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(All parts in English)

I told you that I would speak today about Antigone. It is not we, by some decree, who make Antigone a turning point in our field. That point has long existed, even for those for whom it might be, if not invisible, at least unnoticed. Yet they know it exists somewhere in scholarly discourse.

For everyone, then—for everyone, let us say: through the intermediary of nearly everyone—this Antigone is indeed, in our domain, the domain of ethics, a turning point. Who does not know what she represents? Who, in every conflict that tears us apart in our relationship with a law presented as just in the name of the community, cannot evoke Antigone?

What should we think of what scholars have contributed to this topic? What should we think when we revisit this journey for ourselves—for those to whom we speak—only to feel, often, as if we were lost in so many aberrant detours?

For the opinions and thoughts that emerge, even under the pens of the greatest minds over the ages, during this critical example, are indeed strange. This has often been my impression recently, as I have tried, for your benefit, not to let slip what I believed to be crucial to articulate around this example—so much so that what I had to articulate came to remind me that this example was, after all, the best one. Neither deprive you nor myself of the support I could draw from this long historical journey around the question of Antigone. Antigone is The Tragedy.

For us analysts, tragedy is at the forefront of our experience, manifested as such through the references FREUD made, compelled by the necessity of the goods offered by the mystical content he found in Oedipus—but also, as you know, in other tragedies. And if he did not explicitly highlight Antigone more prominently, it is not to suggest that she cannot, here, at this turning point, at the foot of this crossroads to which I lead you, appear to us as what she already was for HEGEL—and, as you will see, very probably not in the same sense as for us. Namely, of SOPHOCLES’ tragedies, perhaps the one that should be brought most to the fore.

Tragedy is linked, more deeply, more fundamentally even than through its connection to the Oedipal complex, to the root of our experience. After all, let us not forget this essential word, this key word, this pivotal word: κάθαρσις (catharsis), which for you, in your ears, likely represents a term more or less closely tied to the concept of abreaction, with what it implies concerning the already addressed problems that FREUD, in his inaugural work with BREUER, articulated: namely, the discharge—the discharge in action, even motor discharge—of something that is not so simple to define, yet is undeniably there. And we cannot say that the issue is resolved for us—the issue of an emotion remaining suspended.

Does the notion of dissatisfaction suffice to fill the role of comprehensibility required here when it comes to, so to speak, an emotion or trauma leaving something in suspension for the subject, remaining in suspension until an accord is regained? Surely, reread these opening pages of BREUER and FREUD, and you will see, in light of what I have tried to delineate in our experience, how impossible it is at present to be content with this, to refrain from questioning the term “satisfaction” as accepted in the field, to refrain from questioning, to refrain from seeing, for example, the problem posed by the fact that action, as FREUD states, can be discharged in the words that articulate it.

Likewise, this κάθαρσις (catharsis), if it is particularly linked in this text to the problem of abreaction, when we invoke it—for it is already invoked here in the background, explicitly tied to ancient origins—is always centered on ARISTOTLE’s formula, on what he provided at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Poetics as the definition of tragedy.

He articulates it at length, and we will need to return to it. He articulates it by offering the definition and what is required in the hierarchy of genres for it to be defined as a tragedy. As I told you, the passage is lengthy; we will have to revisit it. It concerns the characteristics of tragedy, its composition, and what distinguishes it, for instance, from epic discourse. Here, I have only reproduced the conclusion—the final terms of this passage—where ARISTOTLE singularly provides its ultimate purpose, its τέλος (telos), in causal articulation. He formulates it thus:

«…δι᾽ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.»

“…achieving through pity and fear the catharsis of such passions.”

[Ch. Émile Ruelle translated: “Tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and complete, possessing a certain magnitude, presented in language rendered pleasurable and in such a way that each of its parts stands separately, unfolding through characters who act, and not through narration, and achieving through pity and terror the purgation of emotions of this kind.”]

