Tragic recognition: Action and identity in antigone and Aristotle

Political Theory

Volumn 31, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 6-38

  Markell, Patchen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0037248875     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591702239437     Document Type: Review

References (158)

1. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 193.
2. Key texts include Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994); and Robert Williams, Hegel's Ethics of Recognition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1997).
3. Key texts include Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994); and Robert Williams, Hegel's Ethics of Recognition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1997).
4. Key texts include Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994); and Robert Williams, Hegel's Ethics of Recognition (Berkley: University of California Press, 1997).
5. Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," 25.
6. Ibid., 50.
7. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
8. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
9. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
10. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
11. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
12. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
13. For this history, see Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1990). For Aristotle's definition see Poetics, 1452a29-b8; on its importance to "the finest form of tragedy," Poetics, 1452b30-34. Except where otherwise noted, I use the translation in Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry, ed. and trans. Ingram By water (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1909), although I reverse his practice of capitalizing the first letters of such words as "tragedy" and "plot," and I change his rendering of anagnôrisis as "Discovery," substituting the (more common and more literal) "recognition." For Greek text and other useful translations see Aristotle, Poetics, ed. D. W. Lucas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1972); Stephen Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); and Gerald F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
14. Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos, 1068.
15. In this context, I intend "ontological" to mean "pertaining to fundamental features of the world or of the human condition"; cf. Stephen K. White, Sustaining Affirmation: The Strengths of Weak Ontology in Political Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) and William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), chap. 1.
16. In this context, I intend "ontological" to mean "pertaining to fundamental features of the world or of the human condition"; cf. Stephen K. White, Sustaining Affirmation: The Strengths of Weak Ontology in Political Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) and William E. Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), chap. 1.
17. Aristotle, Poetics, 1452a29-32 (emphasis added). See also Simon Goldhill, Reading Creek Tragedy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 85.
18. Aristotle, Poetics, 1452a29-32 (emphasis added). See also Simon Goldhill, Reading Creek Tragedy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 85.
19. Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985). especially vol. 2, pt. 2; on the contrast between choice and cognition as two ways of "possessing" one's ends see Michael Sandel. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 54-59.
20. Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985). especially vol. 2, pt. 2; on the contrast between choice and cognition as two ways of "possessing" one's ends see Michael Sandel. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 54-59.
21. For example, Taylor, Philosophical Papers, 4-5, describes his target as a "flattering and inspiring" picture of the human agent that is linked to "ideals of efficacy, power, [and] unperturbability"; cf. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 177.
22. For example, Taylor, Philosophical Papers, 4-5, describes his target as a "flattering and inspiring" picture of the human agent that is linked to "ideals of efficacy, power, [and] unperturbability"; cf. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 177.
23. I track a similar reassertion in Taylor's work in chapter 2 of Bound by Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2003). For a different account of this reassertion and its consequences within Sandel's thought, see Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), chap. 6.
24. I track a similar reassertion in Taylor's work in chapter 2 of Bound by Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2003). For a different account of this reassertion and its consequences within Sandel's thought, see Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), chap. 6.
25. James Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7. As Tully puts it, these struggles aspire to achieve "self rule in accord with one's own customs and ways."
26. What I mean by "impropriety" corresponds to what Arendt referred to as the "boundlessness" and "unpredictability" of action, which together make up its "non-sovereign" character (The Human Condition, 190-92, 234). I use the term "impropriety" because it seems to me to capture all of this in a single word that is less awkward than "non-sovereign," and because it highlights the transgressive relation of action to that which is proper to the self, defined either in terms of choice or in terms of identity (so one might also say: our acts are never our property). For a different account of the Aristotelian and Sophoclean background to the chapter on action in The Human Condition see Robert C. Pirro, Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001).
27. What I mean by "impropriety" corresponds to what Arendt referred to as the "boundlessness" and "unpredictability" of action, which together make up its "non-sovereign" character (The Human Condition, 190-92, 234). I use the term "impropriety" because it seems to me to capture all of this in a single word that is less awkward than "non-sovereign," and because it highlights the transgressive relation of action to that which is proper to the self, defined either in terms of choice or in terms of identity (so one might also say: our acts are never our property). For a different account of the Aristotelian and Sophoclean background to the chapter on action in The Human Condition see Robert C. Pirro, Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001).
28. In Bound by Recognition I argue that Hegel's reading is more complicated than this attribution allows: while he does begin by assigning Antigone and Creon to different spheres, the point of his treatment of the Antigone in the Phenomenology of Spirit is to highlight the ways in which they break out of or fail to represent, the spheres to which they are assigned.
29. Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Antigone's Daughters," democracy 2, no. 2 (April 1982), 53, 58-59.
30. Mary G. Dietz, "Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking," Political Theory 13, no. 1 (1985): 20, 29.
31. Judith Butler has recently made a similar argument, criticizing the project of making Antigone into the "representative" of kinship and suggesting instead that "Antigone's own representative function is in crisis" by virtue of her implication in "incestuous legacies that confound her position within kinship" (Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death [New York: Columbia University Press. 2000], 2, 24). For Butler, however, Antigone's impropriety turns out in the end to be a matter of who she is: her departure from established norms of kinship and politics has always already happened by virtue of her genealogy and history, which afflict her with an "unliveable" desire, at least under the reigning system of kinship, and which condemn her to death in advance of the action of the play. This reading is valuable because it lets Butler use Antigone to figure the ways in which existing norms of kinship render certain lives and desires unlivable; at the same time, it slips back into something like a character-based reading of the play - though a psychologically deeper and sociologically richer one-in which the action of the drama becomes a playing out of who Antigone has been all along. And such a reading risks inadvertently reinforcing the political investment in recognition as an unequivocal source of emancipation. Here, by contrast, I argue that the impropriety of action arises not only out of the weight of an actor's past but also out of the contingency of the future - and this helps us understand why the desire for and pursuit of recognition itself can involve a potentially tragic misrecognition of the conditions of one's own agency, one that ironically helps to reproduce the structuring of social relations in fatefully dominative ways.
