Book Condition: Very Good with minor shelfwear, evidence of handling, light soiling. Some highlighting of passages within the text, otherwise clean and clear. One of the greatest, most moving of all tragedies, "Antigone" continues to have meaning for us because of its depiction of the struggle between individual conscience and state policy, and its delicate probing of the nature of human suffering. A lucid, well-paced translation, natural enough sounding in the dialogue to make a good acting version. Oedipus, the former ruler of Thebes, has died. Now, when his young daughter Antigone defies her uncle, Kreon, the new ruler, because he has prohibited the burial of her dead brother, she and he enact a primal conflict between young and old, woman and man, individual and ruler, family and state, courageous and self-sacrificing reverence for the gods of the earth and perhaps self-serving allegiance to the gods of the sky. While the conflict seems simple enough, it involves two competing arenas, political and religious. Politically, Antigone represents the aristos, the old ruling families, who aren’t as loyal to law as they are to their own families, and Creon represents the demos, or the voting masses, whose primary focus is the interest of the state and the rule of law. In the religious arena, Antigone wants to honor the gods’ laws by burying her brother, while Creon ignores the gods’ laws in favor of his own decrees. So who’s right? What is the balance of power between individuals and the state? The laws of man and the laws of gods? Governing with firmness and listening with reason? The good news is that Sophocles gives each character a leg to stand on, but only one. Antigone is right to honor the gods’ laws but wrong to disobey the king’s decree, and Creon is wrong to disregard the gods’ laws but right to expect the laws of the land to supplant individual wishes. On the one hand, Antigone is a strident vigilante who doesn’t care that she’s breaking the law. And on the other hand, Creon is an insecure blowhard who doesn’t care that he’s breaking custom and the will of the gods by leaving his nephew’s corpse to be eaten by birds. Neither character is easy to side with, but each has a point. However, the bad news is that Sophocles clearly sides with Creon — through the airtime he gives Creon (far more than he gives Antigone), through the chorus’s support (who are supposed to state the opinion of the audience), and through the plot itself, which gives Creon the realization of his mistakes and the cathartic “Woe is me” ending. Creon, not Antigone, follows the tragic hero trajectory. Antigone’s real tragedy is simply that she’s a member of a spectacularly dysfunctional family. While the plot vindicates Antigone’s position, Sophocles undermines her character at every turn.
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