Sophocles - Antigone #

The tragedies of Sophocles place heroes characterized by remarkable determination and fixed ideas in situations designed to test the limits of both their convictions and their agency—with often catastrophic results. Daniel Mendolsen - NYRB.

Sophocles wrote a trilogy: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone.

Oedipus Rex #

Exposition - backdrop

When the Queen of Thebes, Jocasta bore a son, the Priestess at Delphi predicted that he would kill his father, marry his mother and cause the ruin of Thebes.

Her husband, Laius, had the boy’s feet pinned together (to keep his ghost from walking) and ordered a shepherd to abandon the baby on Mount Cithaeron near Thebes. Instead, the shepherd gave the baby to a friend from Corinth. This friend delivered the baby to Polybus, king of Corinth, and he and his wife, Meriope, adopted the child, giving him the name “Oedipus”, which seems to mean “swollen foot” or “sore foot”.

At the age of twenty, a drunken man questioned Oedipus’ parentage, though his mother would not speak to him about the matter. Instead, he went to Delphi to learn about his background, where the oracle instead told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he abandoned Corinth, and headed towards Thebes where he decided to try his luck as an exile. On the way, a chariot ran him off the road and grazed his foot. In anger, Oedipus killed the driver, the passenger, and all of his retainers except one, who escaped.

Upon arriving at Thebes, he encountered the monstrous Sphinx, possibly sent by Hera as punishment against the Thebans for failure to atone for the crimes of Laius. The Sphinx was eating Thebans. Before killing them, the monster posed a riddle:

“What goes on four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening?”

Only when the riddle was answered would the Thebans be spared the agony of the Sphinx, but no one had been able to solve the riddle. Laius had gone to Delphi to learn how to rid Thebes of the Sphinx, but reports of his demise by bandits came back to Creon, brother-in-law of Laius and acting ruler of Thebes. Creon decreed that whoever could solve the riddle would become the next king.

Oedipus encountered the Sphinx and quickly realized that the answer was “man”. The Sphinx, in her anger, threw herself off a cliff.

Oedipus became king of Thebes and married Jocasta. She bore two sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. A plague followed and the stage was set for the action of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.

Ironies in Oedipus #

Because we already know the plot, we know things the characters do not.

• Oedipus’ great grandmother was the goddess, Harmonia – the daughter of Ares (War) and Aphrodite (Love).

• The detective is unknowingly the murderer. Investigator investigates the investigated.

• The guy seeming the most intelligent, is the most ignorant

• The man who saved Thebes is now destroying it.

Oedipus: “I mean to fight for him (Laius) as I would fight for my own father”.

Creon: “There is a measure in all things”.

• “One is not more than one, yet Oedipus the equator, is not one but two”.

• “All the generations of mortal men add up to nothing.”

• Enlightenment leads to blindness, yet once he is blind Oedipus can see.

• Teiresias, the blind prophet can see into the future.

Reversals:

Oedipus: Change of action or status to its opposite:

| King | - polluted outcast | | First of men | - most accursed of men
| | Investigator | - being investigated

| Ruler (active) | - Subject (passive)

|> I must rule - I must obey

| Accuser | - defender

| Doctor | -patient

| Teacher | - pupil + object lesson

Paradoxes:

|———————-|——————————|

| Husband | also son - > “where I was sown and where I reaped my harvest!”.

| Brother | also father of his children
| Alien | also native of Thebes
| Rich | also poor
| Wise | also blind

He turns full circle: from an outcast child, returns then an outcast man, representing the futility of human endeavor.

Oedipus’ suffering leads to Disclosure, (Anagnorisis) or self-recognition as they become aware of their true predicament, puncturing all their illusions of themselves.

“I must pursue this trail to the end, Till I have unravelled the mystery of my birth”. (55)

”born thus, I ask to be no other man than that I am, and will know who I am”

Chorus:

“All generations of mortal men add up to nothing! Show me the man’s whose happiness was anything more than illusion – Followed by disillusion.

“Zeus! If thou livest, all-ruling, all-pervading,
Awake; old oracles are out or mind;
Apollo’s name denied; his glory fading;
There is no godliness in all mankind. (50)

Jocasta:

“A fig for divination! After this
I would not cross the road for any of it”.
“Chance rules our lives, and the future is unknown”.

Antigone #

Cartoon summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnoZmoZbjwg

Antigone, in Greek legend, the daughter born of the unwittingly incestuous union of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. After her father blinded himself upon discovering that Jocasta was his mother and that, also unwittingly, he had slain his father, Antigone and her sister Ismene served as Oedipus’ guides, following him from Thebes into exile until his death near Athens.

Following Oedipus’ exile, his sons agreed to share the rule of Thebes, alternating in rule every year. However, after the first year, Eteocles refused to give up his power and drove out Polynices, his older brother, who fled to Argos,

Returning to Thebes, the sisters attempted to reconcile their quarrelling brothers—Eteocles, who was defending the city and his crown, and Polyneices, who was attacking Thebes. Both brothers, however, killed each other, and their uncle Creon became king.

After performing an elaborate funeral service for Eteocles, Creon, decrees that her exiled brother Polynices, “an enemy of the state”, so his corpse is to be left outside on the hillside to be devoured by dogs and vultures, declaring him to have been a traitor.

Sophocles in Antigone poses the conflict of Natural jurisprudence and State Justice. If the state acts in an unjust way, what is your role as a patriot? Accept or resist?

Antigone is determined to obey the divine laws by giving her brother Polynices a proper grave on the simple moral point that “he is still my brother”.