These seemingly simple words have, over the ages, provoked and led to a torrent, a whole world of commentary, such that I cannot even contemplate recounting its history here. What I present to you in this regard, from my research, is always selective and specific. This κάθαρσις (catharsis), what is it? We usually translate it as something like “purgation.”

And for us—especially for us as physicians—this abreaction has always carried the semantic resonance the term has acquired for us since our school days, from the secondary school curriculum that we all, to varying degrees, have gone through. We carry with us the term “purgation,” with the somewhat Molièresque echoes it evokes. This Molièresque sense reflects the echo of a very ancient medical concept, the one that—using MOLIÈRE’s terms—involves the elimination of “peccant humors.”

This is not, however, far removed from what the term itself is meant to evoke. After all, to give you an immediate sense of it, I can refer to what our recent discussions have brought to light for you under the name of the Cathars. Who were the Cathars? As I mentioned in passing, they were “the pure.” Καθαρός (katharos) means “pure,” and the term, in its original resonance, does not primarily signify illumination or discharge, but purification.

In the ancient context, the term κάθαρσις (catharsis) is used, on the one hand, within a medical tradition, already present in HIPPOCRATES, with an explicitly medical sense tied more or less to eliminations, discharges, and a return to normalcy. On the other hand, in different contexts, it is connected with purification, particularly ritual purification. This introduces an ambiguity that we are not—of course, as you can imagine—the first to uncover.

To cite an example, I’ll mention that in the 16th century, a man named Denis LAMBIN, revisiting ARISTOTLE, emphasized the ritual function of tragedy. On that occasion, he foregrounded the ceremonial meaning of purification in this domain. This is not to say he is more or less correct than others. It is simply to indicate the space in which the question and problem arise.

Let us not forget, however, that this term κάθαρσις (catharsis), in the Poetics where we find it in this passage, remains singularly isolated. Not that it is not commented upon, developed, or discussed, but until a new papyrus is discovered, we know no more. For, as I suppose you know, the Poetics is incomplete. What we have amounts to approximately half, and in the half that survives, there is nothing more than this passage that speaks to us about κάθαρσις. We know there was more, because when ARISTOTLE refers to κάθαρσις in certain terms in Book VIII of the great classical edition of the Politics, he says:

“This κάθαρσις, which I have explained elsewhere in the Poetics.”

When you go to the Poetics, you find only this, so you are adequately informed, if you know the Poetics is incomplete, of the fact that there is clearly something missing. κάθαρσις is also mentioned in the Politics, in Book VIII of the DIDOT edition, where music is discussed, specifically concerning κάθαρσις in relation to music. And there, owing to the fate of things, we know much more—specifically about what κάθαρσις means for ARISTOTLE regarding music.

It is an appeasement he articulates very specifically, focusing on a certain kind of music, one he expects to produce not a particular ethical or practical effect—I am forced to be a bit brief here—but the effect of enthusiasm. It is around enthusiasm—that is, the most unsettling kind of music for this purpose—that the debate unfolds. After all, the music that frames his discussion of ancient wisdom—whether it is good or bad music—is, let us say, the equivalent of what we might call “hot” or “rock’n’roll” today. That is what it concerns—a music that tore at their guts, pulled them out of themselves, and for which the question was whether or not it should be banned. At the level of enthusiasms, after passing through the trial of exaltation and the Dionysian rapture of this music, they are calmer. That is what κάθαρσις means in the context where it is mentioned in Book VIII of the Politics.

In this regard, I would like to point out that not everyone enters these states of enthusiasm. Everyone is somewhat susceptible, but to varying degrees. There are others:

• There are the παθητικούς (pathētikous),
• As opposed to the ἐνθουσιαστικάς (enthousiastikas).

The former are susceptible to other passions, particularly those of fear and pity.

And to those as well, a certain kind of music—the music, one might think, that is involved in tragedy, where it plays its role—also brings a catharsis, a soothing. Κάθαρσις (catharsis) is the term used for this soothing in the Poetics, and Aristotle adds that it occurs through pleasure: soothing through pleasure, leaving us once again to question what this might mean—at what level, why, and what kind of pleasure is invoked in this instance.

