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The Central Character(s) of the Antigone and Their Relationship to the Chorus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
Dr Shelton's article, ‘Human Knowledge and Self-Deception’ (Ramus 13 [1984], 102-23), has two main theses which are related. The first, as she duly acknowledges, has already been put forward by a small number of other scholars; it is that Creon is the sole main character of the Antigone. The second is, I think, original, or at least has nowhere else been stated with such force; it is not merely that Antigone is a minor character (which is simply the converse of the first thesis) but that she is a dispensable one (‘Ultimately Antigone is not necessary for the story’). ‘The gods would punish Creon even if Antigone had never existed’; should they be remiss, other mortals could do the job (‘since everyone in the play seems to disagree with Creon, and Antigone is therefore not his only opponent, what exactly is her function in the play, and how does it differ from that of Haemon and Teiresias?’). I think that the emphasis of her article is seriously misleading; so I would like to deal with her theses as briefly as possible, without reopening the endlessly debated question of the exact rights and wrongs of the positions of Antigone and Creon.
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References
1. Shelton, op. cit., 103 (bis) and 115 respectively. The list of publications on the Antigone is too long to cite. The following are particularly relevant to this discussion: Burton, R.W.B., The Chorus in Sophocles’ Tragedies (Oxford 1980), 85–137Google Scholar; Labellarte, R., Genos e polis nell’ ‘Antigona’ di Sofocle (Bari 1977Google Scholar); Patzev, H., Hauptperson und tragischer Held… (Wiesbaden 1978Google Scholar); Petersmann, H., ‘Die Haltung des Chors…’ WS n.f. 16 (1982), 56–70Google Scholar; Plescia, J., ‘Sophocles Antigone’, Aevum 50 (1976), 129–36Google Scholar.
2. For an especially conspicuous example see Nethercut, W.E., ‘Vertical Perspective in Antigone 781ff.’, CB 55 (1979), 61–63Google Scholar.
3. E.g. Reinhardt, K., Sophokles 3 (Ansbach 1947), 73–103Google Scholar, a work widely, and indeed, excessively admired. An English translation is now available (H. and D. Harvey, Oxford 1978).
4. E.g. Waldock, A.J.A., Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge 1951), 104–42Google Scholar.
5. Burton (n.1 above) has an excellent fuller treatment; of the other works G. Müller’s German commentary (Heidelberg 1967), together with his specialist article in Hermes 89 (1961), 398–422, are probably best.
6. Demosthenes De falsa legatione 246–50.
7. OT 404–07, 524f., 616f., 631–33, 649–57, 1327f., 1367f. On this comment in the Antigone see Burton (n.1 above), 87.
8. Cf. Themistocles in Herodotus 8.109.
9. For attempts to avoid this equation by mistranslating nomous chthonos see refs. in Hester, D., ‘Sophocles the Unphilosophical’, Mnemosyne 24 (1971), 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10. YCS 22 (1972), 103–17. If we are concerned to press theian noson (421), there is some ground for giving the gods an ancillary role in the second burial.
11. 386. Creon’s exits and entrances are otherwise not clearly signalled; Jebb has him onstage for the second stasimon and presumably also the fourth, offstage for the third and presumably also the following kommos; Burton’s (n.1 above) view is similar.
12. Assuming the genuineness of the passage; on this issue see especially Szlezak, T.A. ‘Bemerkungen zur Diskussion um Sophokles Antigone 904–920’, RhM 124 (1981), 108–42Google Scholar.
13. Else, G.F., The Madness of Antigone (Heidelberg 1976), 51Google Scholar.
14. Cf. e.g. Sophocles Trach. 497–530 and frag. 941P; Euripides Hipp. 525–64, 1268–81. More remotely, Aeschylus PV 887–908; Euripides Medea 627–41.
15. For the perverse attempts of Lesky and others at misinterpreting this comment see refs. in Hester (n.9 above), 35f., to which must be added Petersmann (n.1 above); for the correct view see McDevitt, A.S., ‘The First Kommos of Sophocles’ Antigone’, Ramus 11 (1982), 134–44Google Scholar, and Burton (n.1 above) 120–23.
16. Iliad 16.850.