Antigone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search
This article is about the daughter of Oedipus. For other uses, see Antigone
(disambiguation).

Antigone in front of the dead Polynices by Nikiforos Lytras 1865

In Greek mythology, Antigone (/�n't?g?ni/ ann-TIG-?-nee; Ancient Greek: ??t?????)
is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or Euryganeia. She is a
sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.[1] The meaning of the name is, as in the
case of the masculine equivalent Antigonus, "worthy of one's parents" or "in place
of one's parents".

Contents
1 In Sophocles
1.1 Oedipus Rex
1.2 Oedipus at Colonus
1.3 Antigone
2 Other representations
2.1 Seven Against Thebes
2.2 Euripides' lost story
2.3 Appearance elsewhere
3 Gallery
4 Cultural references
4.1 Adaptations
4.2 Writings On
4.3 Contemporary productions
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External Links
In Sophocles
See also: Oedipus

Genealogy of Antigone
The story of Antigone was addressed by the fifth-century BC Greek playwright
Sophocles in his Theban plays:

Oedipus Rex
Antigone and her sister Ismene are seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as Oedipus
laments the "shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving his daughters to. He then begs Creon
to watch over them, but in his grief reaches to take them with him as he is led
away. Creon prevents him from taking the girls out of the city with him. Neither of
them is named in the play.[2]

Oedipus at Colonus
Antigone serves as her father's guide in Oedipus at Colonus, as she leads him into
the city where the play takes place. Antigone resembles her father in her
stubbornness and doomed existence.[1] She stays with her father for the majority of
the play, until she is taken away by Creon in an attempt to blackmail Oedipus into
returning to Thebes. However, Theseus defends Oedipus and rescues both Antigone and
her sister who was also taken prisoner.

At the end of the play both Antigone and her sister mourn the death of their
father. Theseus offers them the comfort of knowing that Oedipus has received a
proper burial, but by his wishes they cannot go to the site. Antigone then decides
to return to Thebes.[2]

Antigone
Antigone is the subject of a story in which she attempts to secure a respectable
burial for her brother Polynices. Oedipus's sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had
shared the rule jointly until they quarrelled, and Eteocles expelled his brother.
In Sophocles' account, the two brothers agreed to alternate rule each year, but
Eteocles decided not to share power with his brother after his tenure expired.
Polynices left the kingdom, gathered an army and attacked the city of Thebes in a
conflict called the Seven Against Thebes. Both brothers were killed in the battle.

King Creon, who has ascended to the throne of Thebes after the death of the
brothers, decrees that Polynices is not to be buried or even mourned, on pain of
death by stoning. Antigone, Polynices' sister, defies the king's order and is
caught.

Antigone is brought before Creon, and admits that she knew of Creon's law
forbidding mourning for Polynices but chose to break it, claiming the superiority
of divine over human law, and she defies Creon's cruelty with courage, passion and
determination. Creon orders Antigone buried alive in a tomb. Although Creon has a
change of heart and tries to release Antigone, he finds she has hanged herself.
Creon's son Haemon, who was in love with Antigone commits suicide with a knife, and
his mother Queen Eurydice, also kills herself in despair over her son's death. She
has been forced to weave throughout the entire story, and her death alludes to The
Fates.[2] By her death Antigone ends up destroying the household of her adversary,
Creon.[1]

Antigone is a typical Greek tragedy, in which inherent flaws of the acting

characters lead to irrevocable disaster. Antigone and Creon are prototypical tragic
figures in an Aristotelian sense, as they struggle towards their fore-doomed ends,
forsaken by the gods.

Other representations
In the oldest version of the story, the burial of Polynices takes place during
Oedipus' reign in Thebes, before Oedipus marries his mother, Jocasta. However, in
other versions such as Sophocles' tragedies Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, it
occurs in the years after the banishment and death of Oedipus and Antigone's
struggles against Creon.

Seven Against Thebes

Antigone appears briefly in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes.

Euripides' lost story

The dramatist Euripides also wrote a play called Antigone, which is lost, but some
of the text was preserved by later writers and in passages in his Phoenissae. In
Euripides, the calamity is averted by the intercession of Dionysus and is followed
by the marriage of Antigone and H�mon.[3] Antigone also plays a role in the
Phoenissae.

