Antigone’s Claim: Hölderlin’s (and Hegel’s) Insights into a Legal and Genealogical Conundrum of the Tragedy

Abstract

This approach to Hölderlin’s translation of Sophocles’ famous play modulates in significant ways the usual readings in which Antigone has become, over the centuries, an example of an early claim for natural law. Hölderlin’s insights inaugurate a new and innovative view that significantly affects this understanding. His version points to the authentically Greek legal aspect of Antigone’s position as an epicler daughter, claiming her dynastic prerogative to take over the palace and her father’s legacy. Hölderlin’s clues guide us to a reading that restores the tragic dilemma beyond the black-and-white Christian polarization of saintly Antigone and evil Creon and enhances both the heroine’s and Creon’s ambiguities in this rich and ironic text.

1. Hölderlin’s Approach to Antigone and His Critics’ Reservations

Hölderlin’s extraordinary (and extraordinarily difficult) understanding of Sophocles’ Antigone and Vth-century Greece will be presented here with the help of three of Hölderlin’s cryptic hints given in the middle section of his “Anmerkungen zur Antigonae” (Observations Concerning Antigone; Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, pp. 412–17). This new reading of Sophocles’ play and the new critical understanding of Hölderlin’s version owe much to Michael Franz, who helped me over a long period of time to consolidate an approach which highlights the poet’s profound understanding of ancient Greek culture and tragedy. I would like to dedicate this synthesis of our conversations to his memory. Gradually, Michael’s guidance enabled me to demonstrate my reading more clearly and to articulate my arguments in detail. They rest, stated briefly, on the following assumptions: Hölderlin was an excellent reader and literary critic of ancient Greek poetry; his critical approach exposed in the middle section of his “Observations on Antigone” has not been sufficiently explored by literary critics in view of a new interpretation; and this neglect of his view of the overall plot has led to misunderstandings of many of his surprising alterations of the Greek text. Although Hölderlin’s interventions may change the literality of a given line, they very much fit into the structure of a thrilling tragic plot that reveals itself to be much more mythic, ancient, and Greek than has been previously recognized.

Hölderlin’s deep affinities with ancient Greek and his gift to get into the minds and moods of Sophocles’ tragedies have often been recognized. It is not only Germanists and Hölderlin scholars who have praised this sensibility but also philosophers, philologists, and historians of ancient Greece from Karl Kerenyi (1959) to Norbert von Hellingrath (Hellingrath 1910, p. 79), Wolfgang Schadewaldt (1960, p. 274)1, and Loraux (1997, p. IX):

“J’ajouterai ma voix à celles—ô combine prestigieuses—de Hölderlin, le plus grand, de Heidegger, de Lacan, de Rossana Rossanda, car, sur ce texte inépuisable, il nous reste encore à apprendre et à découvrir”. (My voice will join the voices—oh so prestigious—of Hölderlin, the greatest, of Heidegger, Lacan, Rossana Rossanda, because in this unfathomable text, there is still much to be learned and to discover)

(Loraux 1997, p. IX)

But on the whole, this praise of Hölderlin as a translator of Antigone and Oedipus remains highly ambivalent, not to say contradictory, when his admirers, instead of following the critical clues in the middle section of his “Observations”, approach him mostly with their own contemporary and philosophical–speculative intentions. Commentators rarely try to discover how Hölderlin might have read and understood the tragic plot and end up criticizing the poet. Schadewaldt (1960, p. 274), for example, writes the following:

[Ein] “einfaches Gefühl, das sich von dem Bild des Sophokles durchdrungen weiss, mag sagen, es sei selbst bei Hölderlin zu viel gedacht und denkerisch gefordert” (The simple feeling which is imbued with the image and aura of Sophocles, might say that even Hölderlin reflected too deeply and has been too demanding on the level of philosophical reflection).

Binder (1992, p. 160) criticizes the poet for spiritualizing Antigone and giving her an internalized consciousness, “die mit Sophokles verhältnismässig wenig zu tun hat” (which has relatively little to do with Sophocles). And the French translator Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe says of Hölderlin’s version, referring to verses H 467 f. (450 f.), “La transformation du texte est ici radicale et engage tout le sens de la tragédie.” (The transformation of the original text is radical here and changes the whole meaning of the tragedy) (Lacoue-Labarthe’s commentary in Hölderlin 1998, p. 190).

Hölderlin does indeed change the meaning of the plot, but not in the way his critics think when they try to make sense of his translation on philosophical grounds. I propose to show that he is not misled by a “certain systemic constraint” that “brings to light the utmost, but does not actually capture the individuality of the original play” (Binder 1992, p. 159). Very much to the contrary, the new plot he fathoms dips deeply into the Greek myth and has perfect affinities with the mindset of Vth-century Athenians.