32. The first phrase is from Michelle Gellrich, Tragedy and Theory: The Problem of Conflict since Aristotle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), xiii (Gellrich develops this argument at length with reference to Aristotle in chapter 2); the second is from Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 163, arguing that on this issue "Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel are all on the same side" while "Sophocles and Thucydides" are on the other. Thanks to Peter Euben for pressing me to address this concern.
33. The first phrase is from Michelle Gellrich, Tragedy and Theory: The Problem of Conflict since Aristotle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), xiii (Gellrich develops this argument at length with reference to Aristotle in chapter 2); the second is from Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 163, arguing that on this issue "Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel are all on the same side" while "Sophocles and Thucydides" are on the other. Thanks to Peter Euben for pressing me to address this concern.
34. See Aristotle, Poetics, 1451b32-52a10 and 1454a3-8, respectively. For a good discussion of these issues see Stephen Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), chap. 7. Sheila Murnaghan's "Sucking the Juice without Biting the Rind," New Literary History 26 (1995): 755-73, importantly reminds us not to idealize tragic practice as a site of untamed conflict and disorder: both tragedy and Aristotle's theorization of it, she argues, are caught between the conflicting imperatives of representing and distancing the terrible.
35. See Aristotle, Poetics, 1451b32-52a10 and 1454a3-8, respectively. For a good discussion of these issues see Stephen Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), chap. 7. Sheila Murnaghan's "Sucking the Juice without Biting the Rind," New Literary History 26 (1995): 755-73, importantly reminds us not to idealize tragic practice as a site of untamed conflict and disorder: both tragedy and Aristotle's theorization of it, she argues, are caught between the conflicting imperatives of representing and distancing the terrible.
36. See Aristotle, Poetics, 1451b32-52a10 and 1454a3-8, respectively. For a good discussion of these issues see Stephen Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), chap. 7. Sheila Murnaghan's "Sucking the Juice without Biting the Rind," New Literary History 26 (1995): 755-73, importantly reminds us not to idealize tragic practice as a site of untamed conflict and disorder: both tragedy and Aristotle's theorization of it, she argues, are caught between the conflicting imperatives of representing and distancing the terrible.
37. Gellrich, Tragedy and Theory, 104 ff.
38. Ibid., 115.
39. Plato, Republic, 379b (trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1992], 55).
40. This also suggests a different way of reading Aristotle's preference for plots that turn on human hamartia rather than sheer contingency: the point of that preference is not to deny the place of contingency in human affairs, but to focus attention on the deadly intersection between contingency and the impossible pursuit of masterful agency.
41. Gellrich, Tragedy and Theory, 114-15.
42. Reading Aristotle alongside an ancient rather than a modern drama may be particularly appropriate given the tendency in modern drama to focus on psychological conflict within characters, which might seem to efface the relationship between action and êthos that Aristotle highlights. (Hegel discusses the modern development of character in Hegel's Aesthetics, trans. T. M. Knox [Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1975], 2:1223 ff.) But it would be an oversimplification to treat all modern drama as character-driven rather than plot-driven; and in any case, the modern interest in the psychological does not so much obscure the priority of action over êthos as shift the locus of action, conflict, reversal, and anagnôrisis inward (see Cave, Recognitions, pt. 2), raising important issues about the relationship between the social and the unconscious as sites of "impropriety," which I hope to explore in future work.
43. Reading Aristotle alongside an ancient rather than a modern drama may be particularly appropriate given the tendency in modern drama to focus on psychological conflict within characters, which might seem to efface the relationship between action and êthos that Aristotle highlights. (Hegel discusses the modern development of character in Hegel's Aesthetics, trans. T. M. Knox [Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1975], 2:1223 ff.) But it would be an oversimplification to treat all modern drama as character-driven rather than plot-driven; and in any case, the modern interest in the psychological does not so much obscure the priority of action over êthos as shift the locus of action, conflict, reversal, and anagnôrisis inward (see Cave, Recognitions, pt. 2), raising important issues about the relationship between the social and the unconscious as sites of "impropriety," which I hope to explore in future work.
44. Parenthetical citations to the Antigone refer to line numbers, and unless otherwise noted, quotations from the play follow Elizabeth Wyckoff's translation, in the first edition (only) of David Grene and Richard Lattimore, eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies, vol. 2, Sophocles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959). For Greek text and textual commentary see Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Mark Griffith (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge. University Press, 1999) and Sophocles, The Antigone, pt. 3, The Plays and Fragments, ed. and trans. Richard Jebb, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1900).
45. Parenthetical citations to the Antigone refer to line numbers, and unless otherwise noted, quotations from the play follow Elizabeth Wyckoff's translation, in the first edition (only) of David Grene and Richard Lattimore, eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies, vol. 2, Sophocles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959). For Greek text and textual commentary see Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Mark Griffith (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge. University Press, 1999) and Sophocles, The Antigone, pt. 3, The Plays and Fragments, ed. and trans. Richard Jebb, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1900).
46. Parenthetical citations to the Antigone refer to line numbers, and unless otherwise noted, quotations from the play follow Elizabeth Wyckoff's translation, in the first edition (only) of David Grene and Richard Lattimore, eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies, vol. 2, Sophocles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959). For Greek text and textual commentary see Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Mark Griffith (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge. University Press, 1999) and Sophocles, The Antigone, pt. 3, The Plays and Fragments, ed. and trans. Richard Jebb, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1900).
