Antigone and the Space of Nomos Thinking about architecture as the discipline that designs the relationships between humans and between humans and space, Antigone can be taken as the example of a peculiar way of contemplating the architectural space. Consequently, since the relationship between people and space and between event and space is governed by some rules, which can be written (politics) or unwritten (ethics), in Antigone, the image of space corresponds to the image of these rules or the right. The tragedy, thus, is determined by the conflict between the two systems, which is visualised throughout the displacement of certain events.
Context It should be reminded that the tragedy of Sophocles belongs to the tradition of the ancient Greek narrative, which itself develops a particular notion of space. The relationship between the invisible and visible, divine and terrain, natural and human in the world of the antiques is profound and there is no real boundary between the two spheres. Natural phenomena are manifestations of divine forces. The distinction is not between real and unreal but between visible and invisible. The invocation of the sun and the gods, made by the Chorus before introducing Creon, who is described as the new king of the land (Sophocles 1998, 19), on the one hand, appears as a link between the two worlds, that of gods and that of human, on the other hand, it underlines a difference. The link is given by the proximity of the two subjects inside the text while the distance by the insistence of the term ‘land’. The connection to the natural world is also emphasised in the description of the burying, which lasts until the bright circle of the sun took its place in the sky (Sophocles 1998, 41), and that allows the chorus to imagine that the action has been prompted by the gods (Sophocles 1998). Antigone, who belongs to the natural sphere, is, finally, compared to a bird when she sees her empty nest robbed of her young (Sophocles 1998) by the chorus, and to a viper hiding in the house (Sophocles 1998) by Creon. In addition to the distinction between natural and human, there is the division between known and unknown. The knowledge, according to the etymological meaning, passes throughout the act of seeing, in fact, the two word ‘see’ (eidon – I saw) and ‘know’ (oida – I have seen, then I know) come from the same root. In the light of this assumption, the outside, which is the unknown, is the space of the enemy, while the inside, is the space of the civilised world, and then of the nomos. The nomos, which is the law of the polis, should be in harmony with the law of the gods. There are other grades of distinction between inside and outside, which are often ambiguous and include the boundary between private and public, female and male, oikos and polis. The tragedy overturns these conventions. The text is written to be performed in a theatre, however, in view of the architecture of the ancient Greek theatre, which does not demand a real scenography, the environment of the play is realised in the dialogs of the actors and the chorus. The
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construction of the space, thus, is suggested by the text and happens into the mind of the audience, not on the stage. Rather than imagination, however, what is required to visualise the places narrated, is familiarity. The audience, in fact, who does not read the text but listens and looks at the performance, already knows places and characters, so these can only be mentioned. In the same way, the audience knows the conventional idea of space, according to which certain places admit some values. Women’s space, for example, is the private, indoor space of the oikos. As the audience sees a woman acting outside, it appears evident that something extraordinary is happening.
Displacement as symbol of the tragedy On the basis of these premises, it comes out the original vision of space painted by Sophocles, which is established on the opposition between spheres and on the misfortune of displacement. Firstly, Antigone, as a woman, should stay in the private space of the oikos, while she acts in the space of the polis, performing an authentic revolution. She goes even further, in fact, even if she is not an enemy, her being appears out of the city. The displacement occurs between several spheres, such as civil and desert, above and below and inside and outside. Antigone acts in two kinds of desert: the vacant space where Polynices’s body lies and the cave where she is enclosed by Creon. Her action is not seen directly by the audience; it is rather described throughout the words of other characters. The central feature of the desert is the absence of people and, ergo, the absence of architecture. Antigone is brought on a path which no man treads (Sophocles 1998, 77), in a cavern where she will lamented by no friend (Sophocles 1998, 85). In the ordinance of Creon, can be found the connotation of below and above, as spaces related to particular conditions. Eteocles, according to Creon, deserves the noblest of the dead below, while for Polynices, they shall leave his body unburied for birds and dogs to devour and savage. (Sophocles 1998, 21-23). Throughout the tragedy, he imposes to keep Polynices, who belongs to the world below, above, and Antigone, who belongs to the world above, below. This decision, which goes against the natural and spatial order, will provoke the final catastrophe. As Antigone and Ismene enter the scene from the central door, they briefly remind to the audience their tragic condition linked to Oedipus and, before communicating the shameful and painful news, Antigone gives a spatial information. She states that she brought her sister there, out of the gates of the courtyard, because she wishes they were alone (Sophocles 1998, 5). The condition of moving out of the palace already defines her character as an outsider and anticipates the danger of what she is going to say. Ismene does not want to follow her sister, who claims to follow the unwritten law ‘based on the bonds of genos, tribe, blood, kinship…(Stoppani, 2013, p.121). She does not want to act against the will of the people of the city. The law of the city, in fact, imposes that they, as women, do not take part in public life, or politics. Circularly, the tragedy ends with the suicide of Eurydice, Creon’s wife, who
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appears coming from the house (Sophocles 1998, 117). The messenger, thus, hopes that she will order her servants to mourn a private sorrow in the house, indoors, to avoid other disasters. As they see that she is no longer hidden indoors (Sophocles 1998, 121), it is evident that the tragedy is going on.
References Purves, Alex C. Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Patterson, Cynthia. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Sophocles. Sophocles. Repr. with corrections. Edited by G. P. Gold. Translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998. Stoppani, Teresa. "Antigone's dissident dusting." In Architecture and the paradox of dissidence, edited by Ines Weizman. 2013.
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