I emphasize this point because our topology, concerning this return to pleasure within a crisis unfolding in another dimension, one that occasionally threatens it, is essential. We know to what extremes the music of enthusiasm can carry us. So, what is this pleasure? It is here that I tell you the topology we have defined for pleasure as the law of what unfolds below the apparatus to which this formidable center of aspiration—desire—calls us, may allow us to better align with Aristotle’s intuition than has been done so far.

In any case, before returning to articulate this aim, this point beyond the apparatus as the central point of this gravitation, I want to pause briefly for scholarly purposes, to gather what in modern literature has given body and substance to the use of the term κάθαρσις, as it is received by us, that is, with its medical connotation.

I mean within a field and domain that far exceeds the proper field of our colleagues. Specifically, the medical notion of Aristotelian catharsis is almost universally acknowledged, even within the domain of literary critics, theorists, and those addressing the problem within literary theory. If we seek to determine the stage at which this conception of κάθαρσις triumphed, we arrive at an original point. Beyond this point—as I hinted earlier—the discussion broadens considerably. That is to say, it is far from certain that the term κάθαρσις has only this medical connotation. The triumph and supremacy of this medical connotation have an origin worth noting here.

This is why I make this small scholarly detour. Its origin lies in Jacob BERNAYS, in 1857, in a work published in a journal in Breslau. I am quite unable to tell you why in Breslau, as I have not gathered enough biographical material about Jacob BERNAYS. If I trust what I asked someone yesterday to report to me—namely, JONES’s book—Jacob BERNAYS belonged to a family you may recognize as the one in which FREUD chose his wife. This family, a distinguished upper-middle-class Jewish family, had earned their titles of nobility in German culture over several centuries.

JONES refers to Michael BERNAYS as someone whose family long reproached him for a political apostasy, a conversion designed to secure his career. He was a professor in Munich.

As for Jacob BERNAYS, if I believe what my source found, he is mentioned only as someone who also had a distinguished career as a Latinist and Hellenist, which is indeed quite true. Nothing else is said of him, except that he did not pay the same price for his entry into university ranks.

Here is a reprint, from 1880 in Berlin, of two contributions to the Aristotelian theory of drama by Jacob BERNAYS. It is excellent. It is rare to derive such satisfaction from reading a scholarly work in general, and a German scholarly work in particular. It is of crystalline clarity, and it is certainly no coincidence that this date marks the near-universal adoption of what can be called the medical version of the concept of κάθαρσις.

It is regrettable that JONES, erudite as he was, did not think it necessary to emphasize the personality or the work of Jacob BERNAYS in a field where it seems very difficult to believe that FREUD—who was certainly not insensitive to the BERNAYS family’s renown—had not, at some point, encountered or heard of this work. Thus, FREUD’s use of the term κάθαρσις likely draws from these best sources.

Having noted this, we now return to the subject of our commentary on Antigone: the essence of tragedy.

We are told that tragedy achieves its goal—and it is difficult not to take into account a definition that comes barely a century, if even that, after the period that, for us, marks the birth of tragedy. Its goal is κάθαρσις (catharsis), the purgation of these παθήματα (pathémata), these passions of fear and pity.

How can we conceive of this formula? Here we approach the problem from our perspective, which is centered on what we have already attempted to articulate concerning the specific place of desire in the economy of Freud’s theory.

Will this allow us to take the necessary further step in this historical revelation?

From this formulation, which we cannot say is entirely accessible to us… whether due to the loss of part of ARISTOTLE’s work, or to something inherent in the possibilities of thought itself, which presents this to us as closed… this step forward in the domain of ethics, articulated through what we have been developing here for over two years regarding desire, is what allows us to approach a new element in understanding the meaning of tragedy, and through that—though there may be a more direct path—the exemplary function of κάθαρσις (catharsis).

