Antigone

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Antigone

Antigone (; Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
??t?????) is the name of two different women in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" (against, opposed to) and "-gon / -gony" (corner, bend, angle; ex: polygon), but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood" or "in place of a mother" based from the root gone, "that which generates" (related: gonos, "-gony"; seed, semen).

Classical depictions
Antigone is a daughter of the accidentally incestuous marriage between King Oedipus

Oedipus

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
and his mother Jocasta

Jocasta

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Classical depictions

Antigone is a daughter of the accidentally incestuous marriage between King Oedipus

Oedipus

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
and his mother Jocasta

Jocasta

In Greek mythology, Jocasta, also known as Jocaste , Epikast?, or Iokast? was a daughter of Menoeceus and Queen consort of Thebes, Greece....
(thus, Antigone is also her father Oedipus's half-sister and, through her father, her mother Jocasta's granddaughter). She is the subject of a popular story in which she attempts to secure a respectable burial for her brother Polyneices, even though he was a traitor to Thebes.

In the oldest version of the story, the funeral of Polyneices takes place during Oedipus's reign in Thebes. However, in the best-known versions, Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
's tragedies

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
Oedipus at Colonus
Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus at Colonus is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles' death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC....
and Antigone, it occurs in the years after Oedipus's banishment and death, and Antigone has to struggle against Creon

Creon

Haemon

In Greek mythology, Haemon was the son of Creon and Eurydice of Thebes.When Oedipus stepped down as King of Thebes , he gave the kingdom to his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, who both agreed to alternate the throne every year....
(or Haimon), who loved Antigone, kills himself. (Also see Oedipus

Oedipus

Oedipus was a Greek mythology monarch of Thebes, Greece. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family....
for a variant of this story.) Queen Eurydice, wife of King Creon, also kills herself at the end of the story due to seeing such actions allowed by her husband. She had been forced to knit throughout the entire story and her death alludes to Greek Mythology's 3 Fates.

The dramatist Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
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

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
and is followed by the marriage of Antigone and Haemon.

Different elements of the legend appear in other places. A description of an ancient painting by Philostratus

Philostratus

Philostratus, was the name of four Greek sophists of the Roman Empire:# "Philostratus I": Very minor author, known only for a dialogue Nero, possibly written by Philostratus II....
(Imagines
Imagines (work by Philostratus)

Imagines is a work in Ancient Greek now generally attributed to Philostratus#Philostratus_III. It ostensibly describes 64 works of art seen by Philostratus in Naples....
ii. 29) refers to Antigone placing the body of Polynices on the funeral pyre, and this is also depicted on a sarcophagus

Sarcophagus

A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek language sa?? sarx meaning "flesh", and fa?e?? phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos the word came to refer to the limestone t...
in the Villa Doria Pamphili

Villa Doria Pamphili

Villa Doria Pamphili, on the Gianicolo, the Roman Janiculum, is the largest public landscaped park of Rome. It has an area of 1.8 km?. It was bought in 1965–1971 by the City of Rome from the Doria-Pamphilii-Landi family—the family favor the orthography of the long i....
in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
. And in Hyginus'

Gaius Julius Hyginus

Gaius Julius Hyginus was a Latin author, though whether a native of Spain or of Alexandria it is not clear, a pupil of the famous Alexander Cornelius, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus, by whom he was made superintendent of the Palatine library, according to Suetonius' minor works, De Grammaticis, 20....
version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by Creon

Creon

Creon is a figure in Greek mythology best known as the ruler of Thebes,_Greece in the legend of Oedipus. He was the father of Menoeceus and Megara by his wife, Eurydice of Thebes....
to her lover Haemon 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. The demi-god Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
then intercedes, pleading in vain with Creon for Haemon, who slew himself after finding Antigone's corpse. This intercession by Heracles is also represented on a painted vase. (Heydermann, Über eine nacheuripideische Antigone, 1868).

