Antigona 2020 – ob 60. obletnici Smoletove Antigone (predgovor) Matic Kocijančič 1 Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 44.1 (2021) Mit o Antigoni je vidna stalnica v evropski literaturi, filozofiji in širšem družbenem diskurzu. Najpomembnejša ubeseditev tega mita, Sofoklova Antigona, je že v antiki porodila nekaj slovitih interpretacij in reinter- pretacij, npr. (izgubljeno) Evripidovo istoimensko tragedijo in Stacijevo prepesnitev v Tebaidi, ki je v srednjem veku (in delno še v zgodnji modernosti) po priljubljenosti in vplivu celo zasenčila Sofoklovo. V 16. stoletju so nastali številni prevodi Sofoklove Antigone (prevajali so jo npr. Gentian Hervé, Giovanni Gabia, Veit Winshemius, Georgius Ratallerus, Johannes Lalamantius in Thomas Naogeorgius), v naslednjih treh stoletjih pa tudi manj ali bolj izvirne (zgodnje)moderne literarne različice, predelave in dopolnitve mita o Antigoni (mdr. Luigi Alamanni, Robert Garnier, Thomas Watson, Thomas May, Jean Rotrou, Jean Racine, Vittorio Alfieri in Pierre-Simon Ballanche). V 19. stoletju je Antigona – predvsem po zaslugi Heglove slovite interpretacije Sofoklove tragedije – postala ena izmed ključnih mitoloških in literarnih referenc v evropskem filozofskem kanonu. Ta trend se je nadaljeval v 20. stoletju, v prvi vrsti prek izjemnega vpliva Heideggerjih in Lacanovih soočenj s tem Sofoklovim delom. 20. stoletje je tudi v literarnem in gledališkem smislu pokazalo izje- men interes za mit o Antigoni, najodmevneje v navezavi na slovito in kontroverzno Antigono Jeana Anouilha (1944). Uspeh te drame je po vojni povzročil neustavljivo poplavo dramskih, proznih in pesniških različic Antigonine zgodbe, ki antično junakinjo z večjo ali manjšo prepričljivostjo postavljajo (in prestavljajo) pred novodobne družbene in eksistencialne izzive. Antigona Dominika Smoleta, ki je nastala pod očitnim Anouilhovim vplivom in doživela krstno uprizoritev leta 1960, velja za eno izmed najpomembnejših in najboljših slovenskih dram 20. stoletja. Četudi v slovenskem prostoru prevladuje konsenz o njeni izje- mni estetski in sporočilni moči, gre obenem za dramo, ki od svojega nastanka naprej razvnema raziskovalce in poraja raznorodne in tudi izrazito konfliktne interpretacije. Eden izmed najboljših prikazov tega širokega horizonta je bil kolokvij »Antigona '80«, ki ga je ob dvajsetlet- nici krstne uprizoritve Smoletove drame organiziralo Slovensko društ vo za primerjalno književnost. 2 PKn, letnik 44, št 1, Ljubljana, maj 2021 Ob šestdesetletnici Smoletove Antigone smo se pri SDPK odločili, da je napočil čas za sveže soočenje z njeno zapuščino, pa tudi za širše soočenje z mitom o Antigoni, ki je bil – z močnim Smoletovim peča- tom – v Sloveniji v zadnjih petih desetletjih deležen številnih odmevnih literarnih (Dušan Jovanović, Rade Krstić, Jure Detela, Evald Flisar), literarnokritiških (Janko Kos, Taras Kermauner, Primož Kozak), odr- skih (Meta Hočevar, Eduard Miler, Matjaž Berger), filozofskih (Tine Hribar, Slavoj Žižek, Lenart Škof) in filoloških (Kajetan Gantar, Brane Senegačnik, Andreja Inkret) obravnav. Naš glavni cilj je bil povezati bogato slovensko recepcijo mita o Antigoni s prav tako cvetočim in interdisciplinarnim zanimanjem zanj v sodobnem mednarodnem pro- storu. Na tej podlagi je nastal pričujoči sklop člankov, s katerim se podajamo na slikovito pot od antičnih temeljev antigonskega mita prek raznolikih odmevov širše tebanske mitologije v srednjeveški in zgodnje- moderni književnosti pa vse do najnovejših izzivov literarnokritiške recepcije Sofokla in Smoleta. *** Aleksandar Gatalica – srbski pisatelj in prevajalec iz stare grščine, ki je poleg številnih drugih grških klasikov v srbščino prevedel tudi Sofoklovi tragediji Kralj Ojdip (v njegovem prevodu Gospodar Ojdip) in Ojdip v Kolonu – na drzen in svež način oriše ključne poteze in oko- liščine Sofoklovega dramskega opusa. V njem prepoznava – predvsem glede vpliva, izrazne moči in specifičnih slogovnih značilnosti – antično paralelo Shakespearovi dediščini. Gatalica se v svoji študiji osredotoči na nekatere razsežnosti Sofoklove zapuščine, ki jih nismo vajeni videti v ospredju: npr. doprinos k razvoju gledališke tehnike, »ekonomičnost« besedišča in izčiščenost verza. Ob svoji tematizaciji Antigone poudarja, da ta lik že pri Sofoklu presega istoimensko tragedijo in da se v Ojdipu v Kolonu srečamo z nekakšno »proto-Antigono«, ki