Greek%20Tragedy

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Greek Tragedy

• Origins Between the 6th century and the 5th
  century B.C.
• Context concern with explaining evil
• The tragedy sees evil as a part of human nature,
  which
• Partakes and aspires to the Divine (but also)
• Destroys the Divine
• Evil results from cosmic violence.
• Curses/Fate/Oracle
• But the tragedy also introduces the notion of
  responsibility
• -Good and bad seem to be accidental
• (but) Innocence does not eliminate
  responsibility.
• We are both determined by the past and present
  agents of our life in the Polis (Polis ?
  Universe).

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Sophocles Theban Plays

• General, priest, member of Athenian government
• Contests. Sophocles began by defeating Aeschylus.
  
• Antigone (written 442-441 B.C.)
• Oedipus the King (written circa 427 B.C.)
• Oedipus at Colonus (written 405 B.C.)
• Logical sequence
• Oedipus the King,
• Oedipus at Colona,
• Antigone

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Antigone

• Member of a Cursed genealogy (Antigone is one of
  the four children King Oedipus had with his
  wife/mother Jocasta).

Characters Antigone Ismene
Creon, King of Thebes Eurydice
(Creons wife) Haemon (Creons son)
Teiresias, the blind prophet Guard
(watching the corpse of Polyneices)
First Messenger Second Messenger, from
the house Chorus of Theban Elders
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Plot

• Antigone and Ismenes two brothers, Eteocles and
  Polyneices, have died in battle.
• King Creon orders to honor Eteocles, who has died
  defending Thebes, and to leave Polyneices (who
  has fought against Thebes) unburied.
• Antigone defies Creons decree twice.

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Creon
I here proclaim to the citizens about Oedipus
sons. For Eteocles, who died this citys
champion, showing his valors supremacy
everywhere, he shall be buried in his grave with
every rite of sanctity given to heroes under
earth. However, his brother, Polyneices, a
returned exile, who sought to burn with fire from
top to bottom his native city, and the gods of
his own people who sought to taste the blood he
shared with us, and lead the rest of us to
slaveryI here proclaim to the city that this man
shall no one honor with a grave and none shall
mourn. You shall leave him without burial you
shall watched him chewed up by birds and dogs and
violated. Such is my mind in the matter never by
me shall the wicked man have precedence in honor
over the just. But he that is loyal to the state
in death, in life alike, shall have my honor.
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Antigone.

• Antigonecan you think of any of all the evils
  that stem from Oedipus that Zeus does not bring
  to pass for us, while we yet live? ()Dont you
  notice when the evils due to enemies are headed
  towards those we love?IsmeneNot a word,
  Antigone, of those we love, either sweet or
  bitter, has come to me since the moment when we
  lost our two brothers, on one day, by their hands
  dealing mutual death (20).

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AntigoneYes, indeed for those two brothers
of ours, in burial has not Creon honored the one,
dishonored the other?(...) for whoever breaks the
edict death is prescribed, and death by stoning
publicly.
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IsmeneWould you bury him, when it is forbidden
the city? AntigoneAt least he is my brother
and yours, too, though you deny him. I will not
prove false to him. (50)
9
Ismene I will not put dishonor on them, but to
act in defiance of the citizenry, my nature does
not give me means for that. (90)
Antigone.Let that be your excuse. But I will
go to heap the earth on the grave of my loved
brother.
10

• IsmeneIf you can do it. But you are in
  lovewith the impossible. 
• Ismene.It is better not to hunt the
  impossibleat all.

• AntigoneNo. When I can no more, then I will
  stop. 

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CreonNow here I am, holding all authority and
the throne, in virtue of kinship with the
dead.It is impossible to know any man-I mean
his soul, intelligence, and judgment- until he
shows his skill in rule and law. (190)
12
CreonI would not count any enemy of my country
as a friend because of what I know, that she it
is which gives us our security.
13
CreonYou there, that turn your eyes upon the
ground, do you confess or deny what you have
done? AntigoneYes, I confess I will not
deny my deed. ()CreonAnd did you dare to
disobey that law?
14
Antigone
it was not Zeus that made the proclamation nor
did Justice, which lives with those below, enact
such laws as that, for mankind. I did not believe
your proclamation had such power to enable one
who will someday die to override Gods
ordinances, unwritten and secure. They are not of
today and yesterday they live forever none
knows when first they were. These are the laws
whose penalties I would not incur from the gods,
through fear of any mans temper.
15
CreonMy enemy is still my enemy, even in
death. AntigoneMy nature is to join in love,
not hate.
16
 

• Chorus
• But for those whose house has been shaken by
  Godthere is never cessation of ruinit steals
  on generation after generationNo generation
  frees another, some god strikes them down there
  is no deliverance.(640)

17
 CreonThe man the city sets up in
authoritymust be obeyed in small things and in
just but also in their opposites.() There is
nothing worse than disobedience to authority.It
destroys cities, it demolishes homesit breaks
and routs ones allies. Of successful lives the
most of them are saved by discipline.
18
HaemonA man who thinks that he alone is
right,or what he says, or what he is
himself,unique, such men, when opened up, are
seen to be quite empty. For a man, though he be
wise, it is no shame to learn learn many things,
and not maintain his views too rigidly. (740)  
19
CreonShould the city tell me how I am to rule
them?()Must I rule the land by someone elses
judgment rather than my own? HaemonThere is
no city possessed by one man only.
20
ChorusBut there is some terrible power in
destiny and neither wealth nor warnor tower nor
black ships, beaten by the sea, can give escape
from it.
What is Destiny? What is its relation to power?
21
Teiresias.you will not outlive many cycles
more of this swift sun before you give in
exchange one of your own loins bred, a corpse for
a corpse, for you have thrust one that belongs
above below the earth, and bitterly dishonored a
living soul by lodging her in the grave while
one that belonged indeed to the underworld gods
you have kept on this earth without due share of
rites of burial, of due funeral offerings, a
corpse unhallowed. With all of this you, Creon,
have nothing to do, nor have the gods above.
These acts of yours are violence on your part.
22
Or
Creon Antigone
Law of the City Divine Law
Written Law Unwritten Law
Moral Order human law. Ethical order law that makes individuals into humans
Concern with the earthly order, with politics. Concern with a trascendent order (that has political consequences)
Patriarchy Womens power
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Aristotle (Rhetoric)

• Just and unjust actions
• defined relatively to two kinds of law By the
  two kinds of law I mean particular law and
  universal law. Particular law is that which each
  community lays down and applies to its own
  members this is partly written and partly
  unwritten. Universal law is the law of Nature.
  ()It is this that Sophocles' Antigone clearly
  means when she says that the burial of Polyneices
  was a just act in spite of the prohibition she
  means that it was just by nature.
• Not of to-day or yesterday it is,
• But lives eternal none can date its
  birth

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•  
• What is Destiny? How do power and fate relate to
  each other?
• What is tragic about tragedy?
• How do Creon and Antigone respectively illuminate
  our understanding of power?
• Who is right and who is wrong? Why? How are they
  right and wrong?
• Who is more democratic? Why?

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Greek Tragedy

• The truth lies hidden and broken into pieces
  (puzzle). Foucault on Oedipus.
• Multiple voices, all of them necessary to
  discover the truth.
• As in life, both the beginning and the end are
  previously known the crucial difference lies in
  the trajectory.
• Dilemmas between truth, power, and duty (Oedipus,
  Creon)
• Paradoxes
• Power makes us blind.
• Blindness allows us to see further (Tiresias)
• Proximity between salvation and destruction