Adaptations

The story of Antigone has been a popular subject for books, plays, and other works, including:

Antigone
Antigone (Sophocles)

Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written before or in 442 BC. Chronologically, it is the third of the three Theban plays but was written first....
, one of the three Theban plays by Sophocles
Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
(497 BC - 406 BC) - The most famous adaptation
Antigone, play by Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eug?ne Cl?ment Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en sc?ne language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde....
(1889-1963)
Antigone, full-length album by Heaven Shall Burn
Heaven Shall Burn

Heaven Shall Burn is a Deathcore band from Saalfeld, Germany. They combine an aggressive metal sound with lyrics that show a militant support of anti-racism and fighting social injustice....
(2004)
Antigone
Antigone (opera)

Antigonae , written by Carl Orff, was first presented on 9 August 1949 in music under the direction of Ferenc Fricsay in the Felsenreitsschule, Salzburg, Austria....
, opera by Carl Orff
Carl Orff

Carl Orff was a 20th-century Germany composer, most famous for his composition Carmina Burana . He has also become very influential in the field of music education for his pedagogy methods, which survive through Orff Schulwerk....
(1895-1982)
Antigone, play by Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh

Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a France dramatist....
(1910-1987)
"Antigone-Legend", for soprano and piano (text by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht

was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
), by Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski

Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an United States composer and virtuoso pianist....
(b. 1938)
Antigone
Antigone (opera)

Antigonae , written by Carl Orff, was first presented on 9 August 1949 in music under the direction of Ferenc Fricsay in the Felsenreitsschule, Salzburg, Austria....
, opera by Mikis Theodorakis
Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis is one of the most popular Greek composers. He is known internationally for his scores in the films, Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico ....
(b. 1925)
Antigone (1990/1991), opera by Ton de Leeuw
Ton De Leeuw

Ton de Leeuw was a Netherlands composer. He was known for his experiments with Microtonal music.Taught by Olivier Messiaen and others, and influenced by B?la Bart?k, he was a teacher at the University of Amsterdam and later professor of composition and electronic music at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam from 1959 to 1986....
(b. 1926)
Antígona Furiosa (Furious Antigone), play by Griselda Gambaro
Griselda Gambaro

Griselda Gambaro is a major Latin American playwright and novelist.Gambaro worked in accounting and business until she got married and, in her words, her husband 'emancipated' her....
(b. 1928)
"The Island", play by Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in , best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of South Africa under apartheid and for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood....
(b. 1932)
La Pasión Según Antígona Pérez (The Passion of Antigone Pérez), adaptation of Sophocles by Puerto Rican
Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is a Autonomy Territories of the United States of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands....
writer Luis Rafael Sánchez
Luis Rafael Sanchez

Dr. Luis Rafael S?nchez a.k.a. "Wico" is considered by many to be the greatest Puerto Rico playwright of modern times....
(b. 1936), updated to 20th century Latin America
Tegonni, An African Antigone by Femi Osofisan
Femi Osofisan

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan is a Nigerian writer known for his critique of societal problems and his use of African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his novels....
(b. 1946)
Antigone, adaptation of Sophocles' play by Peruvian poet José Watanabe
José Watanabe

Jos? Watanabe was a Peruvian poet who won a number of literary awards.Watanabe was born in Laredo, Peru, a large sugar cane farm in northern Peru....
(b. 1946)
Antigone, opera by Mark Alburger (b. 1957)
Antigone play by Andy Wibbels (b. 1975)
Antigone, comic book by David Hopkins
David Hopkins (writer)

David Hopkins is an American comic book writer and essayist. He is the co-host and co-producer of Fanboy Radio's Indie Show, that showcases independent and small press comics....
(b. 1977)
Antigone by Henry Bauchau
Henry Bauchau

Henry Bauchau is a Belgium psychoanalyst as well as author of French language prose and poetry. He was born in Mechelen and has spent a considerable part of his life in Paris....
The Burial at Thebes
The Burial at Thebes

The Burial at Thebes is a play by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, based on the fifth century BC tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. It is also an opera by Dominique Le Gendre...
by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is an Irish people poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He currently lives in Dublin....
The Burial At Thebes opera by Dominique Le Gendre to a libretto by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is an Irish people poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He currently lives in Dublin....
Governing Alice by C. Denby Swanson
Echo Boom by Caitlin Montanye Parrish
Dear Antigone a song by The Breathing Process

Further reading

Antigones by George Steiner
George Steiner

Francis George Steiner , is an influential European-born United States literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, Translation, and Education....
. 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.

External links
G.Theodoridis. Full translation: