is an example of how historical knowledge can cast light. And then, Antigone dies halfway through the play, never having doubted her destiny, while Creon is alone at the end of the play living out his terrible fate and managing, as Betsy pointed out, to change his mind, alas, too late.
“Now just a moment,” Kate said, holding up her hand, as several of the girls tried to speak. “I told you to interrupt me and now I won’t let you, so typical of aging teachers, I know. But if I can just get the list of possible subjects completed, I promise you, I solemnly swear, that starting with the next session I will allow you to interrupt me, I may even shut up altogether once in a while. We must get the semester’s schedule made out today so as to have all the mechanics done with once and for all. Creon as tyrant or hero is one subject; I would like to suggest …”
“Will you put your money where your mouth is?” Alice Kirkland asked. The five pairs of eyes again revolved toward Alice Kirkland, this time returning to observe Kate’s face.
“If you can manage to rephrase that question so that it exudes some slight air of courtesy, I shall consider it.” Kate allowed the silence which followed this statement to remain unbroken.
“What I meant,” Alice Kirkland said finally, “is that maybe you would want to agree to put some sum of money, you know, a dime or something, into a pot every time you talk for more than three minutes at a stretch and then, the end of the year, we can have a bash.”
“Three minutes it is,” Kate answered, “if you’ll allow me, in addition, five minutes at the beginning and end for setting forth and summing up. After all, I’m responsible if we all fall flat on our faces. What’s more I’ll double whatever the amount is at the end, enough to make it a feast. Will you keep track of the dimes, Elizabeth?”
“All right, but I think the suggestion is rude, presumptuous and just plain nasty. Why take the seminar if she doesn’t want to hear you talk?”
“There,” Kate said, “I think you’re being unfair. She wants to try out her ideas, which she can’t do if she’s forever listening to mine. Since, however, it’s I who am being presumptuous and just plain nasty today, let me go on with a list of possible topics for reports and discussions. Has anyone any brilliant suggestions?”
“Why did she have to bury her brother at all?” Irene Rexton asked. “It had been forbidden, he
was
a traitor to his country, and anyway, what did she accomplish by throwing some dust over his rotten old corpse?”
“Oh, God, let’s not go into that!” Freemond Oliver said. “Burial to the Greeks meant something different than it means to us, and that’s it. You didn’t leave the dead to rot, that was divine law, and obviously it was important or Creon wouldn’t have bothered about not burying the body in the first place. The facts are right in the play and, anyhow, it’s a tired subject and tiresome besides.”
Kate wished, for the first in what was to be a very long series of such wishes, that the young would not be quite so cruel to one another. “That question has rather died from view, I think,” she said to Irene Rexton, “though it was very much argued about at one time. Another question which might interest you is less hashed over: How original was Sophocles in his presentation of the Antigone story? He’s credited with originating Haemon as Antigone’s betrothed; Ismene, her sister, as a foil to Antigone; and the idea of putting Tiresias into the play. Would an account of what Euripides is thought to have done with the story in his lost play on Antigone or what Aeschylus did with it in his
Seven Against Thebes
interest you?”
“I’d like to study what Anouilh did with the story,” Betsy Stark said. “Personally, I think Anouilh stinks on ice, but it’s interesting that he wrote such a play, that he left Tiresias out, and that the Nazis let him put it on in Paris.
“Now just a moment,” Kate said, holding up her hand, as several of the girls tried to speak. “I told you to interrupt me and now I won’t let you, so typical of aging teachers, I know. But if I can just get the list of possible subjects completed, I promise you, I solemnly swear, that starting with the next session I will allow you to interrupt me, I may even shut up altogether once in a while. We must get the semester’s schedule made out today so as to have all the mechanics done with once and for all. Creon as tyrant or hero is one subject; I would like to suggest …”
“Will you put your money where your mouth is?” Alice Kirkland asked. The five pairs of eyes again revolved toward Alice Kirkland, this time returning to observe Kate’s face.
“If you can manage to rephrase that question so that it exudes some slight air of courtesy, I shall consider it.” Kate allowed the silence which followed this statement to remain unbroken.
“What I meant,” Alice Kirkland said finally, “is that maybe you would want to agree to put some sum of money, you know, a dime or something, into a pot every time you talk for more than three minutes at a stretch and then, the end of the year, we can have a bash.”
“Three minutes it is,” Kate answered, “if you’ll allow me, in addition, five minutes at the beginning and end for setting forth and summing up. After all, I’m responsible if we all fall flat on our faces. What’s more I’ll double whatever the amount is at the end, enough to make it a feast. Will you keep track of the dimes, Elizabeth?”
“All right, but I think the suggestion is rude, presumptuous and just plain nasty. Why take the seminar if she doesn’t want to hear you talk?”
“There,” Kate said, “I think you’re being unfair. She wants to try out her ideas, which she can’t do if she’s forever listening to mine. Since, however, it’s I who am being presumptuous and just plain nasty today, let me go on with a list of possible topics for reports and discussions. Has anyone any brilliant suggestions?”
“Why did she have to bury her brother at all?” Irene Rexton asked. “It had been forbidden, he
was
a traitor to his country, and anyway, what did she accomplish by throwing some dust over his rotten old corpse?”
“Oh, God, let’s not go into that!” Freemond Oliver said. “Burial to the Greeks meant something different than it means to us, and that’s it. You didn’t leave the dead to rot, that was divine law, and obviously it was important or Creon wouldn’t have bothered about not burying the body in the first place. The facts are right in the play and, anyhow, it’s a tired subject and tiresome besides.”
Kate wished, for the first in what was to be a very long series of such wishes, that the young would not be quite so cruel to one another. “That question has rather died from view, I think,” she said to Irene Rexton, “though it was very much argued about at one time. Another question which might interest you is less hashed over: How original was Sophocles in his presentation of the Antigone story? He’s credited with originating Haemon as Antigone’s betrothed; Ismene, her sister, as a foil to Antigone; and the idea of putting Tiresias into the play. Would an account of what Euripides is thought to have done with the story in his lost play on Antigone or what Aeschylus did with it in his
Seven Against Thebes
interest you?”
“I’d like to study what Anouilh did with the story,” Betsy Stark said. “Personally, I think Anouilh stinks on ice, but it’s interesting that he wrote such a play, that he left Tiresias out, and that the Nazis let him put it on in Paris.
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