ANTIGONE

Antigone is a tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles, traditionally dated to the fifth century BCE. It centers on Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, and sister to Ismene, Eteocles, and Polyneices. After a civil war in Thebes, Creon, the new ruler, bans Polyneices from burial, declaring him a traitor and ordering that anyone who attempts to bury him will be punished with death. Antigone defies the edict, arguing that divine law and familial duty require proper burial rites. Ismene resists, but Antigone proceeds and is discovered. Creon sentences her to be sealed alive in a tomb. Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s fiancé, pleads for mercy and warns against excessive pride; the two argue. The chorus and the fates complicate the tension. Antigone dies in the tomb by hanging; Haemon kills himself beside her; Eurydice, Creon’s wife, kills herself after learning of her son’s death.

The play explores the conflict between state law and divine law, authority and conscience, and the limits of political power. It is a foundational work in discussions of civil disobedience, political ethics, and gendered expectations in ancient Greece. Antigone has influenced later literature and philosophy, and has been adapted many times, notably in Jean Anouilh's 1940s tragedy and Bertolt Brecht's adaptations, among others.

In the canon, Antigone is part of Sophocles' Theban plays, though the plays were written and performed out of narrative order.