Hegel, Goethe, Hölderlin, and Kierkegaard all thought highly of Sophoclesʼ
Antigone. In Aesthetics, Georg Hegel wrote
The Antigone [is] one of the most sublime and in every respect most excellent
works of art of all time. Influenced by this play, Hegel also said
Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They
are conflicts between two rights.
In her essay on Antigone, the writer George Eliot states that conflict is inevitable
until “the outer life of man is gradually and painfully […] brought into harmony
with his inward needs.” Also
Whenever the strength of a manʼs intellect, or moral sense, or affection brings
him into opposition with the rules which society has sanctioned, there is renewed
the conflict between Antigone and Creon.
Image: Nikiforos Lytras, Antigone in front of the dead Polynices (1865), oil on
canvas, National Gallery of Greece-Alexandros Soutzos Museum