Examining Antigone

Ruthann Robson, City University of New York, CUNY School of Law, has published "Democracy and Antigone," in volume 39 of the Stetson Law Review (2010). Here is the abstract.

This essay explores democracy, sexuality, gender and legal practices using the frameworks of law and literature. Law and Literature as an enterprise is commonly said to have two distinct strands. One strand focuses upon an artistic product and elaborates the legal themes within it. The other strand focuses upon a legal product, such as a notable United States Supreme Court opinion, and examines its artistry, including its rhetorical or cinematic qualities. This essay explores both strands as well as the territory where the two strands meet.

This essay’s artistic focus is the mythical and literary figure of Antigone. In addition to the standard Sophocles’ version, this essay explores Antigone in the works of French playwright Jean Anouilh, Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan, and South African playwright Athol Fugard.

This essay’s legal focus is several cases interpreting the meaning of mythical and Greek words. A court in Athens Greece decided a claim about the permissible usage of the term "lesbian," the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the term “Olympics, ” and trademark litigation has considered the term “dyke.”

The confluence of these two strands of literature and law involve further explorations of Sappho as a poet and historical figure, of Derrida’s work on democracy and brotherhood, and of the meaning of “sisterhood” in feminist and legal texts.

Download the Article from SSRN at the link.

Antigone and the Politics of Lamentation

Bonnie Honig, American Bar Foundation, has published "Antigone's Laments, Creon's Grief: Mourning, Membership and the Politics of Exception," as American Bar Foundation Research Paper 08-02. Here is the abstract.

This paper develops a historically situated reading of Sophocles' Antigone as an exploration of the politics of lamentation and the larger ideological conflicts these stand for. The play is supposedly about Antigone's defiance of her uncle Creon's sovereign decree that her brother Polynices, who attacked the city with a foreign army and died in battle, be left unburied as a lesson to all regarding the consequences of treason. But, I argue, the play is not about Polynices and his treason. These are merely occasions for something else: The play explores the clash in 5th century Athens between Homeric/elite and democratic mourning practices. The former memorialize the unique individuality of the dead, focus on the family's loss and bereavement and call for vengeance. The latter, the democratic, memorialize the dead's contribution to the immortal polis and emphasize (as in the Funeral Oration) the replace-ability of those lost by other, future citizens yet to come. Both economies of mourning are limited, necessary and insufficient to the bereavement we feel in the face of death. By staging their critical agonistic engagement, the play calls attention to each one's limits, but also mounts a criticism of democratic Athens' (represented by Creon) intolerance of the Homeric view.

Download the paper from SSRN here.