Hölderlin reads differently and shows remarkable sensibility for ancient Greek ironic allusions, which he picks up in certain highly suggestive correspondences and semantic echoes within the text, then highlights with a few strategic alterations, which will be commented on in the following section.

Within the reduced space of this paper, I would like to begin with three hints that Hölderlin gives us in his “Observations”. They show that he was not only a reverent admirer of Greek poets but that he had a better grasp of tragic ambivalence than most of us and overcame Manichean Christian understandings. His seemingly strange alterations guide the reader’s attention towards the multilayered meaning of the plot, whose ambiguity dissolves the protagonists in mirror images. The German poet recommends that we approach the meaning not by focusing only on Antigone but by paying attention to Antigone’s identification with two mythic figures. The first is her ancestor Niobe, with whom Antigone identifies herself as a potentially fertile but now desert land. The second is Danae, with whose fate the Chorus associates her, saying of Danae that she “counted on behalf of the Father of Time/The strokes of the hours”.

Sie zählte dem Vater der Zeit

Die Stundenschläge, die goldenen.

(H 987 s.) (AA, FA, 415 lines 14–15)

She counted on behalf of the Father of Time

The strokes of the hours, the golden ones.

After drawing attention to the fact that Antigone, like Danae, may still be saved and may produce an heir, Hölderlin also asks us to take note of the elder’s “cold neutrality”, which fits so perfectly with the tragic destiny that it appears, paradoxically, as warmth. In other words, the German poet perceives the elders’ neutrality as a result of tragic ambivalence—as the irony of a very tricky situation that makes it impossible to decide who of the two protagonists is right or wrong. Their sympathies are, so to speak, divided equally and thus seem to be neutralized into cold neutrality:

In sofern passet der sonderbare Chor, von dem hier eben die Rede ist, aufs geschikteste zum Ganzen, und seine kalte Unpartheilichkeit ist Wärme, eben weil sie so eigentümlich schiklich ist.

(AA, FA, 417 lines 5–8)

In this sense, the strange [hymn of the] Chorus which has just been mentioned, fits into the whole perfectly, and its cold impartiality is warmth, precisely because it is so peculiarly fitting.

Finally, he points out that both protagonists “equal each other’s weight in perfect equilibrium” (sind gleich gegeneinander abgewogen).2

Diss ist der Geist der beiden unpartheiisch gegen einander gestellten Gegensätze im Chore. […] gleich gegen einander abgewogen und nur der Zeit nach verschieden […]

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, AA, FA p. 416 s. lines 20 s., and 2 s.)

This is the spirit of the two contrasting terms [Antigone and Creon] which are impartially pitted one against the other in this Chorus (hymn). [… They] equal each other’s weight in perfect equilibrium and differ only as to time […]

For my argument here, I will concentrate on the “cold impartiality” or neutrality, which becomes warmth and fits so perfectly into the whole of the infinitely ambiguous play and the conundrum the two heroes, Antigone and Creon, are facing. This remark may mean that their respective purposes have equal weight; that both heroes, however different and divergent they are, can be considered equally sincere; and that both strive for a legitimate purpose.

If this is the case, Hölderlin considers both protagonists as neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil, thus following Aristotle’s understanding of the tragic hero not as a moral character (ethos) but as “men and women in action”, as Aristotle so explicitly identifies (Aristotle 1995, Poet., chapter 6, 50 a 15–22) as part of a society of praise and shame that is different from the Christian idea of guilt and redemption (Hegel 1970, vol. 15, p. 545).3 The heroes’ errors are difficult or impossible to define within the more fixed moral framework of Christianity and do not fit into the conventional understanding, which is the result of very anti-tragical readings of the play. The fact is that the general enthusiasm of Antigone’s admirers always puts her in the light of a pious victim and a martyr, while Creon appears as a despicable tyrant. Rarely has the tragic dilemma in this play been explicated without seeing black-and-white characters.

Let us follow the advice not to focus on Antigone’s piety but to approach the play paying attention to Antigone’s connections with Niobe and Danae. The heroine sees herself, with “sublime irony and spite” (der erhabene Spott; Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, AA, FA 414 line 11), as the very image of her Theban ancestor famous for her abundance of children (but who was finally condemned to wither):

Ich habe gehört, der Wüste gleich sei worden etc.

I heard that [Niobe] has been made to be like a desert, etc.

