Episode 96: Introduction to Antigone

Welcome to the first episode in our series on Sophocles’ Greek drama Antigone. After sharing a little about their background with this play, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about the overall structure and the conventions of Greek Drama and Greek Tragedy. Thomas also gives an overview of the type of characters to expect in Greek Tragedy, and he highlights the ways in which Sophocles changed Greek Drama. Angelina explains the ideas of unity of time, unity of place, and unity of plot as presented by Aristotle. Thomas also summarizes the myth on which this play is based, talks about Creon’s character, and expands on some of the tensions present in Antigone.

Commonplace Quotes:

You don’t know what ideas my mind-spirit needs right now; I don’t know what your mind-spirit need; and we don’t know the mind-spirit needs of each child in a classroom. Vital ideas are not sold pre-measured in a bottle.

Anne White

She had a terror of solitary evenings, all the terror of one who did not care for books, who was soaked in superstition and loved lights and noise.

Hugh Walpole

When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves.

The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. The great tragedians have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare.

Madeleine L’Engle A Scot to Jeanne D’Arc

by Andrew Lang

DARK Lily without blame,  
Not upon us the shame,  
Whose sires were to the Auld Alliance true;  
They, by the Maiden’s side,  
Victorious fought and died; 
One stood by thee that fiery torment through,  
Till the White Dove from thy pure lips had passed,  
And thou wert with thine own St. Catherine at the last.  

Once only didst thou see, 
In artist’s imagery, 
Thine own face painted, and that precious thing  
Was in an Archer’s hand  
From the leal Northern land.

Book List:

Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White

The Thirteen Travellers by Hugh Walpole

The Sea Tower by Hugh Walpole

A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

The Oresteia by Aeschylus

The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

The Poetics by Aristotle

Trojan Women by Euripides

The Bacchae by Euripides

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Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also!

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