Guidance notes for Hegel on tragedy
In the second lecture on Antigone, we will consider some influential philosophical and conceptual readings of the play. The first of these is by the nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). Two of Hegel’s works are accessible as ebooks, with relevant passages signalled in the online reading list:
Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975)
The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Peter Fuss and John Dobbins (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019)
Try not to get bogged down in the detail and terminology of Hegel’s writing, which is often very difficult - even to professional philosophers. The important thing is to glean whatever you can that is relevant to Sophocles’ play. The Week 3 lecture will outline the significance of Hegel’s contribution.
You might also find it useful to consult André Lardinois’ chapter on the play in A Companion to Sophocles (available online via the reading list). This offers a useful introduction to the play’s nineteenth- and twentieth-century reception, and the division between ‘orthodox’ and ‘Hegelian’ readings of the tragedy. Here are a number of quotations that might help you situate Hegel’s ideas:
The interpretation of Antigone has been dominated by two mutually exclusive traditions, both of which go back at least to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Their main point of contention is the question of who is right and who is wrong in the conflict between Antigone and Creon. The tradition that has attracted most followers in the past has been labelled the “orthodox view”. Proponents of this view maintain that, on the whole, Antigone is right and Creon is wrong. The other interpretative tradition is called “the Hegelian view”, after the famous German philosopher, who argued that Antigone and Creon are both equally right and wrong.’ (Lardinois, 2012, p. 59)
[According to the orthodox view] Antigone is made to represent something that transcends, in value and appeal, the political or human justifications of Creon. (Lardinois, 2012, p. 59)
In the Aesthetics Hegel presents the play as a clash between two equally important and equally divine sets of principles [i.e. the public law of the state, and the instinctive family love and duty towards a brother]. […] Because Antigone and Creon defend fundamental principles, both are right, but because they are one-sided in their defence of these principles, they are wrong at the same time. (Lardinois, 2012, p. 61)
Another important element in Hegel’s interpretation is the final resolution of the conflict in a higher unity. The play works, according to Hegel, through the clash between a thesis (Antigone, representing the old family order) and its antithesis (Creon, representing the polis) and the development towards a synthesis of family and polis in a new state order, which integrates and respects the demands of the family. (Lardinois, 2012, p. 61)
The Hegelian view […] has not been without its critics either. Right from the start, orthodox interpreters pointed to the fact that Creon may start off as a fairly reasonable king, but soon develops into a real tyrant. It is highly questionable whether such a tyrant can represent the true values of the state. The attitudes of Antigone with regard to her family can be questioned along similar lines. […] It also appears that the categories of family and state are in practice less easy to separate than the two protagonists (or Hegel) would like. (Lardinois, 2012, p. 62)