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, AA, FA 414, line 10)

The Chorus, however, inverts this sad image in the hymn that follows and alludes to Danae, who was condemned to die exposed (like Antigone) but was saved by Zeus, and their divine marriage produced a successor to her ancestor’s throne. Hölderlin’s alteration of the wording indicates that she would thus keep the divine order of time in order (She counted on behalf of the Father of Time/The strokes of the hours)!

It seems that Hölderlin draws our attention to the hope hovering in the elders’ minds. If we bear this in mind, we will come to understand the play better or at least come to a more Greek, ambiguous, and paradoxical reading of it. And indeed, the “Observations”, along with the few remarks I provided above, provide us with clues that unveil a remarkably thrilling tragic play. These clues show what is really at stake when Oedipus’ daughter is called the ultimate “root” of the Labdacides (Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, H 600); he underscores the fact that she is an exceptional Theban princess and has prerogatives her uncle tries to obscure, thanks to the advantage of his position as the triumphant general who just saved the city from destruction. The Chorus impartially reminds Creon of her special–heroic status by comparing her, twice, to her father, the savior of Thebes.4

2. A Better Look at the Details That Make Antigone Special or “Unique” and Create Her Tragic Hybris as an Heiress or Epicler Daughter

In order to see and understand these details, we have to look for a plot much more complex than the conventional moral Christian exemplum, a plot in which more things are at stake than Antigone’s exemplary piety. It would be the story of a proud princess in a rare legal position (epiclerate) who is not ready to give in to the victorious general’s orders nor to his usurpation of the palace and the sacred hearth within it. She claims the right to sacrifice at the center of the palace as her own. This plot has nothing to do with excessive, modern, interiorized subjecthood. It is a very Greek plot that is plausible within the Theban myth and the legal context of Vth-century Athens.

But this requires us to rearrange our view of the tragic conflict, and this change in outlook or perspective is surprisingly rare in scholarly studies of Sophocles and Hölderlin,5 even in books like Judith Butler’s Antigone’s Claim (Butler 2000), which discusses Hegel’s reading of Antigone extensively. Hegel’s and Hölderlin’s readings indeed contribute modern efforts to emancipate the heroine from the submission to patriarchal conventions and restrictive conceptions of kinship, although in ways quite different from Butler’s! They draw attention to the fact that Antigone’s clash with Creon does not only concern the pious burial rites. She claims a dominant position as an heiress who might, like Danae, produce a successor to the throne and play the role of a “Queen” in her forefathers’ palace. Her legitimate genealogical pride is the hybris that brings her, first, to repudiate her sister when Ismene refuses her allegiance; second, to bury Polyneikes, honoring him as a member of her august family; third, to repeat the burial (which is no longer a pious gesture); and fourth, to affront with pride the general who interrogates her. The second burial, during which she is caught, is unnecessary and meaningless as a pious gesture. The first burial had already given the dead his due. The way she celebrates the rite the second time, with much ostentation and publicity, resembles a deliberate public statement, which draws attention to herself as honoring the deceased and the family and implicitly claims her symbolic legacy. It expresses the very same pride that explains her anger in the prologue, where she is indignant that the decree was announced not only to Ismene and the rest of the Thebans but “even to her”. She stresses it, indignantly repeating the following:

So etwas, sagt man, hat der gute Kreon dir

Und mir, den mich auch mein’ ich, kund gethan!

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, H 33 s.)

Some such thing, they say, good Creon announced to you

And me—imagine, even to me!

If we try to follow Hölderlin’s clues, we start to ask questions. What entitles Antigone to vindicate a preeminent position when she sets herself apart as such an important person to whom Creon should not have dared to announce the decree? Is it hybris, or is there another reason that would justify her feeling that she should be raised above Creon and even above Ismene? Why should she be entitled to demand allegiance from Ismene? Hölderlin asked these questions too, and he answers them in his translation of the scene of her last appearance, when she summons the Chorus and tells the elders that they will have to justify her imminent death. Hölderlin changes the Greek words slightly and elevates Antigone (or, to be more precise, has her elevate herself) to the position of “Queen” rather than “offspring or descendant of royal ancestors”:

Seht übrig von den anderen allen

Die Königin, Thebes Herrn! welch eine

Gebühr ich leide von gebührigen Männern

Die ich gefangen in Gottesfurcht bin.

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, H 977–80)

Behold who remains after all others:

The Queen, my patrons of Thebes! [Behold] the

Credit I suffer from creditable men,

I, who am caught in pious awe of the gods.