Appearance elsewhere
Different elements of the legend appear in other places. A description of an
ancient painting by Philostratus (Imagines ii. 29) refers to Antigone placing the
body of Polynices on the funeral pyre, and this is also depicted on a sarcophagus
in the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome. And in Hyginus' version of the legend, founded
apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed
over by Creon to her lover H�mon to be slain, is secretly carried off by him and
concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bears him a son, Maeon. When the boy grows
up, he attends some funeral games at Thebes, and is recognized by the mark of a
dragon on his body. This leads to the discovery that Antigone is still alive.[3]
The demi-god Heracles then intercedes and pleads with Creon to forgive H�mon, but
in vain. H�mon then kills Antigone and himself.[4] The intercession by Heracles is
also represented on a painted vase (circa 380�300 BC).[5][6]
Gallery

Cultural references

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Antigone" � news � newspapers � books � scholar � JSTOR (March 2017)
(Learn how and when to remove this template message)

This article appears to contain trivial, minor, or unrelated references to popular

culture. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular
culture, providing citations to reliable, secondary sources, rather than simply
listing appearances. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2017)
Adaptations
The story of Antigone has been a popular subject for books, plays, and other works,
including:

Antigone, one of the three extant Theban plays by Sophocles (497 BC � 406 BC), the
most famous adaptation
Antigone, a play by Euripides (c. 480 � 406 BC) which is now lost except for some
fragments
Antigona, opera by Tommaso Traetta, libretto by Marco Coltellini (1772)
Antigona, opera by Josef Myslivecek, libretto by Gaetano Roccaforte (1774)
Antigone (1841), settings of the choruses by Felix Mendelssohn as incidental music
for a performance of Johann Jakob Christian Donner's translation of Sophocles
Antigone, play by Jean Cocteau (1889�1963)
Antigone, opera by Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), libretto by Jean Cocteau
(1889�1963)
Antigone, opera by Carl Orff (1895�1982)
Antigone (1944), play by Jean Anouilh (1910�1987) performed during the Nazi
occupation of Paris
"Antigone-Legend", for soprano and piano (text by Bertolt Brecht), by Frederic
Rzewski (b. 1938)
??t????? (Antigone), ballet[7] by Mikis Theodorakis (b. 1925), 1959
??t????? (Antigone), opera by Mikis Theodorakis (b. 1925),1995�96
Antigone (1990/1991), opera by Ton de Leeuw (b. 1926)
Ant�gona Furiosa (Furious Antigone), play by Griselda Gambaro (b. 1928)
Another Antigone, play by A. R. Gurney (b. 1930)
The Island, play by Athol Fugard (b. 1932)
La Pasi�n Seg�n Ant�gona P�rez ((The) Passion according to Antigone P�rez),
adaptation by Luis Rafael S�nchez (b. 1936), updated to 20th-century Latin America
Ant�gona, play by Salvador Espriu (1939)
"Antigone", a short story by Sheila Watson (1959)
Tegonni, An African Antigone by Femi Osofisan (b. 1946)
Antigone, adaptation of Sophocles' play by Peruvian poet Jos� Watanabe (b. 1946)
Antigone, opera by Mark Alburger (b. 1957)
Antigone, comic book by David Hopkins (b. 1977)
Antigone, opera by Vassily Lobanov, libretto by Alexey Parin (1988)
Antigone by Henry Bauchau
Antigone's Red (2002), short play by Chiori Miyagawa
The Burial at Thebes (2004), by Seamus Heaney, adapted into a 2008 opera with music
by Dominique Le Gendre
Antigone, play by Mac Wellman
Ant�gona V�lez (1950), adaptation of Sophocles' play by Argentinean writer Leopoldo
Marechal (1900�1970)
Antigonai (2009), opera based on fragments by Sophocles and H�lderlin for three
choirs and a women's trio by Argentine composer Carlos Stella
Antigone's Song (2010), short post-apocalyptic musical western film based loosely
on the myth of Antigone by Perpombellar Productions
Antigone (1948), by Bertolt Brecht, based on the translation by Friedrich H�lderlin
and published under the title Antigonemodell 1948[8] An English translation of
Brecht's version of the play is available[9]
Antigone, play by Antonio D'Alfonso (2004)
Antigone, play by Don Taylor[10]
Antigone, modern adaptation (87 minute film) by Antonio D'Alfonso (2012)
Antigonick, play by Anne Carson (2012) which is a free and poetic adaptation of the
Sophocles play.[11] Carson and her colleagues presented a reading of Antigonick in
2012 at the Louisiana gallery in Denmark.[12]
Antigonas, linaje de hembras, play by Argentinean playwright Jorge Huertas
Antigone, play by Theodora Voutsa (2016) at Compagnietheater in Amsterdam
Antigona (1960), a play by Dominik Smole
Antigone (2016), a play by Slavoj �i�ek which allows for three different endings
(2016). [13]
Antigona (2016), a solo play by Brazilian actress Andrea Beltr�o
The Children of Jocasta (2017), a novel by Natalie Haynes which pays particular
attention to Ismene, Antigone's sister. [14]
Home Fire (2017), a novel by Kamila Shamsie which adapts the story to present
issues concerning the repatriation of the body of a terrorist.[15]
Antigone (2017), a film artwork by Tacita Dean
Antigone in Molenbeek (2017) a play by Stefan Hertmans
Antigone Alone (2018) a solo play by the actor/writer Michael McEvoy
Antigone (2019), a film by Sophie Deraspe
Writings On
In the works of Hegel, in particular in his discussion of Sittlichkeit in his
Phenomenology of Spirit and his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Antigone is
figured as exposing a tragic rift between the so-called feminine "Divine Law,"
which Antigone represents, and the "Human Law," represented by Creon. The Catholic
philosopher Jacques Maritain considers Antigone as the "heroine of the natural
law:"

