Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2025 season is here. The 2024 archive is here. This episode, of which the first 10 minutes is free, concerns Sophocles’s Theban plays. I discuss Sophocles’s biography and his place among the tragedians in 5th-century Athens; I consider Antigone as clash of values and ambivalent portrayal of perversity and extremism, with reference to Hegel; I read Oedipus the King as a counter-enlightenment statement vindicating the primacy of fate over knowledge, with reference to Freud; and I interpret Oedipus at Colonus as a mystery rite in defense of mystery, and a pre- and proto-Christian portrayal of the scapegoat-become-god, with reference to Girard. Above all, I consider Sophocles’s potential nihilism, redeemed only by the promise of joining divinity in death. Please like, share, and comment! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall:
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