In Antigone, we will see this focal point that defines desire, this focal point directed toward an undoubtedly central image, holding some unarticulated mystery that has so far eluded clear articulation—an image that, when looked at, caused our gaze to falter. Yet this image lies undeniably at the heart of tragedy, for it is none other than the image of ANTIGONE herself, in all her dazzling brilliance. We know well that beyond the dialogues of family and homeland, beyond all moralistic elaborations, it is indeed she who fascinates us:

• In her unbearable radiance,
• In that which captivates us and simultaneously forbids us—intimidates us,
• In the ultimately disconcerting quality of her image as a victim who is terrifyingly resolute.

It is on this side of attraction that we must search for the true meaning, the true mystery, the real scope of tragedy. It lies in the side of emotional turmoil it entails—undoubtedly connected to passions, but to a particular passion where fear and pity are indeed mediated “δι᾽ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου” (through pity and fear). Through pity and fear, we are purged, purified of all that belongs to this order, an order that we can immediately recognize as the domain of the purely imaginary.

And if we are purged through an image, among others, it is there that we must ask: what is the role of this image, around which all the others seem suddenly to dissolve, unfold, and collapse? Is it not because this central image of Antigone, in her beauty—this is not my invention, as I will show you the passage from the Chorus’s song where she is explicitly described as such, and I will show you that this passage is pivotal—illuminates, through the articulation of tragic action, the dissipative power it exerts over all other images?

This pertains to the place it occupies, its position in the in-between of two symbolically differentiated fields. Surely, it derives its radiance from this position—this radiance that no one who has spoken worthily of beauty has ever been able to exclude from their definition. This place, as you know, is what we strive to define and what we have already approached in previous lessons, first attempting to grasp it through the notion of that “second death” imagined by SADE’s heroes—the death invoked as the point where the very cycle of natural transformations is annihilated.

From this point, where false metaphors of being and the position of existence itself are distinguished, we will rediscover this place articulated as such—as a limit. We will encounter it throughout the text of Antigone, in the words of all the characters, beginning with the message of TIRESIAS, where its presence and definition are persistently affirmed.

And how can we not see it in the action itself, given that the central point, the midpoint of the play, is constituted by what is articulated as lamentation, commentary, debate, and invocation around ANTIGONE as she is condemned to her torment? What torment? The torment of being entombed alive. The central third of the play is comprised of this manifestation, this apophany, this detailed exploration of what it means for a life to blend with the certainty of death—a death anticipated, as it were, a death encroaching upon the realm of life, and a life encroaching upon the realm of death. This field of destiny as such is something one might marvel that dialecticians—or even aesthetes as eminent as HEGEL or GOETHE—did not feel compelled to consider in their appreciation of the play’s effect.

And to suggest to you that this dimension is not unique to Antigone, I could easily point you to corresponding examples elsewhere. You will not need to look far to recognize the distinctive function of this zone in the impact of tragedy.

It is here, in crossing this zone, this midpoint, that the ray of desire both reflects and refracts, ultimately offering us the concept of that unique effect—the deepest effect—what we call the effect of beauty on desire. This refers to something that seems peculiarly to split desire at the point where it continues its course. For we cannot say that desire is entirely extinguished by the apprehension of beauty; it continues its trajectory. But here, more than anywhere else, it encounters a sense of deception, as if revealed by the zone of radiance and splendor into which it is drawn. On the other hand, in its reflection—repulsed rather than refracted—its turmoil is perceived as the most real. But here, there is no object at all.

Hence, the two facets of this sort of extinguishing or tempering of desire by the effect of beauty, emphasized by certain thinkers: on one hand, SAINT THOMAS, whom I cited last time, and on the other, the disruption of all objects analyzed by KANT in the Critique of Judgment.

Earlier, I spoke to you about turmoil, and here I take the opportunity to pause and properly address the inappropriate use of this word in the common French translation of Triebregung as “pulsional turmoil.” Why choose such an inadequate term? Why not remember that émoi has nothing to do with émotion or émouvoir?

