#sophecles

sleep a few

sleep a few hours past tragedy

to short stories in verse

the short

story’s inverse

one man’s ode

or all women’s

Author: Sophocles 

Summary: Antigone's brothers killed each other, one was a traitor and is being denied burial. She wants to bury him anyway, she tries to enlist her sister Ismene who is not down for midnight burials. Antigone does it anyway. Creon the king finds out and gets mad. Antigone defends her case. Creon gets progressively more angry. Until even his son (who is engaged to Antigone but Antigone could care less about him) pleads for Antigone. Oh and Ismene decided she wants to take some credit as well but Antigone with have none of either of them. She will die for this herself. Creon locks her in a cave, she hangs herself, Hameon stabs himself, and Creon cries.

Greek Tragedy was written to be performed at the religious festival to Dionysus. This was both a political and a religious event. They came together as a community to collectively deliberate about how the polis is run. The plays were concerned with two things

-How to be pious to the gods 

-How to live in community

Vocab: 

patei mathos: wisdom through suffering

Notes: Creon and Antigone do not recognize each other  

There is in this play behind the scenes a divine totality and a political totality which moves the scene without ever having to appear.

Duty to City vs Duty to Family

We are limited but justice is of the unlimited we cannot have it all: we cannot have both the city and the family.

Passing of time is the gradual paying of justice over a long period of time by hands of the limited onto each other.

Creon and Antigone limit and oppose each other

Antigone: Pluto's girl, obsessed with death(burial rights), wants the family over the city

Creon: The laws of the city must be respected or the city will be destroyed. Zeus's boy, obsessed with city. 

But both Creon and Antigone are defined by each other. Creon is patronly, Antigone a political lobbyiest. In their extremes they destroy themselves.

Absolute rule which listens to no-one leads you to rule onver no-ne except yourself. Creon rules nothing but a dessert island

Antigone, dies alone in a cave, without ever attaining the family she fought for.

They both forgot about marriage. Marriage joins together the family and the state. The painful lived knowledge of suffering is caused by what they did not recognize.