Creont clearly has a more than usual for an ace, even for an ancient greek man, problem with woman er disagreeing with him. The gender issue appearsi seems to absolutely incense creon, that any woman would try to get one over. This is his fundamental weakness, more even than the age distanceo andtsal hymony se talking like a woman, yes, and in love with a woman. And he is deeply provoked by the fact that it's his young ward. I mean, he is her. Recently, he's suddenly become her guardian, that he's being shown up in public as the legal father figure to a girl who is in public flouting his
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is reputedly the most performed of all Greek tragedies. Antigone, by Sophocles (c496-c406 BC), is powerfully ambiguous, inviting the audience to reassess its values constantly before the climax of the play resolves the plot if not the issues. Antigone is barely a teenager and is prepared to defy her uncle Creon, the new king of Thebes, who has decreed that nobody should bury the body of her brother, a traitor, on pain of death. This sets up a conflict between generations, between the state and the individual, uncle and niece, autocracy and pluralism, and it releases an enormous tragic energy that brings sudden death to Antigone, her fiance Haemon who is also Creon's son, and to Creon's wife Eurydice, while Creon himself is condemned to a living death of grief.
With
Edith Hall
Professor of Classics at Durham University
Oliver Taplin
Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Oxford
And
Lyndsay Coo
Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of Bristol
Producer: Simon Tillotson