Émoi is a French word connected to an old verb, émoyer or esmayer, which properly means to make someone lose—one might say—their composure, if it weren’t a pun in French. But in fact, it pertains to power, as “esmayer” links back to the old Gothic magnan, modern German mögen. An émoi, as everyone knows, refers to something that belongs to the order of your power dynamics, specifically what causes you to lose them.

We are now compelled to delve into the text of Antigone, seeking something other than a moral lesson. For it seems difficult… I don’t know why someone completely irresponsible in this domain wrote recently that I am utterly defenseless against the seductions of Hegelian dialectic. I do not know if this reproach was justified when it was written, at the moment I began articulating for you here the dialectic of desire in the terms I have pursued since. One cannot say that the author in question was particularly perceptive.

In any case, there is no area where HEGEL seems weaker to me than in his poetics, particularly—or at least equally—in what he articulates about Antigone. For HEGEL, Antigone revolves entirely around the idea of a conflict of discourses—no doubt in the sense that these discourses involve the most essential stakes, and further, that they always tend toward some kind of reconciliation. I ask, what reconciliation is there at the end of ANTIGONE? And it is with no small astonishment that this reconciliation is, on top of it all, called subjective.

I read in the text of the Poetics the affirmation, concerning Oedipus at Colonus—which we have already discussed here—that Oedipus at Colonus boils down to this (let us not forget, it is the last play of SOPHOCLES): it is from there that OEDIPUS utters his final curse upon his sons. This curse leads to the entire catastrophic sequence of dramas culminating in ANTIGONE, ending with what can rightly be called OEDIPUS’s ultimate curse:

“Oh! Never to have been born…” (μή ϕῦναι : mè phunai)

How can one speak of reconciliation in such a context? I am not inclined to consider my indignation a virtue. Others, moreover, have noticed this before me: notably GOETHE, who seems to have suspected it to some extent, or Εrwin ROHDE in Psyche.

Recently, I had the pleasure, while delving into sources that could serve me as a gathering point for ancient conceptions of the immortality of the soul, of encountering this altogether commendable, even admirable, text of Psyche. There, ROHDE expresses his astonishment at the generally accepted interpretation of SOPHOCLES’ Oedipus at Colonus.

Let us try to clear our minds of all the noise surrounding Antigone and examine the details of what takes place there. What is in Antigone? First, there is ANTIGONE herself.

Have you noticed—I mention this in passing—that throughout the play, she is only referred to as ἡ παῖς, meaning “the child”? I point this out to help you adjust your perspective on the style of the work. And then there is the action. The question of action in tragedy is extremely important. I do not know why someone—I am not particularly fond of this person, perhaps because they are often thrown at me as a counterpoint—named LA BRUYÈRE once said that we come too late into a world too old, or that everything has already been said.

I do not perceive it this way. I believe there is still much to say about action in tragedy. That question, I mean, is far from resolved. And, to return to Εrwin ROHDE, to whom I earlier gave some credit, I am surprised—though in another chapter, as he discusses this issue extensively in his work on SOPHOCLES—to see him describe a curious conflict between the tragic poet and their subject. This conflict supposedly arises because the nature of tragedy—though one struggles to understand exactly why in this perspective—compels the poet to choose a beautiful action as the foundation, preferably a mythical one.

I imagine this is to ensure that everyone is already familiar with the story, is already immersed, so to speak, in the atmosphere, with the characters, the issues, the setting, and all the attributes of the time. And this, apparently, would be the problem. It would imply, in essence, that Monsieur ANOUILH was quite right to give us his fascist ANTIGONE.

This conflict—arising, it seems, from the debate between the poet and their subject—would, according to Εrwin ROHDE, generate some kind of tension between action and thought. To illustrate this, he evokes, not without some pertinence—I mean by echoing many ideas articulated before us—the profile of HAMLET. It is amusing.

