The Antigone Myth and the French Revolution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/pkn.v45.i1.09Keywords:
literary myths, Antigone, Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus, literary reception, French Revolution, Steiner, George, Ducis, Jean-François, Ballanche, Pierre-SimonAbstract
The reception of the Antigone myth in the time of the French Revolution is relevant for the treatment of that myth in Slovenian literary criticism for two reasons: First, in his noted study Antigones, which is considered a foundational work on the modern reception of Antigone, George Steiner characterized the French Revolution as the key impulse behind the modern renaissance of interest in the myth. Second, it is in the time of the French Revolution that a connection forms between the themes of Antigone and the issues of revolutionary conflict and violence – a connection that was, in its way, central to the post-war reception of Sophocles’ Antigone in Slovenian literature, literary criticism, philology, philosophy and political discourse. The article critiques Steiner’s theses about the influence of the French Revolution on the modern popularization of Antigone, and shows that the myth was to a greater degree connected with counterrevolutionary and royalist orientations at the time. In this connection, the paper also sheds light on some significant historical parallels between the French and the Slovenian reception of the Antigone myth.
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