The Philosophy and Psychology of Sophocles’s Antigone and The Eumenides in Aeschylus’ Oresteia
There is a consensus among readers of the poetry or plays written in the fifth century that the plays succeed with inspiring profound movement on the audience. The methods or reasons for the reader to be moved by a text are often disputed. Specific to tragic works the concepts of philosophy and psychology are critical elements to understand the cause of the stirred emotions of individuals who response to classical tragedies in a similar manner. Philosophy helps to understand “why” and psychology “how” poetry affects and moves human emotion.
Philosophy and poetry are united by a common intent. Each searches for an explanation of universal ideals instead of concentrating on the particular. Aristotle described this idea in the Poetics, “Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular” (Aristotle, 68). Sophocles’s Antigone and The Eumenides in Aeschylus’ Oresteia are examples that demonstrate the use of poetry as an explanation of the universal.
Antigone deals with the struggle of Antigone, who sought to obey the moral obligation of burying her fallen brother and the dictation of Creon not to bury him. Creon’s dictation represents the particular. Described by Antigone his declaration develops from Creon being the, “Lucky tyrant—the perquisites of power! Ruthless power to do and say whatever pleases them” (Sophocles, 84). The declaration is seen not to follow the universal cause but it is specific to situation that Polynices had died while attacking Thebes. Antigone insistent to obey the universal code that sh...
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...age” (Knox, 137).
Sophocles, like many poets, understood the dependence of poetry on its ability to successful implement both philosophy and psychology to their work.
Works Cited
Aeschylus. The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
Aristotle. Aristotle’s Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961.
Euripides. Ten Plays: Electra and Iphigenia at Aulis. Trans. Moses Hadas and John McLean. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.
Knox, Bernard. Introduction and Notes. Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. By Sophocles. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 1984. 131-53.
Sophocles. Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 1984.
Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ The Bacchae are indubitably plays of antitheses and conflicts, and this condition is personified in the manifestation of their characters, each completely opposed to the other. Both tragedians reveal tensions between two permanent and irreconcilable moral codes; divine law represented by Antigone and Dionysus and human law represented by Creon and Pentheus. The central purpose is evidently the association of law which has its consent in political authority and the law which has its consent in the private conscience, the association of obligations imposed on human beings as citizens and members of state, and the obligations imposed on them in the home as members of families. Both these laws presenting themselves in their most crucial form are in direct collision. Sophocles and Euripides include a great deal of controversial material, once the reader realizes the inquiries behind their work. Inquiries that pertain to the very fabric of life, that still make up the garments of society today.
Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Ed. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1953.
Sophocles, Robert Fagles, Bernard MacGregor Walker. Knox, and Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. New York, NY: Penguin, 1987. Print.
Aeschylus. “The Oresteia.” Aeschylus: The Oresteia. Tran. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1979. 99-277.
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Students should be informed about more than just “don’t have sex” because eventually it is going to happen and they need to be educated on the proper way to handle the situations. Because students are mostly taught abstinence it has created the situation to where researchers find” Abstinence-only education, instead of reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, has made teenagers and young adults more vulnerable to ST...
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Watling, E. F.. Introduction. In Sophocles: The Theban Plays, translated by E. F. Watling. New York: Penguin Books, 1974.
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Sophocles. "Oedipus the King." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 1902.
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McFall, E. (2004). Advertising: A Cultural Economy, London: Sage, Page 3, Page 110, Page 111