I think this might be difficult for you to sustain. If what I tried to explain to you last year about HAMLET served any purpose—namely, to show you that HAMLET is not at all a drama about the power or impotence of thought in relation to action—why, at the threshold of modern times, would HAMLET serve as testimony to a special weakness of the man to come, regarding action?

I am not so pessimistic. I would even say more: nothing obliges us to adopt such a view, except a sort of cliché about decadence—a cliché into which, as I pointed out in passing, FREUD himself falls when discussing the differing attitudes of HAMLET and ŒDIPUS toward desire. I do not believe that the divergence between action and thought lies at the heart of HAMLET’s drama or the problem of the extinction of his desire. I have tried to show you that HAMLET’s peculiar apathy stems from the very mechanism of the action itself—that it is in the chosen myth that we must find its motives. It is in his relationship to the desire for his mother, and in the knowledge his father possesses concerning his own death, that we must locate the source.

To take this further, I will point out the convergence between our analysis of HAMLET and the point to which I am leading you, regarding the second death. This is something I could not show you last year, but I highlight it now, in passing, through this evocation of Εrwin ROHDE’s reflection, however untimely it may be.

Do not forget one of the effects that reveals the topology I am describing: if HAMLET hesitates at the moment of killing CLAUDIUS, it is because he is concerned with the very point I am attempting to define for you. It is not enough for him simply to kill CLAUDIUS; he wants to ensure for him the eternal torture of hell. Why, just because we have secularized the concept of hell, should we feel dishonored in textual analysis by bringing this into play? Even if HAMLET is uncertain, even if he does not believe in hell any more than we do, there remains a certain way in which he questions: “To sleep, perchance to dream…” Yet he halts in his act because he wants CLAUDIUS to go to hell.

Failing to closely examine texts—remaining instead within the bounds of what seems admissible to us, that is, exactly within the bounds of prejudice—means we constantly miss the opportunity to identify the precise limits and points of crossing in the paths we follow.

If I have taught you nothing else here but this relentless method of commenting on signifiers, I hope at least it leaves something behind. Indeed, I even hope it leaves nothing else behind, except the recognition that, if what I teach has any educational value, I will leave no foothold for adding the suffix “ism” to it. In other words, none of the terms I have successively advanced before you—whether symbolic, signifier, or desire—none of these terms, in the end, will ever serve, on my account, as anyone’s intellectual talisman.

Now, in tragedy, there is the Chorus. What is the Chorus? They tell you, it’s you—or, alternatively, it’s not you. I believe that is not the question, since it involves means, specifically emotional means. I would say the Chorus consists of those who are moved. So think twice before telling yourself that it is your emotions at stake in this purification. They are at stake in terms of the outcome—namely, that not only your emotions but many others must, by some artifice, be soothed. But this does not mean that they are directly or indirectly at stake. They are present, undoubtedly; you are there—as a principle—as available material, but at the same time, as entirely indifferent material.

When you sit in the theater in the evening, you think about your personal affairs—the pen you lost during the day or the check you’ll have to sign tomorrow. Let’s not give ourselves too much credit. Your emotions are managed in the proper disposition of the stage. The Chorus takes care of that. The emotional commentary is provided, which is why ancient tragedy has the greatest chance of survival. It is done; it is just beta enough, neither without firmness nor too indulgent. It is human enough. You are thus freed of all concerns.

Even if you feel nothing, the Chorus will have felt it for you. And why not imagine, after all, that the effect might be achieved on you—albeit minimally—even if you didn’t palpitate much? Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure the spectator participates that much, feels deeply. What I am sure of, however, is that the image of ANTIGONE fascinates them.

I said fascinates. Here, the spectator is captivated. But I ask you again, captivated by what? What is the image that ANTIGONE presents? That is the question. Let us not confuse this relationship to the privileged image with the entirety of the spectacle. The term “spectator,” commonly used to discuss the effect of tragedy, seems entirely problematic unless we define the scope of what it entails.