she was aware of the fact that, in transgressing the human law and being crushed by
it, she was obeying a higher commandment�that she was obeying laws that were
unwritten, and that had their origin neither today nor yesterday, but which live
always and forever, and no one knows where they have come from. [16]
The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan writes about the ethical dimension of Antigone in
his Seminar VII, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Others who have written on Antigone
include theorist Judith Butler, in her book Antigone's Claim, as well as
philosopher Slavoj �i�ek, in various works, including Interrogating the Real
(Bloomsbury: London, 2005) and The Metastases of Enjoyment (Verso: London, 1994).

Contemporary productions
A new translation of Antigone into English by the Canadian poet Anne Carson has
been used in a production of the play (March 2015) at the Barbican directed by Ivo
van Hove and featuring Juliette Binoche as Antigone. This production was broadcast
as a TV move on April 26, 2015.[17] The play was transferred to the BAM Harvey
Theatre at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, running from September 24 to October 4,
2015.[18]

References
Ancient Greece portal
Myths portal
Roman, L., & Roman, M. (2010). Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman mythology., p. 66,
at Google Books
Sophocles. (2009). The Theban plays : Oedipus the king, Oedipus at Colonus,
Antigone. Fainlight, Ruth., Littman, Robert J., 1943-. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press. ISBN 9780801895418. OCLC 608624785.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now
in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Antigone (1)". Encyclop�dia
Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 125.
Scott Smith, R.; Trzaskoma, Stephen; Pseudo-Apollodorus; Hyginus (2007).
Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: two handbooks of Greek mythology.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-87220-820-9.
Heydermann, Heinrich (1868). �ber eine nacheuripideische Antigone [On a post-
Euripideian Antigone] (in German). Berlin: Adolph Enslin. ISBN 978-1-160-28969-6.
OCLC 601932362.
Sophocles; Jebb, R. C. (1890). Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments. Cambridge: CUP
Archive.
commissioned by the Royal Ballet, 1959
. Brecht, Bertolt (1948). Antigonemodell 1948 (in German). Berlin: Gebr�der Weiss
Verlag. LCCN 50056426. OCLC 1456885.
Malina, J. (1990) Sophocles� Antigone. New York: Applause Theatre Books
Charles Spencer (31 May 2012). "Antigone, National Theatre, review".
Telegraph.co.uk.
Carson, A., (2012). Antigonick. (illustrated by Stone, B.). New York: New
Directions.
[1]
�i�ek, S. (2016) Antigone. London: Bloomsbury Academic
Haynes, N. (2017). The children of Jocasta. London: Mantle Books.
Shamsie, K. (2017). Home fire. New York: Riverhead Books (Penguin)
Maritain, J. (edited by Sweet, W., 2001). Natural law: Reflections on theory and
practice. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine�s Press (p 26)
[2]
Antigone at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Further reading
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Antigone.
Antigones by George Steiner. An examination of the legacy of the myth and its
treatment in Western art, literature, and thought in drama, poetry, prose,
philosophic discourse, political tracts, opera, ballet, film, and even the plastic
arts.Steiner, George (October 1996). Antigones � How the Antigone Legend Has
Endured in Western Literature, Art, and Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN 978-0-300-06915-0. LCCN 96060411. OCLC 318365852.
Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death by Judith Butler. An examination
of the figure of Antigone in literature and philosophy, particularly in Sophocles
and in the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Luce Irigaray and Jacques
Lacan.Butler, Judith (2000). Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death. The
Wellek Library lectures. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-
231-11895-8. OCLC 43951993. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
Rayor, Diane J. (2011) Sophocles� Antigone. Cambridge University Press. Translation
with introduction and notes.
S�derb�ck, Fanny, ed. Feminist Readings of Antigone. New York: SUNY Press, 2010.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3278-6. Including classical texts by Judith Butler, Bracha
Ettinger, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Adriana Cavarero.
Wilmer, S. E., and Zukauskaite, Audrone, eds. Interrogating Antigone. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-955921-3. Including recent texts by
Judith Butler, Bracha L. Ettinger, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray.
External Links