(940–43)

Hölderlin sees Antigone as a queen and is able to grasp what makes Antigone “unique”, queenly, and dominant in the house of her ancestors. In the context of Vth-century Athens, she would not be a normal virgin and bride, but an epicler princess—a fact that was uncovered by the French legal expert Pierre Roussel in the 1930s (Roussel 1922, pp. 65–75) but never followed up by literary critics as to the implications for the plot. As an epicler, which means an heiress of the material estate and symbolic legacy of her father, Antigone would remain dominant in her father’s household, whereas Hemon would sink to an auxiliary position as a “mobile instrument” withdrawn from his father’s house and brought into the bride’s house for the unique purpose of producing an heir for Oedipus’ lineage.6 A marriage with an epicler bride requires an inverted marriage rite: Hemon would leave Creon’s house and renounce all hope for his own descendance. In that light, Creon’s tyrannical wrath reveals itself as springing from his fear that his son will have to accept the worst possible marriage (with an overly close, almost incestuous relative) and from the insecurity of a regent (Vian 1963, pp. 189–93) who aspires to gain the throne (abolishing the reputation and continuity of the Labdacides) but is conscious of his weak position in the genealogical order of the Theban rulers. Antigone (and Sophocles’ contemporaries), on the other hand, know that Antigone is in fact the “last root”, that on her rests the hope that she might give birth to a son who would inherit the throne. And this son would not be Hemon’s but Oedipus’ heir and successor, whereas Hemon and Creon would lose the continuity of their house.

This also sheds light on the meaning of Creon’s caution at the beginning of his throne speech. He calls the Chorus aside (away from the whole: H 172, ek pantôn dikha (I 167)), so to speak, in order to feel out the elders and to assure himself that they, despite their proverbial loyalty to the Labdacides, will support his government from now on. The cautiously compliant attitude of the Theban elders contains no explicit assurance, so it is understandable that Creon seeks to support his claims by emphatically pointing out the miasmas caused by Oedipus and his descendants.

Both the mythical structure and the historical context of the fifth century justify this complex plot, which provides Creon with better motives. Creon’s gruesome wrath against Polyneikes is inexplicable if we see him only in the light of his usual behavior: both the prophet Tiresias (vv. 992–94) and his own son (vv. 635–39) consider him a reasonable man of moderation and good judgment, but the fact that his son is obliged to marry Antigone in the epiclerate regime explains Creon’s bitterness perfectly. This special regime would deprive the husband—and Creon—of a descendance. In other words, Creon’s lineage would die out. And this creates for Sophocles’ plot a legal, moral, religious, and genealogical constellation that is a truly tragic conundrum, a dilemma that finally abolishes the Christian opposition to the good and evil character and the martyr drama that I referred to earlier as an anti-tragical plot, in total disagreement with Aristotle’s tragic emotions (Aristotle 1995, Poet. chapter 14, 53 b 1–54 a 15).

As soon as we start to see the genealogical or political implications arising from Hölderlin’s hints at the power structure of the play—the Queen against the general—we begin to note a maze of significant details that justify his translation’s intuitive alterations in the dialogue with Creon: Antigone’s use of the personal pronoun when she refers to the god of her house as “My Zeus” brings to light the semantic constellation implied by her position as an epicler, which has remained completely outside the horizon of current accepted interpretations.

Her claim as a rival to Creon’s vindication of the throne creates the truly tragic relations that exist between Antigone and Creon. Her pious gesture is only part of a larger purpose. The protagonists are not only uncle and niece but competitors for the succession to the throne, the palace, and the hearth. And this makes Hölderlin’s most commented alteration more understandable.

Antigone’s inserted personal pronoun: “My Zeus”

(H 467 s.)

Creon’s “my hearth”

(H 505–509)

Hölderlin’s alteration pinpoints the implicit ferocious rivalry vibrating in the dialogue between the royal princess and her uncle. It enhances the parallelism of their competing claims with a parallelism of the two protagonists’ use of the personal pronoun when referring to the main altar of the palace. Critics have so far overlooked the personal pronoun Creon uses in his answer and failed to comment and interpret what this echo might mean. Until now, commentators have unfortunately isolated Antigone’s “Mein Zeus” (‘My Zeus’) and overdramatized the impression of undue modernization (criticized by Binder (1992, p. 160)), which supposedly introduces a direct, personal relation with the god (reminding many commentators of Hölderlin’s pietistic background) or anticipates even more modern notions of inwardness, self-consciousness, and autonomy that are unthinkable for a tragic hero.