On the level of what occurs in the real, the audience is far more the listener. On this point, I cannot commend myself enough for aligning with ARISTOTLE, for whom the entire development of theatrical arts occurs on the level of hearing. The spectacle, arranged for the audience, belongs to the margin of what is properly speaking the technique. It is certainly not nothing, but it is not the essence—just as elocution in rhetoric is secondary. Here, the spectacle is but a secondary means.

This is to put into perspective the so-called modern concerns about staging. The merits of staging are considerable, and I always appreciate them, whether in theater or cinema. However, let us not forget that they are only as essential as, if you allow me some liberty in expression, how much our “third eye” is insufficiently aroused—it is merely lightly stimulated by staging.

This is not to indulge, in this context, in the morose pleasure I earlier denounced in the conceptions of a supposed decadence of the spectator. I believe nothing of the sort. The public has likely always been at the same level, from a certain angle. Sub specie aeternitatis (from the perspective of eternity), everything is equal, everything is always there, though not always in the same place. And let me say in passing: you must truly be a student of my seminar—that is, particularly alert—to find any meaningful substance in the spectacle of La Dolce Vita.

I am astonished by the murmurs of pleasure it seems to have provoked in a significant number of people in this assembly. I want to believe that this effect is due only to the illusory moment produced by the fact that the things I say are well-suited to highlighting a certain kind of mirage. This mirage, indeed, is almost the only thing targeted in this sequence of images, though it is never truly reached—except, I must admit, in one moment.

It seems to me that the moment comes when, in the early morning, the revelers, standing amidst the pine trunks on the edge of the beach, after having remained still and as if dissolving into the shimmering light, suddenly begin to move toward some undefined goal. This moment, which brought so much pleasure to many who found in it echoes of my concept of the Thing, leads to something revolting being pulled out of the sea with a net—thankfully, not seen at that point. The revelers begin walking, and they are almost always as invisible as statues moving among the trees of UCCELLO’s paintings. This moment is indeed privileged and unique. Those who have not yet recognized the teachings of my seminar should go see it. It’s right at the end, allowing you to find your seat at the right time, if there are any left.

Now we arrive at our Antigone. Here she is, ready to enter the action that we are about to follow. What more can I say about her today? I hesitate—it is late. I would like to take this text from beginning to end to help you grasp its mechanisms. In the meantime, there is something you could do before next time: read it. I do not believe that simply announcing I would speak to you about Antigone—ringing the bell, so to speak—has sufficed, given the usual level of your diligence, to prompt even a casual reading. It would not be entirely uninteresting if you did so by next time. There are many ways to approach it.

First, there is the critical edition by Monsieur Robert PIGNARRE. For those who truly know Greek, I recommend a juxtalinear translation. Examining the Greek text word by word is, ultimately, wildly instructive. Next time, I will show you how our reference points are perfectly articulated in the text through signifiers that I do not need to hunt down sporadically. I mean to say that it would be arbitrary if I occasionally found a word that resonated with what I articulate. I will demonstrate that the words I pronounce are those you will encounter throughout the text as a unified thread, forming the true framework of the play. So, if you can closely examine this edition of Antigone published by Hachette, you will already reap enough benefits to anticipate what I will show you.

There is something else I wish to mention. One day, GOETHE, speaking with ECKERMANN, was idly musing about various matters. A few days earlier, he had invented the Suez and Panama Canals. I must admit it is quite dazzling to read that, in 1827, he had an extraordinarily clear view of the historical function of these two devices. Then, one fine day, we find a book that had just been published—now entirely forgotten—by a man named IRISCH. It offers a delightful commentary on Antigone, known to me through GOETHE. I do not see how it differs from Hegelian commentary, except that it is duller. There are some amusing aspects.

I must say that those who occasionally reproach HEGEL for the extraordinary difficulty of his statements will triumph here, under the authority of GOETHE, in confirming their ridicule. GOETHE certainly rectifies HEGEL’s ideas when discussing the opposition of CREON and ANTIGONE as two opposing principles of law and discourse—a conflict, so to speak, tied to structures.

