Reading Order
Antigone Reading Order
Antigone (ca. 441 BCE) by Sophocles is the tragedy that has spoken most directly to political situations across 2,500 years — to resistance and state power, to individual conscience and collective law, to the claim of the dead on the living. Antigone, daughter of the disgraced Oedipus, defies the decree of her uncle Creon (the new king of Thebes) that her brother Polyneices, who died attacking Thebes, shall not be buried. She buries him, is caught, and is condemned to be entombed alive. Her fiancé Haemon (Creon's son) and the blind prophet Tiresias warn Creon; he relents too late; Antigone has hanged herself; Haemon kills himself beside her body; and Creon's wife Eurydice, hearing of her son's death, kills herself too. The play's central conflict — between Creon's law (the state's claim on the living and the unburied dead) and Antigone's law (the divine and natural claim of kin to bury their own) — has been the most politically productive conflict in Western drama. Hegel saw it as the tragedy of two equally valid claims in collision: neither Creon nor Antigone is simply wrong, and both are destroyed by their collision. Later interpreters have read Antigone as a figure of resistance against tyranny: her words 'I was not born to share in hatred but to share in love' have been quoted in every subsequent generation that has faced a state claiming absolute authority over its citizens. The play was performed in Nazi-occupied Paris (in a version by Jean Anouilh) as a coded message of resistance; it has been performed in South Africa, in Chile under Pinochet, and in every situation where state violence demands that people choose.
Where to start
Antigone — the Seamus Heaney version, 'The Burial at Thebes' (2004), is beautifully written and politically engaged; the Richard Braun translation in the University of Chicago series is the scholarly standard.
Complete Antigone Book List
- 1Buy
Antigone
Sophocles·-441·The play — Antigone's defiance of Creon's decree, her entombment, and the destruction of everyone who loves her. - 2Buy
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles·-429·The preceding Theban play — Oedipus's discovery of his identity; Antigone's father's story. - 3Buy
Oedipus at Colonus
Sophocles·-401·The middle Theban play (chronologically) — Oedipus's death and the beginnings of the conflict between his sons that will lead to Antigone. - 4Buy
The Burial at Thebes
Seamus Heaney·2004·Heaney's verse version of Antigone — politically engaged, written during the Iraq War, with the resonance of a contemporary political statement. - 5Buy
Antigone (Anouilh)
Jean Anouilh·1944·Anouilh's Antigone — performed in Nazi-occupied Paris as a coded message of resistance; the modern retelling most directly engaged with political tyranny. - 6Buy
1984
George Orwell·1949·Orwell's dystopian novel — the state's absolute claim on individuals that Creon represents extended into a total political system. - 7Buy
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood·1985·Atwood's dystopian novel — Antigone's situation (a woman whose conscience conflicts with the state's absolute authority) in a near-future America. - 8Buy
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov·1967·Bulgakov's Soviet novel of conscience against the state — the Antigone problem in a Russian context, written under Stalin.
Antigone — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Antigone about?
Antigone follows Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, who defies her uncle Creon's decree that her brother Polyneices (who died attacking Thebes in the Seven Against Thebes war) shall be left unburied as a traitor. Antigone performs the burial rites twice; she is caught the second time and brought before Creon. She does not deny her action: she argues that the divine law requiring burial of the dead overrides the human law that forbids it. Creon sentences her to be entombed alive. His son Haemon (Antigone's fiancé) and the prophet Tiresias both warn Creon that he is wrong. He relents, but too late: Antigone has hanged herself; Haemon kills himself beside her; and Creon's wife Eurydice kills herself when she hears of Haemon's death.
What is Hegel's interpretation of Antigone?
Hegel's reading of Antigone, developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and the Lectures on Aesthetics, is the most influential philosophical interpretation of the play. Hegel argues that Antigone presents a collision between two equally valid ethical claims: the family's claim on the dead (represented by Antigone) and the state's claim on the living (represented by Creon). Neither position is simply wrong — both Antigone and Creon represent genuine ethical principles — and the tragedy arises not from a simple conflict between right and wrong but from the collision of two forms of right. Hegel sees this as a specifically Greek form of tragedy that could not arise in the modern world, where the conflict between family and state has been resolved through the institutions of civil society. The play has been interpreted very differently by later readers, many of whom see Creon as simply tyrannical; but Hegel's reading remains the philosophically richest.
What is Antigone's argument for burying Polyneices?
Antigone's argument is that the divine law (the unwritten, eternal law that requires burial of the dead) supersedes Creon's human law (the decree that traitors shall not be buried). She says: 'It was not Zeus who made this proclamation; not Justice, who lives with the gods below, who established this law for people... Nor did I think your proclamation had such strength that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing ordinances of gods. For they live not just now or yesterday, but always, and no one knows from when they appeared.' Antigone's argument is not that she is above the law but that there is a higher law that overrides Creon's decree. The play does not simply validate this position — Antigone's certainty and inflexibility are also criticized — but her argument has resonated with political resisters across twenty-five centuries.
How has Antigone been used politically?
Antigone is the most politically productive of all Greek tragedies because its central conflict — individual conscience versus state authority — recurs in every generation. Jean Anouilh's 1944 version, performed in Nazi-occupied Paris, was read as both a collaborationist text (Creon as a pragmatic authority that must be accepted) and a resistance text (Antigone as the conscience that refuses) — the ambiguity was deliberate and protected Anouilh from censorship while allowing the resistance to hear its message. Bertolt Brecht wrote a version explicitly addressing Nazism (1948). The play has been performed under Pinochet in Chile, in apartheid South Africa, and in every situation where a state claims absolute authority over its citizens. Seamus Heaney's 'The Burial at Thebes' (2004) was written during the Iraq War.
What should I read after Antigone?
After Antigone, the natural continuation is the other Theban plays: Oedipus Rex (Antigone's father's story) and Oedipus at Colonus (Oedipus's death, which sets up the conflict in Antigone). Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes provides the backstory for the war between Eteocles and Polyneices. For modern responses, Jean Anouilh's Antigone (1944) and Seamus Heaney's The Burial at Thebes (2004) are the most politically significant. For the philosophical tradition Antigone has generated, Hegel's discussion in the Phenomenology and Judith Butler's Antigone's Claim (2000) are essential.
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