Missing Antigone Post

The most striking element of the story of Antigone is Antigone's fervor. In relation to Joseph's article about relevancy, this part of the story is the most irrelevant to today's young culture. I could never imagine standing up for something like that and sacrificing my life. Perhaps this is because I am an only child, though. But I do believe that the values of this western world we live in are differently aligned now than they were in Antigone's time. I believe our world impresses a much more rational, or what could be called selfish, reaction to standing up for what we believe in. In comparison with the extremist Muslim values that the suicide bombers claim, our values do not include self-sacrifice. It is interesting to look at that culture in comparison with Antigone as well. It seems that they are quite similar when it comes to standing up for what is "right;" both value that higher cause much more than human or their own life.

discovering tasks

Here are some shorthand notes to the discovery task, if you want to make sure you get what was being asked of you.

1. What information about the author of the article is provided?
Not much. But we do get his university affiliation at the end of the article (as is standard in academic publishing), and we also get a reference to another publication he has on Arnold in footnote 33 (page 35), giving us the sense that he has worked a great deal on Arnold (which might confirm the fact that the article is secretly about Arnold). You can also that these publications are in or on Victorian Literature, giving you a sense that he is (in the language of the academy) a Victorianist. Now, what does this mean?

2. Summarize in a few sentences the thesis and major points that the author covers in the article.
done. see blog posting from Tuesday 4/15 discussion.

3. Is the evidence primarily from primary or secondary sources? Support your answer with examples.
Here it is important to keep in mind the relativeness of primary/secondary sources--secondary sources can also be primary sources. In Joseph's argument, all the Arnold/Hegel/Eliot/Woolf/Drabble texts are both. They are secondary in the sense that they "comment" on Sophocles' Antigone, but their comments on Antigone require the mediation/interpretation of Joseph. Thus they are treated by Joseph as "primary" sources.

4. Name one or two scholars mentioned in the article. Does the author agree or disagree with the scholars he or she cites.
Footnotes 1-37 reference a ton of scholars contemporary to Joseph. But none in the article--Mentioned in article I thought I found: W.F. Barry, author of The New Antigone: A Romance, but when I checked out the footnote, I found that it was actually written in 1887! So there are no scholars mentioned in the article! This is kind of shocking, since then Joseph doesn't do what you're being asked to do, which is to integrate secondary scholarly material with your own claim.

5. What is the subject focus of the journal that the argument in from?
In other words, what discipline does the journal deal with?: Literature--the PMLA is the publication of the Modern Language Association. http://www.mla.org/pmla. (The MLA is the professional organization through which aspiring literature graduate students apply for professorship jobs).

Claim Continuum

Here are the paraphrased claims I mentioned towards the end of class--contrast them with what you had, or what the groups had put up on the board. (So these are not "right" so to speak, since claims are very relative).

1 (page 22) Antigone is relevant because it is puzzling.
2 (page 23) Antigone's action (duty) is irrelevant, but her figure is relevant.
3 (page 25) Jospeh uses Eliot to show Antigone as inner needs.
4 (page 30) Even though art does not directly teach, the irrationality of Antigone is its appeal; art attests to the uncertainty of culture.
5 (page 31) Antigone's fidelity is the touchstone.
6 (page 32) Hegel and Arnold are defenders of stable community, Antigone is an anarchist and maybe we should be too.

basis for action: doing as one likes?

Joseph presents an argument for the contemporary relevance of Antigone through the lens of Hegel, Matthew Arnold, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Drabble. This involves a great variety of claims--summative, descriptive, and arguable, as well as implict/explicit. In class we made it through coming up with a research questions. The general question involves the prompt's language of the "basis for action" within Sophocles' drama. Your more particular group interests dealt with:

• antigone as individual, inspired by personal interests?
• law of Creon?
• religion as possible basis for action?
• kinship and loyalty to brother but not husband, kids (or sister?)?
• antigone as egotistical?

You can see that these are not phrased as nicely as your questions in class, but I just wanted to mark our starting point. From here, lots of development is possible, both for your individual papers and ideas and for your groups' collective refinement of the question. We will continue with this work on Thursday, since we did not get to the claims part of the Joseph article.

Note here that you will of course be thinking of how your personal ideas relate to and differ from the things you discuss as a group. You will want to really "use" the group work in terms of getting ideas, but of course the successful essay depends upon your development and elaboration of your own ideas--claims, evidence, and warrants all included!

Please post any questions (words or phrases or concepts you don't quite get) as comments, if you have them. Questions about the essay of course perfectly acceptable.

The Tyrant in Brecht's Legend

I found Bertolt Brecht's poem "The Antigone Legend" to be a very confusing but interesting read. One thing that grabbed me was Brecht's portrayal of Creon (spelled with a "K" in the poem) as a tyrant who was, above all, hungry for power. In lecture for Humanities Core, we have been learning about other possible motives for Creon's stubborn actions. For example, just as Antigone was sincerely standing up for her beliefs in the "laws of the gods," Creon was sincerely defending the laws of the State, which as the king, it was his responsibility to do anyway. He was , according to some scholars or commentators, merely doing his job and justly using his authority.

In the brief introduction before the text of the poem in our HCC readers, Judith Malina writes, "Brecht himself used [the poem] as a rehearsal device intended to develop objectivity in the actors' performances" (187). If I understand the word "objectivity" correctly, it involves a tone of neutrality. How can the poem be objective if it seems to uphold the image of Antigone as the moral one, the "legend," who mesmerizes (if not dissuades) the Elders and her uncle with her wise, self-assured comebacks. Brecht takes this image of Antigone and contrasts it starkly with Creon's hardheartedness. To illustrate the evil of Creon's consuming thirst for control, Brecht compares him to a "monster," in the thirteenth stanza (188). Apparently, even the Elders saw their king in this way. And yet they "looked at [Antigone] coldly and stood by the tyrant" (188). Much of the dialogue made little sense to me. Then again, I have only read the poem once. Perhaps more than one re-reading will help clear things up a bit.

Antigone, take II

If you haven't sorted out the posting stuff yet, you can post your weekly response to the week Two readings here--these include Antigone, Brecht's Antigone, the Kowalki article, and the Johnson article from the list of discovery task articles.

Antigone

Please post a reading response to any of the Antigone material--the Sophocles text itself, the material on the blog links, and the variations excerpted in class. The response should be 200-250 words long.