Literature and history dot come. Oh, Hello and welcome to literature and history.

Episode 32, Trees Bending to the Torrent.

In this episode we're going to hear the story of Antigony, the third of Sophocles' three

The Bheben plays, probably produced during the spring of 441,

in the city of Athens.

If you're just jumping in and you want to hear the backstory,

you can hear the first two Oedipus plays in episodes 30 and 31.

You should, however, be able to enjoy Antigony even without knowing the other two plays,

and I'll give you some background up front so you'll know exactly

what's going on from the very first scene onward.

Antigony.

Oh, Antigony. Antigony is one of the great plays from ancient Greece that's

still common in undergraduate and high school classrooms. Antigony's central motif of one strong-willed person who will not back down or compromise her beliefs

has resonated with hundreds of generations for many different reasons across the past 2.5,000 years.

But even in 441, B.C.E. the story of Sophocles' antigony was not an original one.

Many of the movies that we watch these days are sequels.

They're sequels or remakes or prequels or origin stories. They take

characters and situations and archetypes that we know and reinvent them. and

reinvent them.

New James Bonds, new Star Treks, and endless churn of superhero movies,

summer after summer, popcorn bucket after popcorn

bucket. People gripe about this. What's wrong with us? We sometimes wonder what's wrong

...