Resisting authority

https://nebo-lit.com/topic-areas/Justice/resisting-the-abuse-of-power.html

Text #

For a summary and analysis of the play see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB9XQMbEDf4

When her sister, Ismene resigns with:

“It’s the law, what can we do? we have to follow it - we’re girls,”

Antigone asserts:

“but I will bury him: well for me to die in doing so. I shall rest, a loved one with him whom I have loved, sinless in my crime; for I owe a larger allegiance to the dead than to the living… But if thou wilt, be guilty of dishonouring laws which the gods have stablished in honour.”

When Creon charges her for breaking his law, Antigone defiantly counters:

Yes, for it was not Zeus who made that edict…nor deemed I that your decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten unfailing statutes of heaven. Die I must… But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain; for when any one lives, as I do, compassed about with evils, can there be any gain but in death?

So, for me to meet this doom is trifling grief; but if I had suffered my mother’s son to lie in death a corpse unburied, that would have grieved me; for this, I am not grieved.

And if my present deeds are foolish in your sight, perhaps a foolish judge arraigns my folly.

Creon, concerned about his image of authority counters with

Now verily I am no man, she is the man, if this victory shall rest with her, and bring no penalty. No! be she sister’s child, or nearer to me in blood

Sophoclean Quotes: #

Oedipus investigating his own crime is urged by his wife/mother Jocasta to stop; defiantly insists:

“I will know who that I am”!

The final summation of the Chorus is:

“Never call a man happy until he is safely in his grave”.

“There is no greater evil than men’s failure to consult and to consider.”

“Oh, it’s terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.” Antigone

Antigone, moved by love for her brother and convinced of the injustice of the command, buried Polyneices secretly. For that she was ordered by Creon to be executed and was immured in a cave, where she hanged herself.

Origins of Drama #

Drama or re-enactments have been central to the most primitive societies as a form of entertainment and a method of passing on traditions through story telling. At its root lies an instinctive need for narrative and impersonation, ritual expression and interpretation of natural forces illustrating the cycles of life and death. The elements of dance and song are significant features. Re-enactment has always attempted to provide a mirror to real life battles of mankind against each other or external forces that govern our destiny.

Primitive tribes tended to re-enact the day’s events after a feast, acting out the hunt or conflict with other tribes. It was their form of entertainment as well as transmission to the youth of culture, tradition and means of survival..

Modern Drama has its origins in 5th Century Greek Drama and the influence of Plato and Aristotle’s guidelines continue to this day.

Tragedies were presented in an open-air theatre accommodating about 17,000 spectators at annual spring festivals in honour of Dionysius or Bacchus. Tragedy touched the deepest centres of mankind’s individual and collective consciousness.

See the Greek Theatre at Ephesus:

https://ephesus.us/ancient-ephesus/ephesus-theatre/

Lysicrates, a wealthy patron of the arts, awarded monetary prizes in the festival. Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote many plays, generally tragic trilogies followed by a satyr play in a lighter vein, for a competition. Most of them have been lost to civilisation.

Chorus in Antigone #

The chorus was a group of actors who responded to and commented on the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. The actor could assume different roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in dialogue only with the chorus. By adding a second actor (the deuteragonist, or second actor) with whom the first could converse, Aeschylus vastly increased the drama’s possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction.

The chorus initially provides important background information for the audience so that we may understand the context in which the characters find themselves. Once the inciting action of the play is underway, the chorus then also comments on the events taking place, in some cases even speaking directly to the characters. In the original language the cadence and meter could cast a spell on the listener.

The strophe – meaning “turn” – is the first stanza of an ode and is essentially the first half of a debate or argument presented by the chorus. In reciting the strophe, the chorus moves from the right of the stage to the left.

The antistrophe is the other half of the debate or further exploration of the argument initially presented in the strophe. The word itself means “to turn back,” which makes sense given that the chorus moves in the opposite direction of the strophe; for the antistrophe, the movement is left to right. The antistrophe serves as a response to the strophe, but it does not get the last word. The antistrophe only complicates the issue and makes it difficult to see the correct answer or path for characters to take.

The epode, or “after song,” is the third and final section of the ode. In the epode, the chorus comes together in the center of the stage and delivers a final stanza.

The chorus in Antigone, expresses a submissive, if rather unenthusiastic loyalty to their king Creon and reproves Antigone as having gone to the outer most daring limit against law enthroned authority. They cannot afford to connive at disobedience.

Good drama relies on conflict. When two strong wills meet face to face, each with a stubborn loyalty to a principle good in itself, but each pressing that loyalty with single-mindedness to the point at which it breaks against the other; destroying both.

We, the audience, through identification and empathy, based on the theatre of illusion where the characters plausibly imitate real life, experience the predicaments of the characters vicariously. By identifying emotionally and psychologically, we are seduced by the actors to identify, empathise with the characters and aroused by their terror to pity and fear (Pathos) to a state of Catharsis, releasing our tension, soothing, cleansing or purging our souls.

Tragedy makes us feel; comedy makes us think.

Emotions can be ephemeral with no lasting consequences.

Aristotle’s theories

Aeschylus, (born 525/524 BC—died 456/455 BC, ), the first of classical Athens’ great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power.

Initially Aeschylus had just a song, sung by a chorus with a dance, performed by two actors. The chorus, today a ‘voice over’, stood aloof as a commentator, interpreter and occasionally participant in advising the characters.

Previously, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who became known as the protagonist, meaning first actor, once others were added) and a chorus engaged in a largely static recitation.