GOETHE clearly shows that CREON veers off course, driven by his desire. CREON seeks to break the boundary, targeting his enemy POLYNICES beyond the limits he is allowed to reach. It is precisely because he wishes to strike POLYNICES with the second death—something he has no right to inflict—that CREON builds his entire discourse. And in doing so, he brings about his own downfall. If this is not explicitly stated, it is at least implied in GOETHE’s commentary. This is not a case of one right opposing another but rather a wrong opposed to… what?

To something else, which is indeed the real question for us: what does ANTIGONE represent in this situation?

You will see, and I will tell you, that it is not simply about defending the sacred rights of the dead or the family, nor is it about whatever supposed sanctity has been attributed to ANTIGONE.

ANTIGONE is driven by a passion, and we will attempt to discern which one. But there is something peculiar: GOETHE, whatever his articulation at the time, confessed to being shocked, unsettled by a moment in her speech where… after all her ordeal, which we will trace in detail—her act, her defiance, her condemnation, even her lamentation, when she is truly at the brink of that fateful tomb—Antigone pauses to justify herself.

At the very moment when she seems to falter in a kind of yearning—“Father, why have you abandoned me?”—she collects herself and declares:

“Know this: I would not have defied the law of the citizens for a husband or a child denied burial. Because, after all,” she says, “if I had lost a husband under such circumstances, I could take another. Even if I had lost a child, with my husband I could conceive another with a new husband. But this brother…”

αὐτάδελϕον, the Greek term explicitly linking her to her brother, runs through the entire play, appearing in the very first line when she speaks to ISMENE.

“…this brother, born of the same father and the same mother—now that both father and mother are hidden in Hades, there is no chance that any brother will ever be born again.
μητρὸς δ᾽ ἐν Ἅιδου καὶ πατρὸς κεκευθότοινοὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἀδελφὸς ὅστις ἂν βλάστοι ποτέ. [911-912]”

Here, the sage of Weimar found this reasoning somewhat odd. He was not alone. Throughout the ages, this extraordinary justification has left readers and thinkers vacillating. It seems that even the wisest discourses must bear a touch of folly, and GOETHE could not help but express a wish—one that reveals the mindset of a careful man who understands the value of a text and knows the risks of premature formulation.

He said: “I hope that one day a scholar will show us that this passage is interpolated.”

Naturally, when such a wish is expressed, one can always hope it will be fulfilled. Over the course of the 19th century, at least four or five scholars declared this passage untenable. One of the more creative arguments proposed that a similar story could be found in HERODOTUS, in his third book.

To be truthful, the resemblance is minimal, apart from the fact that it also involves matters of life and death and relationships between brother, father, husband, and child. Beyond that—though it is true—the stories are fundamentally different. In HERODOTUS, it is a woman lamenting her predicament, offered a choice to save one family member from a collective condemnation at the Persian court. She explains why she chooses her brother over her husband.

Still, the mere similarity between two passages does not imply that one is a copy of the other. And why, after all, would such a copy have been inserted here? In other words, this passage is far from apocryphal. The two lines quoted above were chosen precisely because ARISTOTLE, about 80 years after SOPHOCLES, cites them in the third book of his Rhetoric.

It is difficult to imagine that, if these lines carried such a scandalous charge, someone living 80 years after SOPHOCLES would cite them as a literary example—not in some trivial context but in a critical discussion about rhetorical techniques for explaining one’s actions. Of all the examples that could be used in such a common matter, ARISTOTLE chooses these two lines.

This considerably weakens the case for interpolation. Ultimately, this passage—precisely because it carries its scandalous nature—may warrant closer attention.

We will see—indeed, I think you can already begin to perceive—that its purpose seems to be to provide yet another support for what we will strive to define with absolute precision next time regarding the aim of ANTIGONE.