47. On the conventional obligation to bury one's kin, see W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (Auckland: University of Auckland, 1980), 148; on the legal obligation see S. C. Humphries, The Family, Women, and Death: Comparative Studies, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 83.
48. On the conventional obligation to bury one's kin, see W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (Auckland: University of Auckland, 1980), 148; on the legal obligation see S. C. Humphries, The Family, Women, and Death: Comparative Studies, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 83.
49. On the legitimacy of the prohibition of burial, see Vincent J. Rosivach, "On Creon, Antigone, and Not Burying the Dead," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 126, nos. 3-4 (1983): 193-211; D. A. Hester, "Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone." Mnemosyne, 24, ser. 4. (1971): 19-21, 55; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone," Journal of Hellenic Studies 109 (1989): 137-38. especially note 20. It has been suggested that Creon's edict overstepped his legitimate authority by at least implicitly prohibiting burial even outside Thebes (see Peter Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," Corrupting Youth [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 155; and the sources in Rosivach, "On Creon," 20). I am unconvinced that Creon's decree is meant to seem like an overstepping of his legitimate territorial authority, since the language of the edict (both in Creon's words at 204-7 and in Antigone's at 21-30) is explicit about what is prohibited and to whom the edict extends but makes no explicit claim to govern space outside of Thebes; moreover, while Polyneices' body has been left outside the city walls, Rosivach ("On Creon," 208 n. 49) and Hester ("Sophocles the Unphilosophical," 20) both suggest that the body remains within Theban territory - as perhaps it must if the point of leaving him unburied is to let his disgraced body be seen by the townspeople (see Griffith's commentary to ll. 205-6 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 162). Creon might with more justice be faulted for failing to follow the practice of letting family members bury a traitor elsewhere, but as Griffith observes, that issue is never mentioned in the play (commentary to ll. 26-36 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 127).
50. On the legitimacy of the prohibition of burial, see Vincent J. Rosivach, "On Creon, Antigone, and Not Burying the Dead," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 126, nos. 3-4 (1983): 193-211; D. A. Hester, "Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone." Mnemosyne, 24, ser. 4. (1971): 19-21, 55; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone," Journal of Hellenic Studies 109 (1989): 137-38. especially note 20. It has been suggested that Creon's edict overstepped his legitimate authority by at least implicitly prohibiting burial even outside Thebes (see Peter Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," Corrupting Youth [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 155; and the sources in Rosivach, "On Creon," 20). I am unconvinced that Creon's decree is meant to seem like an overstepping of his legitimate territorial authority, since the language of the edict (both in Creon's words at 204-7 and in Antigone's at 21-30) is explicit about what is prohibited and to whom the edict extends but makes no explicit claim to govern space outside of Thebes; moreover, while Polyneices' body has been left outside the city walls, Rosivach ("On Creon," 208 n. 49) and Hester ("Sophocles the Unphilosophical," 20) both suggest that the body remains within Theban territory - as perhaps it must if the point of leaving him unburied is to let his disgraced body be seen by the townspeople (see Griffith's commentary to ll. 205-6 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 162). Creon might with more justice be faulted for failing to follow the practice of letting family members bury a traitor elsewhere, but as Griffith observes, that issue is never mentioned in the play (commentary to ll. 26-36 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 127).
51. On the legitimacy of the prohibition of burial, see Vincent J. Rosivach, "On Creon, Antigone, and Not Burying the Dead," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 126, nos. 3-4 (1983): 193-211; D. A. Hester, "Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone." Mnemosyne, 24, ser. 4. (1971): 19-21, 55; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone," Journal of Hellenic Studies 109 (1989): 137-38. especially note 20. It has been suggested that Creon's edict overstepped his legitimate authority by at least implicitly prohibiting burial even outside Thebes (see Peter Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," Corrupting Youth [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 155; and the sources in Rosivach, "On Creon," 20). I am unconvinced that Creon's decree is meant to seem like an overstepping of his legitimate territorial authority, since the language of the edict (both in Creon's words at 204-7 and in Antigone's at 21-30) is explicit about what is prohibited and to whom the edict extends but makes no explicit claim to govern space outside of Thebes; moreover, while Polyneices' body has been left outside the city walls, Rosivach ("On Creon," 208 n. 49) and Hester ("Sophocles the Unphilosophical," 20) both suggest that the body remains within Theban territory - as perhaps it must if the point of leaving him unburied is to let his disgraced body be seen by the townspeople (see Griffith's commentary to ll. 205-6 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 162). Creon might with more justice be faulted for failing to follow the practice of letting family members bury a traitor elsewhere, but as Griffith observes, that issue is never mentioned in the play (commentary to ll. 26-36 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 127).
52. On the legitimacy of the prohibition of burial, see Vincent J. Rosivach, "On Creon, Antigone, and Not Burying the Dead," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 126, nos. 3-4 (1983): 193-211; D. A. Hester, "Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone." Mnemosyne, 24, ser. 4. (1971): 19-21, 55; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone," Journal of Hellenic Studies 109 (1989): 137-38. especially note 20. It has been suggested that Creon's edict overstepped his legitimate authority by at least implicitly prohibiting burial even outside Thebes (see Peter Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," Corrupting Youth [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 155; and the sources in Rosivach, "On Creon," 20). I am unconvinced that Creon's decree is meant to seem like an overstepping of his legitimate territorial authority, since the language of the edict (both in Creon's words at 204-7 and in Antigone's at 21-30) is explicit about what is prohibited and to whom the edict extends but makes no explicit claim to govern space outside of Thebes; moreover, while Polyneices' body has been left outside the city walls, Rosivach ("On Creon," 208 n. 49) and Hester ("Sophocles the Unphilosophical," 20) both suggest that the body remains within Theban territory - as perhaps it must if the point of leaving him unburied is to let his disgraced body be seen by the townspeople (see Griffith's commentary to ll. 205-6 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 162). Creon might with more justice be faulted for failing to follow the practice of letting family members bury a traitor elsewhere, but as Griffith observes, that issue is never mentioned in the play (commentary to ll. 26-36 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 127).
