Contextual Understanding (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

Antigone: Contextual Understanding

Context involves facts and details about the author’s life and the social, political, historical, and cultural realities of a given time and place. Considering how culture, identity, and lived experience influence an author’s choices allows us to better understand the choices they make and how they hope their audience might understand and engage with their text.

Authorial context

Understanding the lived experience of an author can give us insight into their motivations and choices.

• Sophocles was born into a wealthy family in a village outside of Athens in the year 496 BCE:

  • He received a good education

• He had experience working in government roles, as well as experience on the battlefield:

  • He had insight into the dynamics and challenges of both political and military systems

• He won the Great Dionysia festival of 468 BCE, marking the start of his career:

  • He wrote 123 dramas and is thought to have competed in approximately 30 festivals

• He was one of Classical Athens’ three great tragic playwrights:

  • He even initially acted in some of his plays

• He introduced the third actor to Greek drama, allowing for more complex character interactions and a greater number of characters

• He may have increased the chorus size from 12 to 15 members

• He also introduced stage painting, which enhanced visual storytelling

• He was celebrated for his ability to clearly distinguish characters through distinct rhetorical styles 

• His style often emphasises human limitations in wisdom:

  • A flaw or failure in thinking affects everyone and leads to ruin

Social and historical context

The social and historical context refers to the events, changes, norms, values and political conditions present at the time and place in which a text was written. Understanding the context of Athens during the period in which Sophocles wrote Antigone helps us better understand the authorial choices behind the play’s plot, themes, and characterisation, as these elements are shaped by the concerns and realities of the society in which the writer lived.  

• At the time Sophocles wrote this play, Athens was transitioning from aristocratic rule to democracy:

  • There was a tension between old systems of authority and new civic ideals

  • Greek religious and moral law was not really codified and functioned through custom, tradition, and shared cultural knowledge

• Citizens were increasingly engaged in debates about law, justice, and moral responsibility

• Women were largely excluded from public life:

  • Significant aspects of religious practice fell within a woman’s private domain

  • Women prepared offerings, maintained household shrines, performed daily rites, and were responsible for mourning rituals, funerals, and births

  • So Antigone burying her brother is not random rebellion but reflects traditional female religious duty and responsibility for funerary rites and family honour

• Women were not allowed to act in Greek theatre and rarely attended Greek theatre:

  • This makes the choice of Antigone as protagonist all the more interesting

• Divine law and ritual were central to Athenian society:

  • A play that reflects the tension between human law and divine law would resonate with its contemporary audience

Literary context

Literary context refers to the conventions, structures, and expectations of the genre in which a text is written. Sophocles wrote within the highly structured tradition of Greek tragedy, which was foundational to Athenian society and followed clear conventions. Understanding this literary context helps us recognise how Sophocles both follows and develops these conventions in Antigone.

• Sophocles wrote within the tradition of Greek tragedy, which means his plays incorporated:

  • The use of the Chorus to reveal social norms, comment on the action of the play, and model for the audience appropriate emotional and intellectual responses 

  • An understanding of tragedy as a moral and philosophical exploration, not just entertainment

  • An emphasis on fate, hubris, and the moral limitations of humans 

• Themes often explored in Greek tragedy include:

  • Conflicts between personal conscience and societal law

  • Exploration of justice, power, and the consequences of human flaws

  • Moral and psychological complexity, even for characters seen as heroes or villains

For more on the features and conventions of Greek tragedy, see the revision note on Authorial Choices and Textual Features.

Context of reception

Just as it is important to consider the context within which a text was written, it is also important to think about how audiences at the time may have responded to it. Audience reactions are shaped by the social values, cultural traditions, and political realities of their historical moment, meaning that different audiences may interpret the same text in different ways. 

• Plays were performed at religious festivals attended by large audiences

• Greek tragedy was both entertainment and civic and religious education

• Audiences were encouraged to consider the balance of civic duty, family loyalty, and divine law 

• The performance of Greek tragedy was believed to cleanse the audience’s emotions, providing catharsis, a healthy outlet for feelings like pity and fear

• Playwrights frequently used the stage to question traditional beliefs and societal norms, provoking critical thinking and intellectual debate:

  • Audiences were expected to engage with plays on both an intellectual and emotional level

• Antigone has been performed, adapted, and reinterpreted in a number of different contexts:

  • Jean Anouilh’s Antigone (1944) was performed in Nazi-occupied France, and was sufficiently ambiguous to pass censorship laws

  • Bertolt Brecht’s Antigone (1948) offered a critique of fascism and authoritarian power

  • Jean-Paul Sartre’s reading of Antigone was existentialist in nature, viewing the character of Antigone as a symbol of existential freedom

• Antigone has been used as a protest text:

  • Mandela performed it with fellow inmates in prison in South Africa

• Modern productions often explore themes of gender, power, and resistance

Sources

Sophocles (trans. P. Woodruff) (2001), Antigone, Hackett Publishing Company

Sophocles (trans. D. Franklin and J. Harrison) (2003), Antigone, Cambridge University Press

Sophocles (trans. R. Fagles) (1984), The Three Theban Plays, Penguin Classics, London

Sophocles (n.d.), “The plays”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sophocles/The-plays (opens in a new tab)