The Greeks and Literature

The Greeks and Literature
The human and the divine—religious celebrations
Dionysian celebrations became an annual festival held in Athens at a large outdoor amphitheater. Eventually, the dancing choruses of worshipers began competing for prizes (a bull or a goat).
Then Thespis added another innovation: One chorus member would step away from the others to play the part of that hero or god. This actor wore a mask (like the one on the right) and entered into a dialogue with the chorus.

Three types of Plays
The tragedies, which had heroic characters and unhappy endings, were serious treatments of religious and mythic questions. The satyr plays were comic and even lewd treatments of the same themes. The comedies differed from the tragedies in having ordinary people as characters and happy endings.

A Tragic Myth: The House of Thebes
The basic plot of Antigone is part of a long myth that was as familiar to Athenian audiences as stories about the Pilgrims are to Americans today. A myth is an old story, rooted in a particular society, that explains a belief, a ritual, or some mysterious aspect of nature. Many myths also try to explain human suffering. In many cases, the myths explain our sufferings in terms of the workings of the gods—of fates that cannot be avoided, of curses that haunt generation after generation.
The following story is the myth the Athenians knew and the one that we must also know if we are to understand Antigone.



Oedipus Rex (the King)
The protagonist of the tragedy is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. After Laius learns from an oracle that "he is doomed/To perish by the hand of his own son," he binds tightly together with a pin the feet of the infant Oedipus and orders Jocasta to kill the infant. Hesitant to do so, she demands a servant to commit the act for her. Instead, the servant abandons the baby in the fields, leaving the baby's fate to the gods. A shepherd rescues the infant and names him Oedipus (or "swollen feet"). Intending to raise the baby himself, but not possessing of the means to do so, the shepherd gives it to a fellow shepherd from a distant land, who spends the summers sharing pastureland with his flocks. The second shepherd carries the baby with him to Corinth, where Oedipus is taken in and raised in the court of the childless King Polybus of Corinth as if he were his own.
Oedipus Rex (cont.)
As a young man in Corinth, Oedipus hears a rumour that he is not the biological son of Polybus and his wife Merope. When Oedipus calls them out on this, they deny it, but, still suspicious, he asks the Delphic Oracle who his parents really are. The Oracle seems to ignore this question, telling him instead that he is destined to "Mate with [his] own mother, and shed/With [his] own hands the blood of [his] own sire." Desperate to avoid his foretold fate, Oedipus leaves Corinth in the belief that Polybus and Merope are indeed his true parents and that, once away from them, he will never harm them.
On the road to Thebes, he meets Laius, his true father. Unaware of each other's identities, they quarrel over whose chariot has right-of-way. King Laius moves to strike the insolent youth with his sceptre, but Oedipus throws him down from the chariot and kills him, thus fulfilling part of the oracle's prophecy. Shortly after, he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which has baffled many a diviner: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"
Oedipus Rex (cont.)
On the road to Thebes, he meets Laius, his true father. Unaware of each other's identities, they quarrel over whose chariot has right-of-way. King Laius moves to strike the insolent youth with his sceptre, but Oedipus throws him down from the chariot and kills him, thus fulfilling part of the oracle's prophecy. Shortly after, he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, which has baffled many a diviner: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"
To this Oedipus replies, "Man" (who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright later, and needs a walking stick in old age), and the distraught Sphinx throws herself off the cliffside. Oedipus's reward for freeing the kingdom of Thebes from her curse is the kingship and the hand of Queen Dowager Jocasta, his biological mother. The prophecy is thus fulfilled, although none of the main characters know it.
..the ending which leads to Antigone
A blind Oedipus now exits the palace and begs to be exiled as soon as possible. Creon enters, saying that Oedipus shall be taken into the house until oracles can be consulted regarding what is best to be done. Oedipus's two daughters (and half-sisters), Antigone and Ismene, are sent out and Oedipus laments that they should be born to such a cursed family. He asks Creon to watch over them and Creon agrees, before sending Oedipus back into the palace.

Antigone means “born to oppose”
Is intelligence born in all..so that laws that are created by all are the best ruler?
Antigone obeys a law which citizens approve and in doing so must die under Creon’s edict.
Thematic elements include the fall of the just and the evil consequences of good acts.
Action is divine and human

Antigone—the play
Characters do not merely act, they comment on the action
Characters criticize motives and judge ideas
The audience is a viewpoint
The characters are real people



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