Ancient Greek Tragedy In Sophocles Antigone

Although there have been new variations of play writing over the centuries, there’s no denying that great writers, like Sophocles, paved the way for theatre as a whole. More specifically, he creates stories that reflect upon the principles of Greek Society. Antigone is one of Sophocles’ most famous plays and can be considered the ideal tragedy in theatre, particularly for ancient Greek mythology. Sophocles’ story of Antigone perfectly illustrates the ancient Greek ideal of theatre, specifically concerning plays of the tragic genre. The play opens with Antigone and Ismene discussing the death of their two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices. Because Eteocles fought for Thebes and Polynices fought against it, Creon made a decree stating that Polynices …show more content…
in Colonus Hippius, located near Athens. He existed during the Golden age; his writing had a huge impact on this time period (“Sophocles—Biography”). His most notable pieces of work are The Theban Plays: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. “Sophocles was concerned to produce an exciting revenge drama, with no deeper meaning, and simply eliminated those features of the myth that might complicate or darken the story” (Konstan 77). Although the focus of the article (from which the above excerpt derives from) is mainly concerning Electra, a character not affiliated with Antigone, it grasps that Sophocles as a playwright wasn’t afraid to test the waters on stage. His creativity skills were at a level far more advanced than those of his peers. He introduced new ideas that no other playwright had attempted, refining the already outlined standards that one must follow when creating a tragedy. Two other playwrights (also known as the other two Greek tragedians) were Euripides and Aeschylus, both of which also had a large impact on Greek society, especially as poets …show more content…
Like many other stories written today, his hometown had a large influence on Sophocles when it came to his plays. “The importance of locality in connexion with politics appears repeatedly in Athenian history” (Campbell 3). It was very common of the time period to see similarities between location and a given piece of work. The authors of Recapturing Sophocles’ “Antigone”, Tyrrell and Bennet give an extensive overview of how the plays’ funerary situation compared to that of Colonus and Athens. Their review was used in The Journal of Hellenic Studies written by Thalia Papadopoulou. In it, Papadopoulou states “Tyrrell and Bennet examine the funerary discourse of the play in the light of Athenian funerary oratory and political ideology…in the play’s subtext Antigone is associated with Athens and Athenian heroism against Theban impiety, which is represented in the play by Creon” (Papadopoulou 154-155). Going off of what was just stated, Antigone represented the ideals of Athenian funeral rituals, whereas Creon symbolized that of the Thebans. Plays of the time period often reflected what was going on during that said time period. Moreover, this is not only a great connection between myth and real life, but also