Compare Antigone and Pericles funeral oration or the Melian dialogue.
Mourning is common theme that connects Sophocles’ Antigone, and Thucydides’ report of Pericles funeral oration. Disagreement about “who is mourned,” “who gets to mourn them,” and “how should this mourning occur,” are significant issues in these two texts. In an essay, describe Antigone’s, Creon’s, and Pericles’ respective answers to these questions. What is the value, according to each of them, of following their prescribed path? Finally, which position do you agree with the most, and why?
One might read Sophocles’s Antigone alongside Thucydides’ report of the negotiations between the Melians and the Athenians as meditations on power. Although there are clear differences between them, we might roughly class the variety of positions explored in these texts along two axes: Where Antigone and the Melians invoke a “higher” power to defend themselves and their actions, Creon and the Athenians provide a more brute – but also far more immediate – form of power. In an essay, explain how Antigone/Melians and Creon/Athenians understand power respectively. How do they defend their use of this power? What are the consequences of following their respective paths? Finally, which conception of power (and its uses) do you find more persuasive, and why?
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