness, he cries out, "It leaps on me, it crushes." In all these intervening years since the play was written, there have been thousands of Kreons, some also crushed. But even more Antigones, locked in the clash with the powerful by the empowered still willing to fight face-to-face brutality.

The play ends with advice for leaders, "To be sensible and to be pious are the first and last of happiness." The message is from the chorus, the story is of Kreon, but the title is Antigone. show less

There are so many things to say about this most famous play by the ancient Greek writer Sophocles, I actually do not know where to begin. Let me start by addressing the most significant point: every single character is characterized in a remarkably ambiguous way.
Naturally, the focus lies on Antigone herself (but do not be misled, it was not Sophocles who gave the title). She is often portrayed as the heroine of resistance against blind state power, the defender of a more respectful, humane approach, and she is that of course, but she is not only that. The way Sophocles depicts her can lead you, with just as many arguments, to see in her a case of extreme stubbornness—in the negative sense, that is—someone who is unable or simply show more unwilling to see the other point of view, and who even wallows in her role as a martyr (when her sister Ismene suddenly joins her, she becomes angry that she is taking over her role). Incidentally, she is the only one in the entire play who does not doubt, who never changes her point of view; even the fate of her fiancé Haemon leaves her cold.
Then there is Creon, in whom we like to see the hard-hearted tyrant, and naturally there are arguments for that too. Many of his pronouncements are also downright condescending and misogynistic. But Sophocles succeeds just as well in portraying him as the responsible leader who keeps the collective interest in mind and realizes that to cook, one simply has to break eggs. Even he eventually changes his mind, albeit too late and somewhat out of self-interest.
Then Ismene, Antigone's sister, embodies the viewpoint of the woman who wavers, who wants to be pragmatic, bows to power, and is ultimately persuaded by her sister. She perhaps comes across slightly less convincingly.
And then there is Haemon, the son of Creon and thus also Antigone's fiancé. Sophocles first presents him as the voice of reason. Haemon even uses cunning and rhetoric to convince his father to be accommodating, but resolutely chooses the path of radicalism when pointing out his opposition, and in this he is no less adept than Antigone.
Antigone and Creon naturally stand out, but Sophocles makes it quite difficult to determine exactly which side he is on, and that is cleverly done. Or rather: I get the impression that Sophocles takes neither side, for he makes it clear that he condemns both of them for their obtuse radicalism. Both Antigone and Creon go astray in their stubbornness; in that sense, the moralizing lesson in the final lines of this play is clear: “Wisdom is by far the greatest Condition for happiness. One must never be impious towards gods. Great arrogance Pays for its boastfulness With great misfortunes. Wisdom is acquired with age.” Amen.
And with all that, Sophocles also skillfully demonstrates that there are multiple sides to a situation, that there are, as it were, multiple truths that might be equally legitimate from a certain standpoint. This will be music to the ears of postmodernists. And that is without even mentioning the tight composition, the sharp dialogues, and the choral reflections. This is rightly still *the* classic of Antiquity.
You can find a few reflections on historical aspects of this piece in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8550160708.
As an exception, I give this play a rating, because of its qualities and ever-relevant message. show less

Antigone is a play that has plenty of resonances for modern audiences. It's often been used in situations where there's a conflict between political authority and private conscience - Athol Fugard's theatre company during the Apartheid years famously created a play in which two prisoners on Robben Island are staging Antigone, for instance.

The plot is surprisingly simple - two of Antigone’s brothers, fighting on opposite sides, have been killed during a failed attack on Thebes. Their uncle Kreon, the ruler of Thebes, has decreed that the rebel’s body may not be buried. Antigone defies the order, going out to perform a symbolic burial rite for her brother. Bad things ensue, for Kreon and everyone else.

For the Greek viewer, this is show more presumably meant to be primarily about the after-effects of the Oedipus story rumbling on, and about Kreon acting ultra vires by trying to assert authority over the dead, but Sophokles doesn't allow you to see it simply as the tragedy of Kreon. Antigone’s clarity of conscience is at the heart of the play, and is what has made it such a beacon for people confronted by oppressive government.

Anne Carson's translation is obviously meant in the first place to make this play performable by modern actors in front of a general audience. She avoids archaism and "high language" and keeps the text simple and punchy. Since the actors are going to find the right cadences when they speak the lines anyway, she doesn't bother with punctuation, which initially makes it rather odd to read, but isn't really a problem - it forces you to imagine the sound of the lines. show less

My version was translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff in 1954. I would recommend a better translation as this one softens the drama in the language. Maybe try the one by Seamus Heaney titled [Burial at Thebes], as it's highly regarded and I like the quotes other readers shared.

This was my second time reading this, and it was much better this time. Actually, it was quite magnificent. I first read it, in 2016, as one of several classical Greek plays, and it didn't stand out for me. Instead of the direct drama of some Sophocles plays, which is there, the power of this play lies in its implied questions and its sense of rebellion, and the convoluted sense of logic behind that.

This time I read in isolation and the dramatic elements leapt out. How show more Antigone is more powerful by not making any practical sense but yet remaining true to her form. How king Creon is undermined by making complete sense, because he wraps himself in pride that gets tighter and more fragile, setting up a kind of self-destruct button. The key elements here include logic, family, pride, honor, and reputation. How do we manage complexities that require us to step outside the cold logic and into a larger world of human sensibility?

2025
https://www.librarything.com/topic/375106#9035756 show less

"All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride."