usodno zaznamuje tudi vsebinski naboj Sofoklovega najslavnejšega dela. Alenka Jensterle Doležal – pisateljica, literarna zgodovinarka in poznavalka moderne recepcije mita o Antigoni, ki jo je najbolj izčrpno tematizirala v monografiji Mit o Antigoni v zahodno- in južnoslovanskih dramatikah sredi 20. stoletja – v svojem prispevku primerja Smoletovo Antigono z enim izmed najvidnejših (po kritiškem konsenzu sicer izra- zito neposrečenih) odmevov Sofoklove junakinje v češki literaturi, sati- rično igro Děvka z města Théby dramatika Milana Uhdeta. Četudi avto- rica zavrne možnost medsebojnega vpliva med dramatikoma, pa med njunima deloma vseeno prepozna močne skupne točke – ki jih v veliki meri pojasni s prikazom vpliva Anouilhove Antigone na obe drami –, Matic Kocijančič: Antigona 2020 – ob 60. obletnici Smoletove Antigone (predgovor) 3 pri čemer izpostavi predvsem figuro Kreonta, ki tako pri Smoletu kot pri Uhdetu okrepi svojo vlogo v primerjavi z antičnim izvirnikom, obe- nem pa pri obeh sodobnikih deluje tudi kot (manj ali bolj subtilna) kritika tedanjih komunističnih oblasti. Brane Senegačnik – pesnik, esejist, klasični filolog in prevajalec, vodilni slovenski strokovnjak za Sofokla in grško tragedijo – primerja Sofoklovo in Smoletovo Antigono z vidika odnosa obeh dram do »ulti- mativne resničnosti«. Ta odnos se vzpostavlja prek središčnih »odsotnih prisotnosti« v obeh delih: pri Sofoklu gre za odsotno prisotnost bogov, ki v tragediji ne nastopijo neposredno, četudi celotno dogajanje zazna- muje vprašanje njihove vpetosti vanj; pri Smoletu, ki upodablja svet, v katerem »bogov v pravem pomenu besede ‒ torej v pomenu sil, ki kot pri Sofoklu vladajo ultimativni resničnosti ‒ ni«, pa gre za odsotno prisotnost naslovne junakinje (ob koncu drame še Paža, ki prevzame Antigonino poslanstvo). Četudi si Senegačnik ob orisu Smoletove odstranitve božjega iz mita o Antigoni (lahko bi rekli tudi: odsotne odsotnosti bogov) zastavi vprašanje, »ali bi bila sploh mogoča večja distanca od Sofoklovega sveta«, nazadnje vendarle poudari odločilne duhovne paralele med obema (negativnima) motrenjema resničnosti: »Podobno kot Sofoklova junakinja nima jasnega vedenja o posmrtnem življenju, tudi Smoletova ne more vedeti, kakšna je skrivnostna dežela, kjer je Polineik. Kar ve, je le to, da je daleč od 'tega sveta', še več: da je 'druga plat življenja' […]. Kakor je iz Sofoklove 'pesmi o človeku' jasno, da se ultimativni resničnosti življenja, smrti, človek približa le sam, mora tudi v Smoletovo drugo deželo, na drugo plat življenja, človek sam.« Milosav Gudović – srbski filozof, ki je antigonsko snov obravnaval že v razpravi Martin Heidegger in bistvo tragedije, prav tako objavljeni v Primerjalni književnosti – se sooči z bogato filozofsko recepcijo prve zborske pesmi Sofoklove Antigone, ki jo ob domiselni hermenevtični analizi poveže z vprašanjem žrtvenosti kot »izvorne možnosti človeške eksistence« in »mere antropološke in eksistencialne resnice«. V prob- lemskem horizontu Heideggerjeve tematizacije razmerja med silnim in nasiljem v Antigoni – tematizacije, ki je v zadnjih treh desetletjih (predvsem v luči burnih soočenj s filozofovim politično-zgodovinskim bremenom) pridobila izrazito kontroverzen status – Gudović ponudi svežo prevetritev njegovega interpretativnega okvira: Antigona – z vso silnostjo svoje žrtvene biti, ki jo odstira njen odloč(il)ni odgovor »prvi poklicanosti«, »odločitvi za bratstvo« – ni le nenasilna, temveč je nena- silje kot tako; srdito nasilje »vladarske samovolje« – ki se poskuša samo- upravičiti ravno skozi brezprizivno enačenje žrtvenosti in nasilja (torej 4 PKn, letnik 44, št 1, Ljubljana, maj 2021 skozi svojevrstno hermenevtično nasilje) – pa se v zadnji instanci izkaže za »radikalno brezsilno«, torej ne-močno. Alen Širca – komparativist in predsednik Slovenskega društva za primerjalno književnost – v svoji študiji razgrne bogato in razgibano zgodovino razvoja figure Antigone od njenega starogrškega rojstva do humanističnega prerojenja, pri čemer se osredotoči predvsem na sred- njeveško recepcijo, ki je – ne le v slovenskem, temveč tudi v medna- rodnem preučevanju mita o Antigoni – izrazito zapostavljena. Širca prepričljivo pokaže, da to zapostavljanje še zdaleč ni upravičeno, saj so srednjeveški pisci ustvarili eno izmed najbolj nenavadnih in herme- nevtično izzivalnih poglavij v dvatisočpetstoletnem razvoju antigonske