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SAILING TOGETHER: THE AGONISTIC CONSTRUCTION OF SISTERHOOD IN SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2021

Valentina Moro
Valentina Moro*
Affiliation:
University of Veronavalentina.moro.8@gmail.com
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Extract

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the meaning of kinship in Sophocles’ Theban plays has raised a great deal of interest in critical interpretations in the fields of philosophy, political theory, and psychoanalysis. From the 1970s onward, Antigone in particular has also become a staple of feminist theory, both as a philosophical and political gesture contra Hegel and Lacan, but also in connection with post-structuralism. Conversely, the topic of kinship in Athenian drama has attracted comparatively little attention from classical philologists. As a consequence, theorists have often been more inclined to discuss the theme with reference to modern conceptual frameworks, rather than to Sophocles’ language itself.

Type
III. Sisterhood
Information
Ramus , Volume 50 , Special Issue 1-2: In Terms of Athens , December 2021 , pp. 109 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Ramus 2021

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Footnotes

Some preliminary work included in this essay was presented at the 2019 APSA Meeting. I owe many thanks to Johanna Hanink and Demetra Kasimis for inviting me to participate in this volume of Ramus and to Lyndsay Coo for the fruitful exchange we had while writing our pieces for this volume. Ultimately, I owe many thanks to Bonnie Honig and, again, to Johanna for a years-long conversation on Sophocles and his female characters, which started in 2016 at Brown University and keeps inspiring my work. Unless otherwise indicated all translations in this article are mine.

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