53. On the legitimacy of the prohibition of burial, see Vincent J. Rosivach, "On Creon, Antigone, and Not Burying the Dead," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 126, nos. 3-4 (1983): 193-211; D. A. Hester, "Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone." Mnemosyne, 24, ser. 4. (1971): 19-21, 55; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone," Journal of Hellenic Studies 109 (1989): 137-38. especially note 20. It has been suggested that Creon's edict overstepped his legitimate authority by at least implicitly prohibiting burial even outside Thebes (see Peter Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," Corrupting Youth [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 155; and the sources in Rosivach, "On Creon," 20). I am unconvinced that Creon's decree is meant to seem like an overstepping of his legitimate territorial authority, since the language of the edict (both in Creon's words at 204-7 and in Antigone's at 21-30) is explicit about what is prohibited and to whom the edict extends but makes no explicit claim to govern space outside of Thebes; moreover, while Polyneices' body has been left outside the city walls, Rosivach ("On Creon," 208 n. 49) and Hester ("Sophocles the Unphilosophical," 20) both suggest that the body remains within Theban territory - as perhaps it must if the point of leaving him unburied is to let his disgraced body be seen by the townspeople (see Griffith's commentary to ll. 205-6 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 162). Creon might with more justice be faulted for failing to follow the practice of letting family members bury a traitor elsewhere, but as Griffith observes, that issue is never mentioned in the play (commentary to ll. 26-36 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 127).
54. On the legitimacy of the prohibition of burial, see Vincent J. Rosivach, "On Creon, Antigone, and Not Burying the Dead," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 126, nos. 3-4 (1983): 193-211; D. A. Hester, "Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone." Mnemosyne, 24, ser. 4. (1971): 19-21, 55; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sophocles' Antigone," Journal of Hellenic Studies 109 (1989): 137-38. especially note 20. It has been suggested that Creon's edict overstepped his legitimate authority by at least implicitly prohibiting burial even outside Thebes (see Peter Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," Corrupting Youth [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], 155; and the sources in Rosivach, "On Creon," 20). I am unconvinced that Creon's decree is meant to seem like an overstepping of his legitimate territorial authority, since the language of the edict (both in Creon's words at 204-7 and in Antigone's at 21-30) is explicit about what is prohibited and to whom the edict extends but makes no explicit claim to govern space outside of Thebes; moreover, while Polyneices' body has been left outside the city walls, Rosivach ("On Creon," 208 n. 49) and Hester ("Sophocles the Unphilosophical," 20) both suggest that the body remains within Theban territory - as perhaps it must if the point of leaving him unburied is to let his disgraced body be seen by the townspeople (see Griffith's commentary to ll. 205-6 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 162). Creon might with more justice be faulted for failing to follow the practice of letting family members bury a traitor elsewhere, but as Griffith observes, that issue is never mentioned in the play (commentary to ll. 26-36 in Antigone, ed. Griffith, 127).
55. The locus classicus is Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia," Collected Papers (New York: Basic Books, 1959), vol. 4; see also Eric L. Santner, Stranded Objects: Mourning, Memory and Film in Postwar Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), chap. 1; and Peter M. Sacks, The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), chap. 1.
56. The locus classicus is Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia," Collected Papers (New York: Basic Books, 1959), vol. 4; see also Eric L. Santner, Stranded Objects: Mourning, Memory and Film in Postwar Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), chap. 1; and Peter M. Sacks, The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), chap. 1.
57. The locus classicus is Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia," Collected Papers (New York: Basic Books, 1959), vol. 4; see also Eric L. Santner, Stranded Objects: Mourning, Memory and Film in Postwar Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), chap. 1; and Peter M. Sacks, The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), chap. 1.
58. This dimension of funeral ritual is reflected in Hegel's gloss on the practice of burial in Greece as a way of humanizing death by supplementing a natural and "irrational" event with "an action consciously done" G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1977), 270.
59. On the significance of philos and ekhthros in the Antigone, see Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 79-106, to whom I owe in particular the insight into the connection between philla and recognition (p. 85). See also Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 106-48; David Konstan, "Greek Friendship," American Journal of Philology 117 (1996): 82-85; Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 185-86; and Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 70-76.
60. On the significance of philos and ekhthros in the Antigone, see Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 79-106, to whom I owe in particular the insight into the connection between philla and recognition (p. 85). See also Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 106-48; David Konstan, "Greek Friendship," American Journal of Philology 117 (1996): 82-85; Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 185-86; and Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 70-76.
61. On the significance of philos and ekhthros in the Antigone, see Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 79-106, to whom I owe in particular the insight into the connection between philla and recognition (p. 85). See also Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 106-48; David Konstan, "Greek Friendship," American Journal of Philology 117 (1996): 82-85; Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 185-86; and Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 70-76.
62. On the significance of philos and ekhthros in the Antigone, see Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 79-106, to whom I owe in particular the insight into the connection between philla and recognition (p. 85). See also Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 106-48; David Konstan, "Greek Friendship," American Journal of Philology 117 (1996): 82-85; Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 185-86; and Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 70-76.
63. On the significance of philos and ekhthros in the Antigone, see Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 79-106, to whom I owe in particular the insight into the connection between philla and recognition (p. 85). See also Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 106-48; David Konstan, "Greek Friendship," American Journal of Philology 117 (1996): 82-85; Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 185-86; and Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 70-76.
64. See the sources in the preceding note as well as the relevant entries in Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., rev. Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1968).
65. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, 79-83.