However, this personal pronoun appropriating Zeus as Antigone’s own god, together with her refusal to acknowledge the decree, are the natural consequences of her claim to her inheritance. Living as an epicler in her father’s palace, she is in fact entitled to sacrifice at the altar of Zeus at the center of her house. This is what Hölderlin underscores for the modern reader, who is less familiar with this ancient context and spirit. He provides two hints that differ from Sophocles’ literal text. The first is the insertion of the personal pronoun:

Drum. M e i n Zeus berichtet mirs nicht;

Noch hier im Haus das Recht der Todesgötter,

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, H 467 s.; I 451)

I tell you why, My Zeus told it not to me;

“Nor here, in this house, [has] the Justice of the nether gods [proclaimed the decree to me], Hölderlin translates synoikos (co-dweller with the nether gods) and makes Dike become a co-dweller “here in the house”, i.e., my palace! This is what ignites Creon’s wrath when he responds, a little later, claiming the altar of Zeus as his own hearth, then immediately condemns Antigone and her sister to death, although he knows full well that Ismene did not participate in the burial.

Let us have a look at three different translations of Creon’s lines:

Mazon: “Qu’elle soit née de ma soeur, qu’elle soit encore plus proche de moi que tous ceux qui peuvent ici se récle=amer du Zeus de notre maison,”

(Although she stems from my sister, being closer to me than any other who may here claim proximity to the Zeus of our-my house and hearth, she shall not be spared, nor shall her sister.

(Sophocles 1997, 486 ff.)

Hölderlin: Doch wenn sie schon

Von meiner Schwester und Verwandtesten,

Vom ganzen Gotte meines Heerdes da ist,

Dem allem ungeachtet meidet sie

Den schlimmen Tod nicht. Auch die Baase nicht.

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, H 505–9)

Though she descends

from my sister and closest relative

[Belonging] To the very god of my house and hearth,

In spite of all this, she shall not escape–avoid

the direst death, nor shall her sister.7

Kitto (synthesized): But though she be my niece, or closer still

Than all our family, she shall not escape

The direst penalty, no, nor shall her sister.

(Sophocles 1998, vv. 486 ff.)

The parallel vindication of the house and hearth leads in this passage to the condemnation of both sisters, and this unjustified inclusion of Ismene in Creon’s wrath confirms that he is not concerned with Polineikos nor, indeed, with the burial. What really bothers him is Antigone’s claim that, as a royal princess, she is the last “root”: she represents and is the symbolic hearth and womb of the royal palace. This is why he also vindicates the hearth of Zeus Herkeios as “his” and is determined to eliminate both Labddakide princesses.

What outrages him is Antigone’s public declaration that she has her own Zeus Herkeios to protect her and that on those grounds she rejects Creon’s orders as not applying to her. What she is saying, between the lines, is that Creon’s Zeus has his altar in another household at another address! It is interesting to note here that in the colloquial language of ancient Greece, an Athenian citizen wishing to know where to find someone’s house or address would say something like, “Where can I find your Zeus Herkeios?” (Mikalson 2010, p. 135) because the altar at the center of the house was the center of belonging and the place where the head of a household performed his daily sacrifice. From this perspective, Hölderlin does indeed alter the Greek text, but the change is relatively small compared to Kitto’s condensed translation of vv. 486 ff. that I quoted above (Sophocles 1998). In the overall context of the play, Hölderlin’s alteration does not modernize the original, but very much to the contrary, it alludes to the ancient historical setting of the play. The heroine is the heiress of the sacred hearth of Zeus situated in the middle of the Theban palace; she is not just another virgin living in someone else’s house under the tutelage of her future husband and is even less so under that of her uncle. She is claiming the palace as her home.

Hölderlin’s clues and instructions bring home to a modern audience a vital piece of knowledge that the contemporaries of Sophocles all shared and we have lost: the context of ancient mythical belief and classical laws. Antigone’s attitude makes it clear that Creon’s lineage has a humbler function as counselors to the throne or temporary regents (Vian 1963, p. 189 ff.). After her father’s and brothers’ deaths, she is aware that she occupies a particularly crucial position as the symbolic heiress to the throne. Because Greek families were normally patrilineal, a family without male heirs would ordinarily die out. To avoid this, the epiclerate requires that her nearest cousin should marry her and that their children should be regarded not as the children of their father but as the heirs of her father.

If this is true, why should Creon refuse her the right she claims? He has two good reasons for wishing to eliminate the cursed Labdakides: he feels, perhaps rightly, that the two sisters, Antigone and Ismene, stand in the way of Thebes’s best interest.

Just one point in favor of Creon’s claim: he may truly believe what he said in his throne speech, namely that the successive miasmas caused by Laius, Oedipus, and his sons have shown the Labdakides to be unfit as rulers and that it is time to look for a new dynasty and to leave the troublemakers behind. That is what Hegel alluded to in his Phenomenology (Hegel 1979, vol. 3, p. 305 f.) when he said that both Antigone and Creon try to achieve equally sincere, legitimate purposes.

