Aristotle wrote his poetics about the art of tragedy next century, a hundred and 50 years after this play was produced. But he said that the core of an effective tragedy is plot, is plotting. And although eschylus is er who is the only predecessor of sophocles s extant plays we've got, is a marvellous strategian fo kinds of ways, plotting was not his forte. The eurydice final turn of that screw seems to me the absolute master stroke. That you've already been tramatized enough, but then you're going to get re tromatized,. because you've suddenly got to flash through everything tha's happened again
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