mitologije. Pod vplivom Stacijeve Tebaide je tebanska motivika postala ena od vidnih stalnic viteškega romana, Antigona pa je bila v tej literarni tradiciji figura z neulovljivo širokim spektrom pojavitev, v katerih so se precej poljubno in drzno združevale različne karakteristike antičnih in srednjeveških ženskih likov. Ta dimenzija srednjeveške literature raz- kriva njeno izvirno kreativnost, »ki iznajdeva nove recepcijske možnosti literature prejšnjih obdobij in eksperimentira z novimi izkušnjami in identitetami v okviru svojega prostora in časa«, obenem pa raziskovalce sooča z »drugostjo in drugačnostjo 'tujega'«, ki jo je – v nasprotju s trdovratnimi modernimi predsodki – »vselej treba jemati resno«. V svojem članku obravnavam zaključek Sofoklove Antigone, presun- ljivo upodobitev Kreontovega zloma, kesanja in umika, ki ga sodobne interpretacije tega temeljnega tragiškega dela – osredotočene predvsem na središčni spopad med Antigono in Kreontom – prepogosto spregle- dajo. Natančna analiza Kreontovih in zborskih sklepnih replik – tako v izvirniku kot v bogati slovenski prevodni tradiciji – ter njihovega šir- šega duhovnozgodovinskega konteksta (še zlasti atiškega razumevanja razmerja med božjim in državnim zakonom) razkriva izzivalno teopo- litično poanto, ki začrtuje pomenski horizont celotnega Sofoklovega dela. V navezavi na te ugotovitve članek razvija pojem negativne poli- tike, s katerim ponudi okvir za razumevanje dveh antagonističnih teo- političnih paradigem v Antigoni, ki s specifično dinamiko svojega trka napovedujeta tudi nekatere prepoznavne duhovne in družbene pretrese (post)modernosti. 5 Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 44.1 (2021) Antigone 2020—on the 60th Anniversary of Dominik Smole’s Antigone (An Introduction) Matic Kocijančič The myth of Antigone is a familiar fixture in European literature, phi- losophy, and broader social discourse. The most important articulation of the myth, Sophocles’s Antigone, already in antiquity gave rise to some celebrated interpretations and reinterpretations, including Euripides’s (lost) tragedy by the same name and Statius’s Thebaid, which was to overshadow even Sophocles’s work in terms of popularity and influence in the Middle Ages (and partly into the early modern era). Numerous translations of Sophocles’s Antigone were made in the sixteenth century (for example by Gentian Hervé, Giovanni Gabia, Veit Winshemius, Georgius Ratallerus, Johannes Lalamantius, and Thomas Naogeorgius, among others), followed over the next three centuries by more or less original (early) modern literary versions, reworkings, and supplements to the Antigone myth (by Luigi Alamanni, Robert Garnier, Thomas Watson, Thomas May, Jean Rotrou, Jean Racine, Vittorio Alfieri, and Pierre-Simon Ballanche, among others). In the nineteenth century, mostly thanks to Hegel’s famous interpretation of Sophocles’s tragedy, Antigone became one of the key mythological and literary references in the European philosophical canon. This trend continued in the twenti- eth century, mainly through the extraordinary influence of Heidegger’s and Lacan’s confrontations with Sophocles’s work. The twentieth century too showed great interest in the myth of Antigone, most influentially with reference to Jean Anouilh’s famed and controversial Antigone (1944). The play’s success led to an unstoppable post-war flood of plays, prose, and poetry with takes on Antigone’s tale that more or less convincingly (dis)place the ancient heroine face to face with modern social and existential challenges. The Antigone of Dominik Smole, which was clearly influenced by Anouilh and pre- miered in 1960, is considered one of the best and most important Slovenian plays of the twentieth century. Even though there prevails a Slovenian consensus on its great aesthetic and thematic value, at the same time, the play has from the beginning inflamed researchers and given rise to disparate and even quite conflicting interpretations. One 6 PKn, letnik 44, št 1, Ljubljana, maj 2021 of the best surveys of this broad horizon was the colloquium “Antigone ‘80,” organized by the Slovenian Comparative Literature Association on the twentieth anniversary of the opening of Smole’s play. On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of Smole’s Antigone, at the SCLA we decided that the time had come for a fresh reckoning with its legacy, as