Antigone: freedom and oppression (for the 50 years of April)

Tyranny, among many other privileges, enjoys that of doing and saying what it pleases. Sophocles, Antigone, vv. 506-507.

I wasn’t born to hate, but to love. Sophocles, Antigone, v. 524.

Antigone’s intrepid decision to undertake the task of burying her brother Polynices alone, thus breaking the edict that forbade funeral honours for this son of Oedipus, triggers an insoluble conflict with her uncle Creon, the new lord of the city of Thebes. Different and irreconcilable criteria of justice are at the origin of this conflict, which reaches its paroxysm in a long and tense agon (vv. 446-525), at the height of which the young daughter of Oedipus passionately asserts that “the [tyranny] between many other privileges, enjoys to do and say what it pleases” (vv. 506-507). To Creon’s particular written law, Antigone opposes, in defence of her fearless attitude, the unwritten natural law, which has always existed and that no one knows when it appeared. Even though it was prohibited by decree to pay funeral honours to Polyneices, it was fair to do so, because in the opinion of the fearless young woman – born to love and not to hate – this was a natural right. With this irreconcilable defiant action, which incessantly questions Creon’s coercive powers, Antigone becomes a paradigm of contestation to any and all exercise of absolute power and an example of a woman aware of her role in society, two mythemes that will be largely glossed over by western literature. Endowed with an inextinguishable capacity for reconfiguration, this myth was significantly chosen by the research group “Mythographies: themes and variations” to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “carnation revolution” (April 25, 1974), which marked the end of a long period of oppression in Portugal and the consequent conquest of freedom. This event aims at keeping up with, reinforcing and enhancing research in multidisciplinary areas (literature, culture, linguistics and translation), and at interacting with other scientific, literary, artistic and cultural domains.

Thematic areas

We welcome proposals in the following thematic areas:

• The myth of Antigone and its reception;
• The figure of the dictator;
• The role of women in liberation struggles;
• The issue of justice;
• Arrogance and Rebellion;
• Mechanisms of repression and ideological control (censorship, political police…);
• The role of the press, literature and the arts in the fight against the dictatorship;
• Fratricidal wars;
• Memories of the colonial war in literature;
• The liberation movements.