Sophocles' Antigone

Sophocles’ Antigone (442 B.C.) is one of the most important Greek tragedies, and if you get interested and decide to read it you’ll understand why.

As usual, I won’t go much into detail. Internet already provides more details than one could read in a lifetime, so I’ll limit myself to describing this tragedy’s main themes.

Antigone is about the fight between the law of the heart and the law of the state; in the Antigone these two codes come to face each other in a challenge that will leave death and destruction on their path.

The reason that brings to this clash is a dead body; the body of Polynices, one of the sons of Oedipus, who died in the fight for the throne of Thebes against his brother Eteocles. They killed each other outside of the city walls, but while Eteocles had the consent of Thebes’ authorities and was buried with all honors, Polynices was left where he fell, and the new king, Kreon, ruled that nobody is to touch or bury the body, the punishment for who does being death.

Against this decision stands Antigone, sister of the dead and niece of Kreon.

The whole tragedy is the description of the inner path that brings Antigone to decide that although the law is sacred, there are things that are more sacred still, like the bond of blood, and giving rest to a soul through burial (in ancient Greece the soul of un unburied body was thought to roam forever without peace…).

Antigone buries her brother.

Compassion for a dead human being is stronger than fear of death, and she follows her heart.

Kreon is therefore put in front of the same decision Antigone took. In his heart he knows that Antigone has no fault, and loves her as future bride of his son, but the same law he decided hoping to help Thebes forget the blood shed in such a recent past, turns against him, commanding that he apply it against someone he knows innocent.

Kreon’s decision, though very tormented, is opposite from the one Antigone chose. He follows the law of the state, and Antigone is buried alive.

After hearing from a prophet that he took the wrong decision, Kreon decides to let Antigone live, but it’s too late. When the grave she’s buried in is opened she is found hanged, and Kreon’s son, desperate, takes his own life.

This is the price Kreon pays for his decision.

In this masterpiece the tragic choice is “doubled”, two figures have to deal with similar choices, and all options of these choices will have negative consequences. Both have strong values, both follow what they believe to be the law, both feel uncertain about how to act, but in the end they make opposite decisions, allowing the reader to experience the consequences of both sides of the tragedy.

Like I said before, this is only meant to be a brief and certainly incomplete description of a fraction of what I consider to be among the highest creations in our history, ancient Greek tragedy.

There would be much more to say, but I hope sooner or later a discussion will start here, making it possible to say more.

Etienne de La Boetie and Voluntary Servitude

Today, i'll take the liberty to give some more advice. not that i could do much more since there doesn't seem to be much of a discussion here... hehe

The book, or more properly, the pamphlet, is Etienne de La Boetie's "Discourse on voluntary servitude".
La Boetie was born on the first of november 1530 in Sarlat, a small french town. He graduated in law at the university of Orleans, and was active in the Bordeaux parliament, where he met, Michel de Montaigne, with whom he would later create a very close friendship.
Very criticaltowards the the catholic repressions of the huguenots, his spoke out loud against them, gaining attention and consideration, but just when he was reaching the climax of his career, at the age of 33, he got seriously ill and died shortly after, in the arms of his friend Montaigne, that was given the duty to publish La Boetie's works.

this is, a very short and incomplete biography, but it's purpouse is just to give an idea of who i'm talking about.

The book i'm advising is, as a matter of fact, the "Discourse", an analysis of why, according to the author, the majority of people is usually eagerly willing to give up freedom in exchange for a generic sense of safety.

I won't go into any details, because this is advice not a review, and because the pleasure of discovering new thoughts page after page should be left to the reader, but what makes this work very interesting, is the fact that La Boetie consideres those who let themselves be oppressed greatly responsible for the state of oppression they live in, for all it takes to be free is the will to be, through actions like civil disobedience. He is not a justifier of violence.

Although this booklet (it's very short...), never really got to be noticed by mainstream political and social literature, it had a great deal of influence on political thoughts and actions throughout european history, from the French Revolution, to opposition to the Restauration, to Anarchism...

"...I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him...."

Oooops, i just re-read my first post, and i must have been really tired to not notice so many mistakes in a few lines.
But as the saying goes, "scripta manent", so there isn't much i'll do about it if not apologize to any reader.
The advice on Crime and Punishment still stands strong though, so i guess my post wasn't all that bad.

My idea for this blog would be to help gather readers and people interested in reading, or discussing books and authors.

And i think a good idea to lay the first stone in this project could be to start from a quote, so here it is:

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts,
others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly,
and with diligence and attention.
~ Francis Bacon ~

hello, this is my firs t post, and finding myself with a brand new blog at five a.m. in the morning, my thoughts happen to go to anyone who might be stubling over this post in the late hours of the night, or, more realistically the early hours of the morning...

So to anyone to whom this might concern, you might want to foolw my advice and pick up crime and punishment one of dostoevskji's masterpieces (as if most of his writing wasn't...).

you'll find the night will become too short for your need to go on reading it.