66. On this line see Jebb's note in his edition of Sophocles, The Antigone, part 3 of The Plays and Fragments, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1900), 10-11; and Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies, 107 n. 5.
67. On this line see Jebb's note in his edition of Sophocles, The Antigone, part 3 of The Plays and Fragments, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1900), 10-11; and Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies, 107 n. 5.
68. On the distinction between the chthonian and Olympian in the context of The Antigone, see Segal, Tragedy and Civilization, 171.
69. Ibid., 183-84. When contested, citizenship was established by demonstration of enrollment in the phratry, a patrilineal kinship organization into which daughters were not introduced.
70. The question of the nature of kinship and its relation to gender was a live issue for the Greek audience: as Segal says, Antigone's use of matrilineal kinship words "reopens, on a personal level, the debate between Apollo and the Erinyes in Aeschylus's Oresteia," where the issue was precisely whether the father's seed or the mother's womb played a more important role in reproduction. Ibid., 184.
71. See Helene Foley, "Tragedy and Democratic Ideology," History, Tragedy, Theory, ed. Barbara Goff (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 146 n. 11 (responding to Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning." 140). On the roles of men and women at funerals see Robert Garland, The Creek Way of Death (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), chap. 3; and Humphries, The Family, Women, and Death, 83-88.
72. See Helene Foley, "Tragedy and Democratic Ideology," History, Tragedy, Theory, ed. Barbara Goff (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 146 n. 11 (responding to Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning." 140). On the roles of men and women at funerals see Robert Garland, The Creek Way of Death (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), chap. 3; and Humphries, The Family, Women, and Death, 83-88.
73. See Helene Foley, "Tragedy and Democratic Ideology," History, Tragedy, Theory, ed. Barbara Goff (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 146 n. 11 (responding to Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning." 140). On the roles of men and women at funerals see Robert Garland, The Creek Way of Death (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), chap. 3; and Humphries, The Family, Women, and Death, 83-88.
74. See Helene Foley, "Tragedy and Democratic Ideology," History, Tragedy, Theory, ed. Barbara Goff (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 146 n. 11 (responding to Sourvinou-Inwood, "Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning." 140). On the roles of men and women at funerals see Robert Garland, The Creek Way of Death (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), chap. 3; and Humphries, The Family, Women, and Death, 83-88.
75. Charles Segal, "The Female Voice and Its Contradictions," Religio Graeco-Romana: Festschrift für Walter Pötscher, ed. Joachim Dalfen (Graz, Austria: Institut für Klassische Philologie, 1993), 66-72; see also his Sophocles' Tragic World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 120.
76. Charles Segal, "The Female Voice and Its Contradictions," Religio Graeco-Romana: Festschrift für Walter Pötscher, ed. Joachim Dalfen (Graz, Austria: Institut für Klassische Philologie, 1993), 66-72; see also his Sophocles' Tragic World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 120.
77. Jebb's translation; Wyckoff translates philos kakos as "a friend no friend."
78. See his statements to the chorus (484-85), to Antigone (525), and to Haemon (678-80).
79. Peter Euben also argues that it is problematic to treat Creon and Antigone as simply "standing for" polis and oikos, and so on ("Antigone and the Languages of Politics," 154ff. 164ff). However, Euben focuses on the ways in which Creon and Antigone fail to represent these terms from the beginning (for instance, by noting Creon's tyrannical behavior toward the chorus of elders even in his first speech [155], or Antigone's difference from Ismene even in the opening scene [166]), whereas I track the ways in which these failures of representation develop, becoming more acute and more obvious, across the course of the play-which has the advantage of highlighting the ways in which Antigone's and Creon's attempts at self- and other-recognition, however imperfect these attempts may be, nevertheless contribute to their fates.
80. Aristotle is referring here to the plot (muthos), which is the combination of the pragmata, which is usually translated as "incidents or events" but which is cognate with praxis (action) and certainly includes the praxeis of the actors (prattontes, meaning the agents in the story, not the Athenians who played them on stage). On Aristotle's vocabulary see Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics. 138-42.
81. The translation of ethos as "character" can be misleading, because in English "character," especially in the context of drama, can have the minimal sense of "one of the people in the play" (in which case Aristotle's claim at 1450a23-24 that you can have tragedy without êthos would become nonsensical). It may be useful to note that, until the nineteenth century, the standard English translation of Aristotle's term ethos-in the Poetics as well as in the Nicomachean Ethics and The Rhetoric - was not "character" but "manners"; and that medieval (and later) Latin translations consistently rendered êthos as mores.
82. Aristotle, Metaphysics. 1020a33; Categories, 8b25. (The translations are by W. D. Ross and E. M. Edghill, respectively, both in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon [New York: Random House, 1941].)
83. Aristotle, Metaphysics. 1020a33; Categories, 8b25. (The translations are by W. D. Ross and E. M. Edghill, respectively, both in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon [New York: Random House, 1941].)
84. Aristotle, Metaphysics. 1020a33; Categories, 8b25. (The translations are by W. D. Ross and E. M. Edghill, respectively, both in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon [New York: Random House, 1941].)
85. Aristotle, Categories, 8b27.
86. Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1989), 1.
87. Charles Chamberlain, "From 'Haunts' to 'Character': The Meaning of Êthos and Its Relation to Ethics," Helios 11 (1984): 97-108. Chamberlain has shown that êthos originally referred to the "haunts" of an animal - that is, to the places where animals of a particular type were typically or characteristically found - and later came to refer to the regularities of behavior of human beings. Chamberlain also notes that "êthos comes from the Indo-European root *swedh, see also in the Latin suus and suesco, meaning 'one's own' or 'proper'"; so we might say that something's êthos is just that which leads it to do what is proper to it, as the sort of thing it is.
88. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1388b31-34 ff, 1408a25-31; see the discussion in Mary Whitlock Blundell, "Êthos and Dianoia Reconsidered," Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 164. As Chamberlain notes, êthos was sometimes used to refer to "the peculiarities which people of a certain polis acquire as a result of being brought up under its particular laws and customs" ("From 'Haunts' to 'Character,'" 101).
89. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1388b31-34 ff, 1408a25-31; see the discussion in Mary Whitlock Blundell, "Êthos and Dianoia Reconsidered," Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 164. As Chamberlain notes, êthos was sometimes used to refer to "the peculiarities which people of a certain polis acquire as a result of being brought up under its particular laws and customs" ("From 'Haunts' to 'Character,'" 101).
90. The Poetics itself says that êthos (here used in the sense of "characterization," or the dramatic depiction of "character" - on this see Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, 150-51) is that which "shows us the nature of a prohairesis" (1450b8-9, Halliwell's translation); certainly Antigone's and Creon's efforts to ground their actions in their identities show us aspects of the nature of their choices.
91. Sherman, The Fabric of Character, 1.
92. Going a step beyond Gellrich's claim (discussed above) that Aristotle's subordination of action to êthos in the ethical writings distorts his view of tragedy, this view takes seriously Aristotle's prioritization of action in the Poetics, but concludes from this that the Poetics must represent a sharp break from the ethical treatises.
93. Elizabeth S. Belfiore, Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
94. On controversies surrounding the text of this passage see Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 378-79 and accompanying notes.
95. Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, 157; and Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 379-82.
96. Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, 157; and Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 379-82.
97. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty notes the echo of the discussion of happiness and misfortune in Nicomachean Ethics 1.10 in "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy," in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty, 21 n. 14.
98. Aristotle performs this etymology with êthikê at Nicomachean Ethics. 1103a 17-18, and with ethos utEudemian Ethics, 1220a39-bl.
99. On the relationships among dunamis, energeia, hexis, and praxis, see Jill Frank, "Democracy and Distribution: Aristotle on Just Desert." Political Theory 26 (1998): 795-96.
100. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1100a10-1101b23. The epigraph to this essay, from Arendt's Human Condition, widens this idea, suggesting that identity cannot decisively be ascribed to a person while she is still acting into a contingent future. On vulnerability in Aristotle in general, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 380-82 and chaps. 11-12; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, chap. 7; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Aryeh Kosman, "Acting: Drama as the Mimêsis of Praxis," and Nancy Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue," both in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty.
101. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1100a10-1101b23. The epigraph to this essay, from Arendt's Human Condition, widens this idea, suggesting that identity cannot decisively be ascribed to a person while she is still acting into a contingent future. On vulnerability in Aristotle in general, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 380-82 and chaps. 11-12; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, chap. 7; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Aryeh Kosman, "Acting: Drama as the Mimêsis of Praxis," and Nancy Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue," both in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty.
102. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1100a10-1101b23. The epigraph to this essay, from Arendt's Human Condition, widens this idea, suggesting that identity cannot decisively be ascribed to a person while she is still acting into a contingent future. On vulnerability in Aristotle in general, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 380-82 and chaps. 11-12; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, chap. 7; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Aryeh Kosman, "Acting: Drama as the Mimêsis of Praxis," and Nancy Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue," both in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty.
103. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1100a10-1101b23. The epigraph to this essay, from Arendt's Human Condition, widens this idea, suggesting that identity cannot decisively be ascribed to a person while she is still acting into a contingent future. On vulnerability in Aristotle in general, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 380-82 and chaps. 11-12; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, chap. 7; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Aryeh Kosman, "Acting: Drama as the Mimêsis of Praxis," and Nancy Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue," both in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty.
104. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1100a10-1101b23. The epigraph to this essay, from Arendt's Human Condition, widens this idea, suggesting that identity cannot decisively be ascribed to a person while she is still acting into a contingent future. On vulnerability in Aristotle in general, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 380-82 and chaps. 11-12; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, chap. 7; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Aryeh Kosman, "Acting: Drama as the Mimêsis of Praxis," and Nancy Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue," both in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty.
105. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1100a10-1101b23. The epigraph to this essay, from Arendt's Human Condition, widens this idea, suggesting that identity cannot decisively be ascribed to a person while she is still acting into a contingent future. On vulnerability in Aristotle in general, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 380-82 and chaps. 11-12; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, chap. 7; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Aryeh Kosman, "Acting: Drama as the Mimêsis of Praxis," and Nancy Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue," both in Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed. Rorty.
106. See Thomas Nagel's discussion (in the context of an argument about luck and responsibility in ethics) of the apparently irresolvable split between the "internal" and "external" perspectives on our actions in "Moral Luck," Mortal Questions (Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 37. See also Kosman. "Acting," 65.
107. See Thomas Nagel's discussion (in the context of an argument about luck and responsibility in ethics) of the apparently irresolvable split between the "internal" and "external" perspectives on our actions in "Moral Luck," Mortal Questions (Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 37. See also Kosman. "Acting," 65.
108. For a good reading of Aristotle's account of responsibility, which stresses that he neither finds nor seeks to find some objective characteristic of an agent in virtue of which he can be said to have been either responsible or not, see Marion Smiley, Moral Responsibility and the Boundaries of Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), chap. 2.
109. On the inferiority of tragic plots based on "mere chance," see Aristotle, Poetics, 1452al11; good discussions can be found in Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue"; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), chap. 8.
110. On the inferiority of tragic plots based on "mere chance," see Aristotle, Poetics, 1452al11; good discussions can be found in Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue"; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), chap. 8.
111. On the inferiority of tragic plots based on "mere chance," see Aristotle, Poetics, 1452al11; good discussions can be found in Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue"; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), chap. 8.