well as a broader reckoning with the myth of Antigone, which has seen a number of influential treatments, marked by Smole, in Slovenia over the past five decades: in literature (Dušan Jovanović, Rade Krstić, Jure Detela, Evald Flisar), literary criticism (Janko Kos, Taras Kermauner, Primož Kozak), theatre (Meta Hočevar, Eduard Miler, Matjaž Berger), philosophy (Tine Hribar, Slavoj Žižek, Lenart Škof), and philology (Kajetan Gantar, Brane Senegačnik, Andreja Inkret). Our main aim has been to tie the rich Slovenian reception of the Antigone myth together with the equally flourishing and interdisci- plinary contemporary international interest it has garnered. That is the starting point for the present collection of articles that take us on a pic- turesque journey from the ancient foundations of the Antigone myth, via the varied responses to the broader Theban mythology in medieval and early modern literature, all the way to the most recent challenges in the literary-critical reception of Sophocles and Smole. *** Aleksandar Gatalica is a Serbian writer and translator from ancient Greek, among whose many translations of Greek classics into Serbian we also find Sophocles’s tragedies Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. He outlines the key features and circumstances of the Sophoclean dramatic opus, in which he sees an ancient parallel to Shakespeare’s legacy, particularly as regards its influence, its powers of expression, and specific characteristics of style. In his study, Gatalica focuses on certain dimensions of Sophocles’s legacy that we are not used to see- ing foregrounded: e.g. his contribution to the development of theatri- cal technique, the “economy” of his vocabulary, and the refinement of his verse. In his discussion of Antigone, he stresses that the character already in Sophocles transcends the eponymous tragedy, and that in Oedipus at Colonus we meet a kind of “proto-Antigone” who also im- parts a fateful charge to the meaning of Sophocles’s most famous work. Alenka Jensterle Doležal is a writer, literary historian, and expert on the modern reception of the Antigone myth, which she has dis- cussed most exhaustively in the book Mit o Antigoni v zahodno- in južnoslovanskih dramatikah sredi 20. stoletja (The Myth of Antigone in West and South Slavic Drama of the Mid-Twentieth Century). Her paper 7 Matic Kocijančič: Antigone 2020—on the 60th Anniversary of Dominik Smole’s Antigone compares Smole’s Antigone with one of the most prominent responses to Sophocles’s heroine in Czech literature (though by critical consensus one of the least successful), the satirical play Děvka z města Théby (The Whore of Thebes) by the playwright Milan Uhde. Though the author rejects the possibility of mutual influence between the two dramatists, she still recognizes strong commonalities between them, which she largely explains by demonstrating the influence of Anouilh’s Antigone on both plays; she particularly highlights the character of Creon, whom both Smole and Uhde give an enhanced role compared with the ancient original, and who also functions for both modern writers as a (more or less subtle) critique of the then communist regimes. Brane Senegačnik is a poet, essayist, classical philologist, and trans- lator, and a leading Slovenian expert on Sophocles and Greek tragedy. He compares Sophocles’s and Smole’s Antigone in terms of how the plays relate to “ultimate reality.” This relation is established through the central “absent presences” in the two works: in Sophocles the absent presence of the gods, who do not appear directly in the tragedy, although the entire action is marked by the question of their part in it; in Smole, who portrays a world in which “there are no gods in the true sense of the word—in the sense, that is, of forces that, like in Sophocles, rule over ultimate reality,” the absent presence is that of the title char- acter (and at the end of the play also that of the Page, who takes over Antigone’s mission). Although Senegačnik, describing Smole’s removal of the divine from the Antigone myth (one might also say: the absent absence of the gods), raises the question “whether one could possibly be farther away from the world of Sophocles,” he nevertheless in the end stresses the decisive spiritual parallels between the two (negative) views of reality: “Similar to how Sophocles’s heroine lacks clear