Polynices and his brother died in their battle to become the sole ruler of Thebes. Creon, the new King, decreed that Polynice, the invader, should be denied proper burial rites and his body left to rot and be eaten by carrion and dogs. According to Greek religion, this punishment would prevent his soul from entering the underworld. Creon added that anyone who ignored his edict and tried to bury Polynices would be sentenced to death. Creon's edit becomes Antigone, Polynice's sister's central dilemma. She must determine where her primary loyalty lies to her family or the state. Antigone chooses to bury her show more brother.

Sophocles uses Antigone's decision to examine the nature of power, arbitrary rules, and their effects on the family and social order. As Antigone was engaged to Creon's son, he must also choose between family and state.

Although written in the 5th century BC, Antigone remains relevant today. It presents debates that are nuanced and multifaceted. The writing is full and rich, and finely constructed lines often jump out at you. I read the play and listened to an excellent, full-cast, audible podcast production.
Highly recommend. show less

I first read Antigone when I took a course in college dedicated to the early Greek plays. I find it weathers well, but then that should be no surprise since it has already weathered more than 2000 years.

Twice I was taken by the presence of phrases we still use commonly today. Is this the possible first use of “bit the dust”?

Here, there, great Ares like a war horse wheeled;
Beneath his car down thrust
Our foemen bit the dust

And this of “stand your ground”?

Such a man would in the storm of battle stand his ground.

The story revolves around the girl Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, whose brothers have fought and slain one another in battle. The brother on the non-victorious side, Polyneices, is laid out to be eaten by dogs and scavenger show more birds, and Creon, the king, makes it a crime for anyone to bury him. Antigone, heeding the laws of the Gods over the rule of one man, defies the king and attempts to bury her brother.

What ensues is tragedy. Creon’s insistence that he, and he alone, rules in Thebes, costs everyone in the play dearly, including himself.

His son, Haemon, pleads with him to listen to reason and be swayed by those who see the other side of the question, but he is stubborn and closes his eyes and ears. Haemon’s words are powerful, especially now, when I find so many people have their ideas set in stone and refuse to entertain the possibility of being wrong about anything.

Haemon’s plea:
The wisest man will let himself be swayed
By others’ wisdom and relax in time.
See how the trees beside a stream in flood
Save, if they yield to force, each spray unharmed,
But by resisting perish root and branch.

Finally, there was a stanza that jumped out at me as being so true of our own time and made me stop and think that little really changes over time:

Of evils current upon earth
The worst is money. Money ‘tis that sacks
Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home;

I was surprised how much of the mythology I have retained from my school days and my subsequent readings of Bulfinch’s and Edith Hamilton, although I will confess to being happy to have Google available for the more obscure references. I realized, after reading this, that I would really enjoy revisiting all these early plays. Perhaps the other Oedipus plays from this trilogy will make my list before the end of the year. show less

This is the best of the Oedipus plays because it's the one that gives you a sense of the epic scope of the thing. Oedi is dead and buried and blessing Athens with his cursed presence, but his family are still slaughtering each other. Hatred, rage, self-loathing, the desire to make something admirable out of one's tainted life, spring eternal and feed one another. Also, I'm a sucker for brother and sister stuff. Alongside my dad's comment that your sister is the only person who's with you for your life comes Antigone's, that once a brother is gone, unlike a husband or a child, you can never grow a new one, unless some miracle happens (or your parents are still young and birthy). In fact, the main reason this play struck me in the gut was show more the lines. "Ask Cleon. You and he are friends," Antigone says to her sister Ismene, who is desperate to prove her worth by helping bury her brother against Cleon's wishes but is scared. It's "Why don't you ask your boyfriend, Cleon?" taken to the edge of violence. Cleon himself is fascinating--the heir-presumptive become the good man-at-arms to Oedipus, come the scold and upholder of the good state, come the tyrant and hypocrite. You get the feeling that his personal hate for Oedipus is what licenses his revulsion at the cursed acts and persecution of the family, rather than the other way around. The equivocations and backdoor philosophy of the sentry--"unpleasant news is very unpleasant, you know!"--where the threat of death adds a queasy nervous giggle, a whole new realm, to what might otherwise be mere nervous Blackadderisms, not that that's a minor accomplishment in itself. Antigone, walking her life's last path, having bought--if anyone ever did--with her aggressive selflessness in acting against Creon to bury her brother the chance now to wallow in self-pity and (rarest of things) keep her audience--there is that within the human which recoils from the maudlin even when it is completely justified, which speaks to the power of Antigone's symbolic act. When she says

Eye of the blessed sun--
I shall miss you soon.
No tears will mourn me dead. No friend to cry

we (rarest, I say, of things) sympathize. And when Creon replies "Listen you! Panegyrics and dirges go on forever if given the chance," and seals her up, that's when he becomes unredeemably villain. Cartoons bore, no doubt, but seeing the process by which a complex and sometimes admirable human becomes a cartoon is shocking and compelling. Your city sickens, Creon, you crawling thing, you double filicidal killer. The curse got you too.

And then Antigone dead, hung, and Haemon dead, self-stabbed, and Eurydice dead, and Creon no doubt feeling he's paid and hoping to buy a reprieve by grief against the wave of human decency that belatedly overcomes the townsfolk (apparently it worked, as Wikipedia saith he was killed in old age by one Lycus, next king of bloody Thebes). And the chorus girls sing:

Creation is a marvel
And man its masterpiece;
He scuds before the southern wind
Between the loud white-piling swell.
He drives his thoroughbreds
Through Earth (perpetual
Great goddess inexhaustible)
Exhausting her each year

(...)

He's trained his agile thoughts
(Volatile as air)
To civilizing words.
He's roofed against the sky
The javelin crystal frosts
The arrow-lancing rains.
All fertile in resource
He's provident for all
(Not beaten by disease)
All but death, and death--
He never cures. show less