112. On the inferiority of tragic plots based on "mere chance," see Aristotle, Poetics, 1452al11; good discussions can be found in Sherman, "Hamartia and Virtue"; Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy"; and Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), chap. 8.
113. This is the source of action's impropriety that Arendt emphasizes; see Arendt, The Human Condition, 190-93, 233-234; Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 1968), 169-71; cf. Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy," 11. Arendt, in distinguishing among labor, work, and action,
114. This is the source of action's impropriety that Arendt emphasizes; see Arendt, The Human Condition, 190-93, 233-234; Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 1968), 169-71; cf. Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy," 11. Arendt, in distinguishing among labor, work, and action, tries too hard to disentangle the problem of plurality from the problem of material causality, as though relations among actors took place alongside, but were not intertwined with, relations among things and bodies (e.g., see The Human Condition, 182-83).
115. This is the source of action's impropriety that Arendt emphasizes; see Arendt, The Human Condition, 190-93, 233-234; Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 1968), 169-71; cf. Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy," 11. Arendt, in distinguishing among labor, work, and action, tries too hard to disentangle the problem of plurality from the problem of material causality, as though relations among actors took place alongside, but were not intertwined with, relations among things and bodies (e.g., see The Human Condition, 182-83).
116. This is the source of action's impropriety that Arendt emphasizes; see Arendt, The Human Condition, 190-93, 233-234; Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 1968), 169-71; cf. Rorty, "The Psychology of Aristotelian Tragedy," 11. Arendt, in distinguishing among labor, work, and action, tries too hard to disentangle the problem of plurality from the problem of material causality, as though relations among actors took place alongside, but were not intertwined with, relations among things and bodies (e.g., see The Human Condition, 182-83).
117. Seyla Benhabib calls this the "interpretive indeterminacy" of action: Critique, Norm, and Utopia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 136.
118. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, chap. 12; see also Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, chap. 8.
119. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, chap. 12; see also Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal, chap. 8.
120. On the ode, see Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," 171-76; and Robert F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles ' Antigone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 53-56.
121. On the ode, see Euben, "Antigone and the Languages of Politics," 171-76; and Robert F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles ' Antigone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 53-56.
122. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles' Antigone, 141 n. l (and accompanying discussion at 53).
123. As Nussbaum puts it, "if one listened only to Antigone, one would not know that a war had taken place or that anything called 'city' was ever in danger." The Fragility of Goodness, 63-64.
124. As Euben observes, in the course of the play Antigone moves from "the enclosure of the most immediate family," in her opening conversation with Ismene, to "the public world" (in her final speech to the chorus of citizens ["Antigone and the Languages of Politics," 168]). It's important to note, however, that while Antigone both steps and is thrust into political space, she never quite takes up the vocabulary of politics: her act is not framed as a political challenge to Creon, though it becomes one despite her.
125. Although Creon nominally acknowledges that Antigone's disobedience is an instance of disorder within the oikos, he does so only in order to deny that Antigone's kinship ought to influence his action, and to reinforce his subordination of all other concerns to political rule. To permit disobedience among relatives, Creon says, would compel him to permit it in the city at large; thus, enforcing the edict against Antigone is just another instance of ensuring "justice in the polis" (662).
126. On this as an expression of specifically filial devotion, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 62; and Joan V. O'Brien, Guide to Sophocles' Antigone (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 77. On the military language, see Jebb's note to line 640 and O'Brien, Guide to Sophocles' Antigone, 79, from which the quoted words are taken.
127. On this as an expression of specifically filial devotion, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 62; and Joan V. O'Brien, Guide to Sophocles' Antigone (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 77. On the military language, see Jebb's note to line 640 and O'Brien, Guide to Sophocles' Antigone, 79, from which the quoted words are taken.
128. On this as an expression of specifically filial devotion, see Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, 62; and Joan V. O'Brien, Guide to Sophocles' Antigone (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 77. On the military language, see Jebb's note to line 640 and O'Brien, Guide to Sophocles' Antigone, 79, from which the quoted words are taken.
129. On Antigone's treatment of Ismene see Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies, 111-15.
130. On this see Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 66-67; Sheila Mumaghan, "Antigone 904-20 and the Institution of Marriage," American Journal of Philology 107 (1986): 192-207; and Christina Elliot Sorum, "The Family in Sophocles' Antigone and Electro" Classical World 75 (1982): 206.
131. On this see Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 66-67; Sheila Mumaghan, "Antigone 904-20 and the Institution of Marriage," American Journal of Philology 107 (1986): 192-207; and Christina Elliot Sorum, "The Family in Sophocles' Antigone and Electro" Classical World 75 (1982): 206.
132. On this see Matt Neuburg, "How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency,'" Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 66-67; Sheila Mumaghan, "Antigone 904-20 and the Institution of Marriage," American Journal of Philology 107 (1986): 192-207; and Christina Elliot Sorum, "The Family in Sophocles' Antigone and Electro" Classical World 75 (1982): 206.
133. Segal, Sophocles' Tragic World, 131.
134. Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Griffith, 129 (Griffith's commentary to II. 35-36); on the dependence of stoning on citizen cooperation, see Danielle Alien, The World of Prometheus; The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 208-9.
135. Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Griffith, 129 (Griffith's commentary to II. 35-36); on the dependence of stoning on citizen cooperation, see Danielle Alien, The World of Prometheus; The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 208-9.
136. The notion that the Theban citizenry quietly sympathizes with Antigone is repeated by Haemon at 690-95, raising the tantalizing question of whether Antigone expected to die: might she have been banking on the sympathy of the Theban citizens to rescue her from a form of punishment that Creon was powerless to carry out on his own? On Creon's dependence, see Alien, The World of Prometheus, 209.