In either case, tragic irony allows for more. It could also be that Antigone simply stands in the way of Creon’s own best interest: to rule and to have a descendance! Tragic ambivalence allows for several hypotheses: a wealth of meaning hovers between the lines and behind the spoken words. This becomes utterly clear when we look at Creon’s cunning rhetoric.

3. Creon Disputes Antigone’s Claim with Cunning Rhetoric

After hearing Antigone affront him while bravely relying on the protection of “her” Zeus Herkeios, Creon reacts fiercely. A skillful formulation reduces Oedipus’ proud daughter to a lower status. First, he presents her as the offspring of Jocasta, the sister who died by her own hand, quite some time before Oedipus’ death. His oblique focus obliterates the real situation and Antigone’s status as epi-kleros: he implicitly denies that she has the right to “follow—inherit the estate” her father left her. Secondly, he presents himself as her generous protector in the Theban palace and a dignified patriarch justifiably outraged by her and her sister’s betrayal; both are accused of being vipers and traitors who abuse his generous asylum and sully his hearth and the gods of his house.8 They chose a bad path and now deserve a shameful death.

Doch wenn sie schon

Von meiner Schwester und Verwandtesten,

Vom ganzen Gotte meines Herdes da ist,

Dem allem ungeachtet meidet sie

Den schlimmen Tod nicht.”

(Hölderlin 1977, vol. 16, H 505–9)

Though she descends from my sister and closest relative

[Belonging to] the very god of my house and hearth,

In spite of all this, she will not avoid

The direst (or most shameful) death.

Hölderlin enhances the accusatory rhetoric of this fallacious enthymeme (i.e., with an argument in which one premise is not explicitly stated, although the speaker knows that Antigone is first and foremost Oedipus’ daughter and heiress and only secondly Jocasta’s child), mantling the manipulation of his rhetoric by enhancing the scandalous character of her behavior. “sie meidet den schlimmen Tod nicht” (Aristotle 1995, Rhet., 1401 b 4–6)9 is a statement that can be understood in two different ways. It can mean “she will not escape—i.e., be spared a shameful death” (because I, Creon, am condemning her to death), or in the active understanding it can mean “she [deliberately behaves in a way which] does nothing to avoid shameful death”. The latter meaning is more accusatory; it would mean that, in spite of receiving Creon’s kind asylum as the humble daughter of Creon’s suicidal sister, she does not refrain from actions leading to a shameful death. Antigone is presented as living, so to speak, on Creon’s favors and disrespecting her generous benefactor. The rhetoric presents her as an ungrateful rebel who betrays and sullies her uncle’s house and hearth, where she found asylum.

Creon carefully avoids presenting Antigone as Oedipus’ daughter and heir, making her into his own niece and his sister’s daughter, i.e., a dependent member of Creon’s household. Hölderlin renders Creon’s cunning rhetoric quite clearly. It emphasizes Antigone’s rebellious blasphemy and justifies her death by hinting at her treason against the sacred center of the palace as if there were no doubt that it is Creon’s own rightful hearth.10

Of course, this new reading poses the question of how we might imagine that Hölderlin imagined the emotional impact the two protagonists had on the ancient Greek public. If the Chorus’s respect and restraint (implicit in their “cold neutrality”) presupposes a certain archaic and almost oriental awe for patriarchal authority, what would they have felt for the rebellious Antigone? Let me try to answer by highlighting another facet of “cold neutrality”, understood as the prudent ambivalence of the elders: although they are dismayed with Antigone’s disobedience when she affronts the meritorious, victorious general to whom the city owes its survival, they intercede at strategic moments and try to soften the ruler’s wrath by explaining the girl’s ‘rawness’, relating it to the heroic ‘rawness’ of her father, Oedipus. This indicates that she is included in the reverence and veneration the Chorus has always shown the Labdakides, a fact of which Creon is well aware and which he mentions explicitly in his first speech to the Chorus. Therefore, even if the elders do not make a public display of their sympathy for the heroine, they clearly cherish her, and this appreciation may well be linked to their conviction that she is one of the last roots of her lineage and that she is an epicler bride who may still give birth to an heir.

