How Adaptations of Antigone Reflect Antigone's Themes

For my second research excursion, this time centered on Antigone, I was inspired to look into adaptations of the play throughout history. I remembered hearing about the parallel lovers’ deaths in Romeo and Juliet, and I found it fascinating that a piece of work so culturally significant could be reliant on another piece of literature. I hadn’t thought about the fact that “classics” are still influenced by the classics that came before it, and I decided to look into what works throughout history had been adapted or inspired by Antigone. 

However, as I conducted my research, I found it was hard to confirm the origins and inspiration behind older works, but stumbled upon many adaptations from the past few decades, so I decided to shift my research from the historical aspect of Antigone adaptations to the thematic comparisons of adaptations. As we noticed with Home Fire, even though an author is inspired by Antigone, the control over the story they’re telling allows them to emphasize or neglect certain themes. And because we’ve read the original Antigone, when researching adaptations I noticed which themes became the most important, or which themes got dropped. This developed a deeper understanding of the authors intentions with their work, and gave me additional context to the authors’ storytelling. 

I’ve mapped out the different settings of the various adaptations I researched, so enjoy poking around and learning about them!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bain, Chas. W. “Sophocles and Shakespeare.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 5, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1897, pp. 497–501, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27527958.

Williams, Tamara R. “Wounded Nation, Voided State: Sara Uribe’s Antígona González.” Romance Notes, vol. 57, no. 1, 2017, pp. 3–14. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.scu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2017309137&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Zirzotti, E. “Translating Tragedy: Seamus Heaney’s Sophoclean Plays”. Studi Irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 4, no. 4, June 2014, pp. 129-43, doi:10.13128/SIJIS-2239-3978-14673.

Gomez, A. (2016, September 24). A Border Story Inspired by 'Antigone'. Albuquerque Journal. Retrieved October 25, 2021, from https://www.abqjournal.com/852085/a-border-story-inspired-by-antigone.html.