The sheer tensile strength of a woman's will in Greek tragedy is unparalleled in any other literature. Of 33 extant plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, ten bear the names of women. Among the 39 Shakespearean titles, only three acknowledge women—Juliet, Cleopatra and Cressida—and all three share top billing with men. Sophocles' Antigone is a test of wills between a man and a woman, a king and his subject.
Antigone wants only to perform the ritual of burying her dead brother Polynices. But he has died fighting against Thebes, and the city-state's tyrant,...
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