Form and Structure - Antigone

Authors Avatar

Form and Structure

Scenes in an Ancient Greek play were mostly formed chronologically. In “Antigone” the play follows a chronological progression but has sections where people talk about incidents of the past. Ancient Greek Plays followed a format of an opening scene, the episodes and then a closing scene. “Antigone” is in the literary genre of a tragedy: the story shows human downfall as the result of arrogance and leaves the audience thinking about the main points after the show has finished. Theatrical devices, which form the play, diversify as the play progresses: simplistic devices such as monologues grow into stichomythic exchanges. The monologues are the lines of a character speaks from a speech whilst stichomythia is two people, at a quick pace, engaging in an intellectual battle using words as their weapons. Sophocles used stichomythia to show tension and conflict of opinion which occurs regularly in the play.

The Genre

Greek tragedies evolved from the primary form of stories about mythology. These were often stories of the gods, real people or a mixture of both and were passed down by word of mouth through the generations. Playwrights formed plays by mixing such myths with contemporary issues. In “Antigone” the contemporary issue is the Peloponnesian war which is mixed with Hubris and its effects on man.

After the story was selected by the playwright it was then structured to form a play. A play would commence with the prologue: the background and story of the play are revealed to the audience. Ismene and Antigone introduce the background of “Antigone”. Following the prologue is the parados which was a song performed by the chorus as they entered. In “Antigone” the chorus sing about the death of Polyneices and Etocles. An episode then takes place followed by a stasimon, alternation occurs this way until the end of the play. In the episodes the characters will talk with each other and the chorus, whilst the stasimon is the chorus’ chance to comment on the previous dialogue from the episode. The exodus is performed after the final stasimon and marks the end of the play. It is the opposite of the opening prologue as it reveals the outcome of the play. “Antigone” follows the conventional format of an Ancient Greek play precisely.

I think that “Antigone” was set out in the conventional way because although Sophocles wished to be innovative if he had changed the structure of the play the audiences would not have understood what was happening. The Ancient Athenians had become accustomed to the general layout of a play and had not developed a mind for different dramatic structures which today’s modern audiences possess.

Join now!

Conventions of Tragedy

  • The conventions of tragedy came mostly from a Greek critic and thinker called Aristotle. He created the manuscript “The Poetics” which discusses what should be included in a play in order for it to qualify as tragic.In an Ancient Greek play deaths and violence would occur off stage. Death in Ancient Greece was a very sensitive subject and Aristotle believed that death and violence would not bring any good emotions out of audience. Examples of this in the play are: Antigone’s, Haemon’s and Eurydice’s passing away.
  • Tiresias is another typical convention of tragedy which Sophocles ...

This is a preview of the whole essay