He became king after the civil war in which the brothers of Antigone and Ismene Eteocles and Polynices killed each other, fighting for the opposite sides.Īfter their death, the new king Creon, decided that Eteocles will be buried and honored, while the other brother Polyneices will be left unburied on the battlefield, in public shame, the worst punishment of that time. The play starts at the moment when the events of Sophocles’s other tragedy Oedipus Rex end: Oedipus is dead – and now Creon is the kind of Thebes.

We are told that Antigone is a girl that will die young and that the play will recount the events that lead to the tragical ending. The play starts with the Chorus which introduces the characters. His works remain as one of the classics and are studied all around the world, as the basis of tragedy. In Athens, he was celebrated as the best playwright for a long time. He has written over 120 plays during his lifetime, but only a few have been kept in their complete form.

Sophocles is an ancient Greek playwright and is one of the three playwrights whose work survived until the modern day. If you are a Greek tragedies lover, then oh, how satisfied you will be! Sophocles Biography “Antigone” is a play named after the tragic female protagonist that decides to follow her own heart and overlook the orders of the king – and bury her brother, who has been left in public shame. Yes, we know that family relations are a bit complicated in Greek tragedies, so read on to try to untangle them.

It cannot get more tragic than this: Antigone, the child of an incestuous marriage of one of the most famous of Sophocles’s heroes Oedipus, suffers after the death of her father-brother, because of the quarrel of her other brothers.

Antigone by sophocles pdf