137. For the former hypothesis see Alien, The World of Prometheus, 209; on the latter, see the discussions in Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Griffith, 253-54, and Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Jebb, 144.
138. For the former hypothesis see Alien, The World of Prometheus, 209; on the latter, see the discussions in Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Griffith, 253-54, and Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Jebb, 144.
139. For the former hypothesis see Alien, The World of Prometheus, 209; on the latter, see the discussions in Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Griffith, 253-54, and Sophocles, Antigone, ed. Jebb, 144.
140. The idea that this exchange somehow makes matters worse for Antigone is supported by Creon's speech at 473 ff, in which he takes particular offense at the fact that she not only did the deed but is now boasting of it to him; indeed, her boasts are the immediate occasion for his first explicit expression of a crisis of masculinity ("This girl was expert in her insolence when she broke bounds beyond established law. Once she had done it, insolence the second, to boast her doing, and to laugh in it. I am no man and she the man instead if she can have this conquest without pain" [480-485]).
141. Particularly after Haemon, unwisely, begins mocking his father: after Creon says, in an aside to the chorus, "it seems he's firmly on the woman's side," Haemon replies: "If you're a woman. It is you I care for" (740-41 ). The idea that Creon's plans for Antigone are, at this point, still unclear is brought home by Creon's subsequent command that Antigone be brought out of the house so that she can die then and there, in Haemon's presence, a cruel response to his son's mockery that is only thwarted by Haemon's sudden departure (758-61).
142. Emily Vermeule notes that in Sophocles' description the cave has all the architectural features of a Bronze age chamber tomb, which was itself called an "oikos for the dead." Aspects of Death in Early Creek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 54. See also Rush Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 4: and Richard Seaford, "The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 110(1990): 76-90. On the propriety of enclosure as a form of punishment for women, see Alien. The World of Prometheus, 208-9.
143. Emily Vermeule notes that in Sophocles' description the cave has all the architectural features of a Bronze age chamber tomb, which was itself called an "oikos for the dead." Aspects of Death in Early Creek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 54. See also Rush Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 4: and Richard Seaford, "The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 110(1990): 76-90. On the propriety of enclosure as a form of punishment for women, see Alien. The World of Prometheus, 208-9.
144. Emily Vermeule notes that in Sophocles' description the cave has all the architectural features of a Bronze age chamber tomb, which was itself called an "oikos for the dead." Aspects of Death in Early Creek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 54. See also Rush Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 4: and Richard Seaford, "The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 110(1990): 76-90. On the propriety of enclosure as a form of punishment for women, see Alien. The World of Prometheus, 208-9.
145. Emily Vermeule notes that in Sophocles' description the cave has all the architectural features of a Bronze age chamber tomb, which was itself called an "oikos for the dead." Aspects of Death in Early Creek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 54. See also Rush Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1994), chap. 4: and Richard Seaford, "The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 110(1990): 76-90. On the propriety of enclosure as a form of punishment for women, see Alien. The World of Prometheus, 208-9.
146. Arendt, The Human Condition, 184. Arendt specifically mentions the use of messengers within tragedy as an illustration of the gap between perspective of the actor and the perspective of the narrator in Between Past and Future, 45.
147. Arendt, The Human Condition, 184. Arendt specifically mentions the use of messengers within tragedy as an illustration of the gap between perspective of the actor and the perspective of the narrator in Between Past and Future, 45.
148. Aristotle. Poetics, 1452a29-32.
149. Thus I dissent from John Jones's (On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy [London, UK: Chatto and Windus, 1962], 15-16) effort to correct the overemphasis on character in the interpretation of tragedy by claiming that "the text makes it plain that we can't" read anagnorisis as the recognition of an individual's identity. As the examples indicate, there is some sense in which it's impossible not to say that recognition is the recognition of a person (on this see Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, 352-53); the point is that this is not the recognition of acoherent practical identity in the sense (and with the unambiguously positive valence) presupposed by the politics of recognition.
150. Thus I dissent from John Jones's (On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy [London, UK: Chatto and Windus, 1962], 15-16) effort to correct the overemphasis on character in the interpretation of tragedy by claiming that "the text makes it plain that we can't" read anagnorisis as the recognition of an individual's identity. As the examples indicate, there is some sense in which it's impossible not to say that recognition is the recognition of a person (on this see Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, 352-53); the point is that this is not the recognition of acoherent practical identity in the sense (and with the unambiguously positive valence) presupposed by the politics of recognition.
151. On the suddenness of peripeteia, see Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, 345; Else persuasively interprets peripeteia as a subset of metabolê at 343.
152. On the importance of this phrase and its connection to peripeteia and anagnôrisis, see Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, 329ff; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, 212.
153. On the importance of this phrase and its connection to peripeteia and anagnôrisis, see Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, 329ff; Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, 212.
154. Thus Halliwell's gloss of this gap as the "disparity between the knowledge or intentions of the dramatic characters and the underlying nature of their actions'' is too restrictive, insofar as it suggests that the nature of one's action is something "underlying" it (i.e., something that could have been known in advance, if only we were sufficiently attentive or aware) (Aristotle's Poetics. 212).
155. On the grammatical splitting see Griffith's commentary to II. 368-71, in Sophocles, Antigone, 189.
156. See Patricia Jagentowicz Mills, Woman, Nature and Psyche (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 28-29.
157. Arendt, The Human Condition, 193.
158. In Bound by Recognition I argue that Hegel's account of lordship and bondage follows this pattern: there, the experience of finitude and of physical and social dependence is assigned, forcibly, to one party, who performs labor without enjoyment in order to enable the other's experience of pure consumption. Although this social relationship does not actually provide the lord with the sovereignty he seeks, it provides him with something like an enjoyable simulation of that mastery, for it insulates him from the experience of his own dependence (even if only imperfectly and temporarily).