This intercession by the Chorus offers a first and very suggestive indication of the feelings of the public; the more or less explicit sympathy it might have inspired was reenforced, later on, by Hemon’s admiration, which he expressed by praising his bride in clearly Homeric tones as a heroic descendant of a lineage of heroes. The style of this praise corresponds perfectly to the style of celebration of a hero wrapped in an aura of glory when he emerges victorious from battle and receives the songs and hymns of virgins. In other words, Hemon’s affections are as ambiguous as those of the Chorus. On the one hand, Hemon appears to be erotically in love with Antigone. On the other, his reverential esteem seems to include the firmest friendship with the entire family of the Labdakides, which indicates that he willingly submits to the duties that betrothal and marriage in the epiclerate regime require, renouncing the hope of having (his own?) offspring. And this last attitude is what most incites his father’s wrath when he tries to dissuade his son from marrying a girl on whom so much miasma weighs and who, moreover, would ruin the hope of prolonging the lineage of Creon and promoting that lineage to a monarchical role.

4. Excursus: Hölderlin’s and Hegel’s Approach to Antigone—A Brief Comparison11

Before concluding this paper, I would like to add an excursus of possible influences between Hölderlin’s and Hegel’s approaches to this tragedy. While it is difficult to determine whether Hölderlin’s affinities with ancient Greek poetry influenced his friend Hegel during their discussions or whether it might be the reverse that is reflected in the poet’s translations of Sophocles’ plays, a series of remarks in Hegel’s work corroborate the perspective of Antigone’s important, almost political status in the city-state. Their joint observations thus open a much more sober and tragic view of the genealogical (rather than emotional or romantic) implications of betrothal and marriage. This view still resonates in Hegel’s reflections a decade and a half after Hölderlin’s publication of Antigone and Oedipus (in 1804). In his Lectures on Natural Law and Political Science in 1818 and 1819, Hegel comments on the meaning of Antigone’s betrothal to Hemon (Vorlesungen über Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft, p. 95): “Antigone is destined for Creon’s son, but it is not the interest of love that determines the father for her, but the interest of the state” (Die Antigone ist dem Sohn des Kreon bestimmt, aber es ist nicht das Interesse der Liebe, was den Vater für sie bestimmt, sondern das Interesse des Staates) (Hegel 1983, p. 95). This commentary makes perfect sense as a reference to Antigone’s status as an “heiress” with the exceptional legal right for a daughter to inherit the symbolic and material legacy of her father (the Greek legal term is ἐπίκληρος) when there is no other male descendant, in order to prevent the lineage from dying out.

And in another later commentary added to Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, Hegel comes back again to the same context when he emphasizes that “Hemon loves Antigone, but that that love is very much removed to the background and does not lay claim to the right which is normally claimed by romantic love” (so z. B. liebt in der Antigone der Haemon […] die Antigone, aber diese Liebe ist sehr in den Hintergrund gestellt und spricht nicht das Recht an, was die romantische Liebe sonst anspricht (Hegel 2015, p. 108)).

Hölderlin’s and Hegel’s approaches do two very different things: The translator’s task is an implicit approach of poetical riddles that he has to convert into another language, struggling to preserve the same or a similar state of poetic ambiguity. This is totally different from Hegel’s speculative task of explaining the meaning of tragedy for world history (i.e., the history of reason and spirit) and its function within a given philosophical system that privileges the idea of the logical and historical development of reason. The poet’s task consists in an effort to come to grips with multiple layers of meaning of tragic ambiguity and the subtle semantic twists and cunning obliqueness of poetic figures that give the words and phrases several meanings and stir the latent associations away from the firm semantic definitions of the two good and bad characters

Hölderlin’s reverence for Greek rests on his sensibility for different forms of imagining the material and moral world: he finds poetic expressions for the Greek forms of thinking and feeling over and above Manichean Christian forms of understanding. Hegel’s approach synthesizes these subtle distinctions and deduces from them a speculative system that understands the difference between Greek and Hesperic as a progressive and ever more subtle development of reason. For a philosopher of the Phenomenology of Spirit, the horizon of reason was still too narrow in ancient Greece for possible conciliation. It became possible within the Christian mindset and was further developed by civil society in constitutional monarchies; in fact, Hegel’s dialectics have a moral undertone, which claims that the historical process will, over the centuries, permit the cunning of reason to pacify tribal family interest and the interest of the society represented by the state. This is an outlook completely different from the task of the translator, which immersed Hölderlin in the imaginary universe of his heroes. His love and deep comprehension of Greek poetry led him to work out the translations of many of the poetic details of the tragic conflict, picking up all of Sophocles’ ironies, which must lead to the tragic outcome; he tried to make us, moderns, better understand all the mental details that distinguish the sensibility of ancient Athenians. In one sentence, Hölderlin introduces us into the ancient world, while Hegel sees it from above and compares it to other possible worlds.

