ANTIGONE : The Woman – Symbol of Tragic Poetry
Poetry only can transcend Time and create eternal human models. And great poetry is always contemporary, because it elevates Life to the Eternal. The poet is a prophet and, at the same time, a connoisseur of the human soul.
The fact that Sophocles chose a woman to incarnate one of his most beautiful tragic heroes, a woman unyielding with regard to her moral duty, but also deeply humane with regard to her love for her dead brother, is not coincidental. This great Greek Poet knew that only women have such superior virtues and such mystic powers, which enable them to despise death, loyal to the Unwritten Laws.
The plot of the Sophoclean “Antigone” is well-known. After Oedipus’death, Creon became king of Thebes. He was Antigone’s and Ismene’s uncle – Oedipus’daughters. Their brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, killed each other outside the town walls, because the first did not keep his promise to respect the other’s right to authority. Creon ordered that Eteocles should be buried with royal honors whereas Polynices would be left tombless, his body prey to dogs and crows. But in those times, it was a great impiety to leave the dead unburied. It was believed that their souls would never find rest, that they could not go to Hades. The people of Thebes complied with the order out of fear. But Antigone considered it unfair and impious, unholy and profane, and she went all by herself and buried her brother’s body with her own hands.
From this point the tragic process begins. Antigone knew that the price she would have to pay for her action would be the sacrifice of her life, of her youth, and of her happiness, since she was already engaged to Creon’s son, Haemon. At first, Creon did not believe what had happened. But he was terrified when he saw her so determined to die, and then he knew that he could crush her or put her to death, but would never be able to bend her.
And that, at a time, when woman was valued only as her sons’mother
and as wife, completely banned from public life. But Sophocles chose a woman as a symbol of revolution against unfair authority.
He created this beautiful tragic heroine, who was able to distinguish eternal truths and eternal values. This could be because woman’s strength is intuitive, prophetic, and deep-rooted and innate. Nature itself which intended woman for the continuation of life, armed her with powers from its mystic resources.
I come from a country where Antigone lived. She walked on the same ground as me, and spoke my own language. And I have always felt that I carry, in my ephemeral life, the Word and the Stone of three thousand years’culture.
This is why I have always believed in woman’s strength originating as it does from her nature. A nature which destined her to give birth.
But whether she has given birth or not she is able to live the world mystery, the world miracle, and that enables her to perceive in her own particular ways, the great truths, naked and demystified in our times but always great truths, like God or Death, Dream, Peace or Justice.
It is her pure destiny and sometimes her pure tragic fate.
Besides, the Sophoclean tragedy is enacted in the realm of Ideas and this means that every person is elevated into a symbol and assumes universal dimensions.
Thus, Sophocles, the greatest dramatic poet, in Antigone elevates woman, making her a symbol of all moral values.
Because, as I have said, that prophet and connoisseur of human nature, saw her great moral powers, her perception of life, her nobility – her spiritual nobility. And above all, he saw the metaphysical substance in her nature.
It was not accidental.
The Poet knew that strength does not lie in the power of Authority, but in those inner powers which ennoble Man and inscribe the history of his culture.
And if there have been situations, in woman’s history, of submission and suppression of her personality, that does not change the truth.
And, certainly, this is what her struggle is about.
And much of her contemporary achievements prove it from a different
point of view. There has been an existential change rather than an historical one.
Only the Poet can see the nature of the human soul. And do not forget that Freud himself invoked the Poet’s aid to penetrate the human soul.
No one is born tragic. He becomes tragic the moment he encounters Moira (Fate) and must confront her.
The moment he must choose to say “no” and, because of that, to transcend his own limits and walk alone, experiencing the whole range of misfortune until he achieves the liberating catharsis.
And no one knows the powers latent in himself until that moment, which is the moment of revelation of conscience.
But this is an enormous subject.
Perhaps, there are women who never believed in woman’s mystic ~ strength and knowledge. I am one of those who know that woman’s strength is the strength of Goddess Earth, the Great Mother, the womb and cradle of life.
A poet can see it. Sophocles saw it.
In a century when women were totally absent from public life, in a male-dominated society.
In that golden age – the the fourth century B.C. – of the highest spiritual conquests, Sophocles might have elevated Man into a symbol, a hero opposing impious authority, a custodian of everything that
was sacred.
But, no!
Because, by his divine poetic intuition, he knew that only a woman could be so strong and, at the same time, so noble, so respectful of her duty to the death, and, at the same time, so proud as to despise the rock-built prison prepared for her by the tyrant king.
Being Greek, I feel pride speaking about Sophocles’ Antigone.
Yet, I know that great works do not belong to the small countries which gave them birth, but to all times and to the whole world.
{ This is the reason why Antigone has become the most beloved heroine
of all civilized peoples.
Two thousand five hundred years.
But, what is the meaning of the tragic as those great poets have given it to us?
Very briefly, I could say that every human being carries with him, unconsciously, every element of the tragic. But, it is only when, in the course of his life, he encounters Moira (Fate) that these tremendous forces can be self-revealed.
It is then that he transcends his human limits. Because, the tragic involves transcendence of the human. The Hubris.
The collision with the divine order.
When Creon said to Antigone
” And yet were bold enough to break the law”
she answered :
“Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,
Could’st by a breath annul and override
The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven”
What force do these verses have! Force and vibration.
Passion. Tragedy is passion. And knowledge.
It is as if Sophocles appointed a woman as keeper of all that is sacred but also as appraiser of the justice of divine law.
In this tragedy the moral law, represented by Antigone, collides with unfair authority represented by the Creons of all times.
And when Creon saw that his power was shaking before her, so that he had to put her to death to prove his manliness, then he tries to invoke the logic of authority by saying that Polynices was an enemy
” Not even death can make a foe a friend “
he said. And Antigone answered
” My nature is for mutual love, not hate”
This verse is a message of love against the logic of authority of
all times.
~ And it is a woman message by Sophocles himself. A message of women’s
conception of the destiny of the world.
All I have tried to say culminates in and is verified by this verse
” My nature is for mutual love, not hate”
This verse is of a great poetry and for this reason of a great truth.
If I speak for the woman’s role in Sophoclean tragedy it’s not because I underestimate Man’s role, but because I wanted to emphasize woman’s nature.