knowl- edge of life after death, Smole’s too cannot know what it is like in the mysterious land where Polyneices is. She knows only that it is far from ‘this world,’ and moreover that it is ‘the other side of life’ […]. Just as it is clear from Sophocles’s ‘ode to man’ that man can approach the ultimate reality of life, death, only on his own, so man must also go to Smole’s other land, to the other side of life, on his own.” Milosav Gudović is a Serbian philosopher who has previously dealt with the subject matter of Antigone in his treatise Martin Heidegger in bistvo tragedije (Martin Heidegger and the Essence of Tragedy), which has also been published in Primerjalna književnost. He engages with the rich philosophical reception of the first song of the chorus in Sophocles’s Antigone, which his thoughtful hermeneutic analysis ties to the ques- tion of sacrificialness as the “original possibility of human existence” 8 PKn, letnik 44, št 1, Ljubljana, maj 2021 and the “measure of anthropological and existential truth.” Against the problem horizon of Heidegger’s discussion of the relationship between the powerful (deinón) and violence in Antigone—a discussion that has become highly controversial over the past three decades (especially in light of the stormy reckonings with the philosopher’s political and historical baggage)—Gudović offers a fresh rethinking of his interpre- tive framework: Antigone—with all the power of her sacrificial being, which is unveiled by her determined and decisive response to the “first calling,” the “option for brotherhood”—is not just non-violent, she is non-violence as such. The wrathful violence of “the ruler’s whim”— which seems to justify itself precisely with an equation of sacrificialness and violence that brooks no appeal (hence with a kind of hermeneutic violence)—in the end turns out to be “radically powerless.” Alen Širca is a comparativist and president of the Slovenian Comparative Literature Association. His study unfolds the rich and turbulent history of the Antigone character from her birth in ancient Greece to the humanist Renaissance, focusing especially on the medi- eval reception, which has been quite neglected, not only in Slovenian studies of the Antigone myth but also internationally. Širca persua- sively demonstrates that this neglect is far from justified, as medieval writers created one of the most unusual and hermeneutically challeng- ing chapters in the 2500-year development of the Antigone mythology. Under the influence of Statius’s Thebaid, the Theban motifs became a prominent fixture of the chivalric romance, and in this literary tradition Antigone appeared in a bewilderingly wide range of forms, combining the different characteristics of ancient and medieval female characters in quite bold and arbitrary ways. This dimension of medieval literature reveals its original creativity “which keeps devising new possible recep- tions of the literature of previous periods and experimenting with new experiences and identities in the frame of its time and place,” while at the same time confronting researchers with “the otherness and differ- ence of the ‘foreign’”—which, contrary to stubborn modern prejudice, “must always be taken seriously.” In my own paper, I discuss the ending of Sophocles’s Antigone, the ingenious portrayal of Creon’s breakdown, remorse, and with- drawal, which is too often overlooked in modern interpretations of this fundamental work of tragedy, focusing as they do above all on the central conflict between Antigone and Creon. A careful analysis of the concluding lines spoken by Creon and the Chorus, both in the origi- nal and in the rich tradition of Slovenian translations, and of their broader intellectual-historical context (particularly the Attic under- 9 Matic Kocijančič: Antigone 2020—on the 60th Anniversary of Dominik Smole’s Antigone standing of the relationship between divine and state law), reveals a challenging theopolitical point that traces the horizon of meaning of Sophocles’s entire work. In connection with this finding, the paper develops the concept of negative politics, which provides a framework for understanding the two antagonistic theopolitical paradigms in Antigone and how the particular dynamics of the clash between them also foreshadows some recognizable intellectual and social upheavals of (post)modernity. Translated by Christian Moe