This is an exceptional set of meditations on Sophocles' Antigone and on its reception over the last two and a half millennia. The first part is about the handling of Antigone by the German Romantics, in particular Hegel and Hölderlin; the second on re-presentations by other authors; the third deals subtly and brilliantly with close readings of particular passages, trying to address as well the general problem of how we read and receive the classics given our loss of context, and how translation works, and fails to work, in such cases.

Well worth reading by anyone with an interest in the classics and how they continue to inform modern discourse. ( )