Reading Order
AntigoneAntigone Reading Order
Antigone (1944) by Jean Anouilh is the most important French play of the German Occupation — a rewriting of Sophocles' Antigone in which Antigone refuses to accept Creon's authority, insists on burying her brother, and goes to her death, while Creon, who represents political pragmatism and the responsibility of governing, attempts to persuade her to live. The play was performed in Paris under German censorship in 1944 and was understood simultaneously as a collaborationist play (Creon as the reasonable Pétainist administrator, Antigone as the dangerous purist fanatic) and as a Resistance play (Antigone as the heroic refuser, Creon as the occupier). Anouilh himself maintained that this ambiguity was intentional, and that the play was asking a genuine question about the relative claims of absolute moral refusal and pragmatic political responsibility. Anouilh was the most performed French playwright of the twentieth century; his work ranges from the 'black' plays (pièces noires) — Antigone, La Sauvage (1934), La Valse des toréadors (1952) — to the 'rosy' plays (pièces roses) and the 'brilliant' plays (pièces brillantes).
Where to start
Read Antigone as your first Anouilh — it is his masterpiece and the play that defines his moral and dramatic vision. Then read La Sauvage (1934) for the earlier existentialist drama of the poor musician's daughter who cannot accept happiness; and Becket ou l'Honneur de Dieu (1959) for the later historical drama of Thomas Becket and Henry II.
Complete Antigone Book List
- 1Buy
Antigone
Jean Anouilh·1944·Start here — the masterpiece; the Occupation play that asked whether resistance or pragmatism is the moral choice - 2Buy
La Sauvage
Jean Anouilh·1934·The Wild Girl — the earlier black play; the poor musician's daughter who cannot accept happiness; Anouilh's existentialist drama before the Occupation - 3Buy
La Valse des toréadors
Jean Anouilh·1952·The Waltz of the Toreadors — the bitter comedy of the retired general and his memories; one of the finest of the later plays - 4Buy
Becket ou l'Honneur de Dieu
Jean Anouilh·1959·Becket — the historical drama of Thomas Becket and Henry II; the conflict of honor and power; one of his most performed plays - 5Buy
L'Alouette
Jean Anouilh·1953·The Lark — the Joan of Arc play; the pure refusal of the secular world; Anouilh's other major exploration of the Antigone theme in historical costume
Antigone — Frequently Asked Questions
What was the controversy around Anouilh's Antigone during the Occupation?
When Anouilh's Antigone opened in Paris on 4 February 1944, it was performed under German censorship and was simultaneously read as pro-Vichy (Creon as the reasonable collaborationist administrator who argues that someone must govern, that the living must eat and the dead must be left unburied) and pro-Resistance (Antigone as the pure refuser who will not compromise, who chooses death over capitulation). Anouilh himself said the ambiguity was real — he genuinely found both positions compelling — and the post-Liberation criticism of the play as collaborationist was as unfair as the Occupation's reading of it as Resistancialist. The play's lasting power comes precisely from this genuine moral ambiguity.
How does Anouilh's Antigone differ from Sophocles?
Anouilh's Antigone differs from Sophocles in several key ways: the setting is modern and the characters wear contemporary dress; the Chorus is a single modern figure who addresses the audience directly in the manner of Brecht; the philosophical content is much more explicit — Creon and Antigone both articulate their positions at length in a debate that has no equivalent in Sophocles; and Anouilh's Antigone is much younger and more childlike than Sophocles' — she is figured as a girl who has not yet been corrupted by the adult world's compromises. The Sophoclean Antigone invokes the law of the gods; Anouilh's invokes nothing beyond her own refusal — she is an existentialist figure rather than a religious one.
What are Anouilh's 'black' and 'rosy' plays?
Anouilh organized his own work into categories: the pièces noires (black plays) — Antigone, La Sauvage, Le Voyageur sans bagages, La Valse des toréadors — which end in tragedy or bitterness; the pièces roses (rosy plays) — Le Bal des voleurs, Le Léocadia — which are lighter comedies; the pièces brillantes (brilliant plays) — L'Invitation au château, La Répétition — which are more formally and linguistically elaborate; and the pièces grinçantes (grating plays) — Ardèle, La Valse des toréadors — which use comedy to expose something bitter or ugly. The categorization was Anouilh's own and reflects the range of his work, which critics often underestimated because of its theatrical facility.
What is the relationship between Antigone and the existentialist movement?
Anouilh's Antigone appeared in the same year as Sartre's Huis Clos (1944) and shares the existentialist atmosphere of the Occupation period, but the connection to existentialism proper is limited. Antigone's refusal is not based on a philosophical doctrine — she cannot articulate why she is doing what she is doing beyond saying that she could not do otherwise. This is closer to Camus's notion of revolt (the instinctive refusal of the absurd) than to Sartrean freedom and choice. Anouilh himself was not an existentialist philosopher and distanced himself from the Sartre circle, but the moral atmosphere of his black plays — the impossibility of accepting a compromised world — is genuinely existentialist in the broader cultural sense.
What is Anouilh's legacy in French theatre?
Anouilh was the most performed French playwright of the twentieth century, with his plays staged continuously from the 1930s to his death in 1987. His reputation has been complicated by the Occupation controversy and by critical dismissal of his work as too 'theatrical' — too well-crafted, too audience-pleasing — compared to the formal radicalism of Beckett or the philosophical commitment of Sartre. The rehabilitation of Anouilh since the 1990s has recognized that his theatrical skill was itself a form of intelligence, and that the moral ambiguity of the black plays — the refusal to resolve the conflict between purity and pragmatism — is a genuine philosophical contribution rather than theatrical cleverness.
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