Greek tragedy strikes the contemporary audiences with the same strength it had over two and a half millennia ago. Sophocles, along with Aeschylus and Euripides are among the most famous playwrights of the Greek ancient world whose works have survived. Their plays are testimonies of the creative genius of the human mind regardless of the time, as well as of the universality of the human nature. In his dealings with the contradictions of human nature, Sophocles was among the first playwrights to tackle the issue of sacred vs. mundane.
Antigone and King Creon are the main characters in the play Antigone who embody the weakness of humanity when confronted with some of its fatal mistakes: fanaticism.
Sophocles' play, Antigone, is part of a trilogy. The other two plays are Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, and his wife and mother, Jocasta, make a couple that can compete as the most tragic couple in the entire history of theater. Antigone is the illustrious daughter of the aforementioned couple, a character that Sophocles chose as representation of the...
The tragic hero always elicits sympathy from the audience. According to Struck (2002): "Finally, Oedipus' downfall elicits a great sense of pity from the audience. First, by blinding himself, as opposed to committing suicide, Oedipus achieves a kind of surrogate death that intensifies his suffering. He comments on the darkness - not just the literal inability to see, but also religious and intellectual darkness - that he faces after becoming
Theatrical Analysis of Macbeth and Antigone The most accounted features of a tragedy are the gloominess of atmosphere, solemnity of action, mental conflicts, strain, suspense and capability of capturing the audience. Tragedy tries to stimulate the sentiments of pity and fear (Devi 1). Thus, this study is comparing the two Shakespearean and Greek tragedies, Macbeth and Antigone. This analysis will compare and contrast the two plays, their theme, comparison of main
Oedipus the King: A Tragic Hero In the Bedford Introduction to Drama, Lee Jacobus writes, "Greek Tragedy focused on a person of noble birth who in some cases had risen to a great height and then fell precipitately." The modern critic, Kenneth Burke expands on this. He developed a pattern for these tragedies. Burke believes that that the tragic hero goes through three developmental stages, the first is purpose, the second
In "Piaf," Pam Gems provides a view into the life of the great French singer and arguably the greatest singer of her generation -- Edith Piaf. (Fildier and Primack, 1981), the slices that the playwright provides, more than adequately trace her life. Edith was born a waif on the streets of Paris (literally under a lamp-post). Abandoned by her parents -- a drunken street singer for a mother and a
Fakes & Forgery in Classical Literature Epic Fake? Forgery, Fraud, and the Birth of Philology A set of epigrams in the Planudean Appendix to the Greek Anthology record the trope that even in antiquity seven different cities contended for the right to be considered the birthplace of Homer. Several are clearly inscriptions, no bigger than a couplet: nn? p-lei? m-rnanto sof-n di? r-zan Om-ro? Grk.Anth.XVI The more flowery elaboration upon this lapidary couplet at 296
He kills his father as he flees his home and marries his mother after solving the riddle of the Sphinx. His end is inevitable, but Sophocles clearly shows the role negative character traits play in Oedipus' tragedy, while Hamlet's supposedly negative traits of doubt are not necessarily evil. Thus Hamlet could be classified as a kind of nascent anti-hero, a man who mourns "the time is out of joint/oh cursed
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