Antigone

Sophocles’ great tragic play dramatises the clash between family and the city and, through high poetry and deep tragedy, presents an irreconcilable but equally balanced conflict. Sophoclean heroine Antigone has become a cultural archetype - the personification of personal integrity and political freedom, and the play has been staged and adapted numerous times over the centuries. It is published here in Don Taylor’s classic translation with commentary and notes by David Bullen. The commentary looks at the original performance conditions that would have shaped the impact of Antigone in 441 BCE; key choices made by the translator; key ideas in the play taken up by philosophers such as Hegel and Butler; and more recent translations and adaptations by the likes of Bertolt Brecht, Anne Carson, Moira Buffini, Kamila Shamsie and Inua Ellams.