Hölderlin’s translation concentrates on the poetic logic of Greek tragedy and enhances the ambiguities that give the play a thrill of suspense (almost like a Hitchcock movie). Hegel may very well have picked up these suggestions, but while Hölderlin added just a few obscure fragmentary critical remarks at the end of each translation, Hegel surveyed the global literature as a whole and deduced from the development of poetic forms a theoretical system that set apart the different mindsets distinguishing ancient Greek and Christian societies.

His extensive discussions with Hölderlin without a doubt helped Hegel to understand and interpret the different mindset of ancient Greece. Without going into all the details of one play (which is the translator’s task) he compared the work of art that he considered representative of one era to chosen works from other historical societies (seen as stages in the development of spirit and reason). By working out the differences between Greek and Christian cultures, he enhanced the contrast between the heroic attitude, with its cold and rigid feelings, and the subjective Christian feelings of interiorized (disinterested and platonic) love, which sustain the inner recognition of subjective guilt and redemption. In fact, long before modern anthropology, Hegel’s remarks already provided a theory of the difference between what are today seen as shame societies and guilt societies (Dodds 1959; Détienne 1979; Hegel 1970, vol. 15, pp. 41–45, 545).12 Self-consciousness and self-esteem in shame societies rest mainly on objective recognition of the honor or glory of a member, which has to be actively recognized by his companions and community. Practices of shaming and praising establish the hierarchy of the values a person’s achievements contribute to the family or community, whereas Christian practices of introspection create an inside space for subjective consciousness and self-esteem, which determine the value of subjective intentions, even if the person failed to achieve what he or she intended. And this new inwardness is of immense importance for further development of the spirit.

Hegel makes his readers aware of the different psychology, which sets the beauty of romantic or modern feelings apart from the ideal of grandeur of Greek heroes in their tragic impasses. The modern (romantic and Christian) feelings converge on “the interiorized, higher ideals full of soul” (seelenvolle, innere, höhere Ideale), which take the place of “the silent grandeur and autonomy of Antiquity” (das an die Stelle der stillen Grösse und Selbständigkeit der Antike tritt). Referring to the tragic heroes Niobe and Laokoon, Hegel claims the following:

They incarnate the “Classical ideal, which, though it does not lack a touch of grief, of that touch of negativity of fate, which gives those cheerful figures the appearance or glow of cold necessity, but they remain firm in their autonomous divinity and freedom and assured of their thorough grandeur and power. Such freedom, however, is not the freedom of love, which is more soulful and intimate, since it lies in a behavior from soul to soul, from spirit to spirit […] a [romantic] love that does not merely feel comforted or indifferent in suffering and supreme loss, but the more deeply it suffers, the more deeply it finds the feeling and certainty of love in it.”

(Den Göttern des klassischen Ideals fehlt es zwar gleichfalls nicht an einem Zug von Trauer, an dem schicksalsvollen Negativen, welches das Scheinen der kalten Notwendigkeit an diesen heiteren Gestalten ist, die jedoch in selbständiger Göttlichkeit und Freiheit ihrer einfachen Grösse und Macht gewiss bleiben. Solch eine Freiheit aber ist nicht die Freiheit der Liebe, die seelenvoller und inniger ist, da sie in einem Verhalten von Seele zu Seele, von Geist zu Geist liegt […] einer [romantischen] Liebe, die im Leiden und höchsten Verlust sich nicht etwa nur getröstet oder gleichgültig fühlt, sondern je tiefer sie leitt, desto tiefer auch darin das Gefühl und die Gewissheit der Liebe findet.) (Hegel 1970, vol. 15, p. 42)

And Hegel goes on to criticize the heroic ideal and classical grandeur, which confines the hero to “cold resignation in which the individual, without collapsing, necessarily abandons what he or she has pursued. […] but the loftiness of individuality is nothing more than a still retreta and standing upright within oneself, an unsatisfied endurance of fate.” (eine kalte Resignation, in welcher das Individuum, ohne zusammenzubrechen, das aufgibt, woran es festgehalten hatte […] ein starres Beisichsein, ein erfüllungsloses Ertragen des Schicksals). (Hegel 1970, vol. 15, p. 43)

It is probably safe to say that Hölderlin’s poetic sensibility, his precocious theoretical philosophical insights, and his awareness of the differences between Greek and Hesperic must have been powerful stimulants for Hegel’s patiently maturing labor, which allowed his elaboration of the chapters on Greek tragedy and the Christian epic. What distinguishes them are the completely different outlooks and tasks of a poet translator and a philosopher who patiently builds an enormous system contemplating the role of art within world history.