INTRODUCTION goes beyond the horrific chthonic gods of the old myths and the old religion to more impersonal gods, who do not appear on the stage as anthropomorphic beings and are more important for the principles they endorse than for any visual effects The weaknesses of Hegels reading have long been clear. It is as simplistic to identify Kreon with"the law of the State"as it is to identify Antigone with individualism tout court. Even Antigone's devotion to family love, or philia, is problematical, given the incestuous bonds within this family and her harsh treatment of her sister, Ismene, Ant one, to be sure, may be identified with the emergence of an individual ethical consciousness that resists the domination of certain laws that have been imposed by Thebes' present ruler, but the play calls into question whether these laws may be associated with an abstract, im- of the State. It is questionable to identify a small fifth century city-state or polis with the modem abstract notion of State. The polis of Antigone is rather the total civic space in which the religious d the political, t and the fact that they are so intertwined creates the tragedy. Each protagonist sees only half of the whole, and each acts as if the two ealms are independent of the other. nevertheless, Hegel's influence should not be taken lightly, and his articulation of his position in his earlier work offers a more nuanced and profound reading. In Hegel's dialectical thinking of this period, the position of human and divine changes places. The family, in its honoring of the dead, can also embody the divine law, while the city state's law, as the creation of human beings and as the visible regulate of day-to-day affairs, can embody the human. In the fact that the two sides share in both human and divine law lies the irreconcilably tragi nature of the conflict. And this confict is also gendered between the feminine-ontological"and the "masculine-political, "between the nans domestic world of hearth and home and the man's public world of civic assemblies and legislative bodies. 6 Political. historical. and social considerations add further nuances Antigone is opposing not the city's Law(nomos)as a totality, but rather Kreon's specific"decree"forbidding the burial of her brother's body She is primarily the champion not of the individual against the State but of the ties of blood and birth that rest on the solidarity of the family m s, in w. von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann York, 1998), 174-78(March 28, 1827) see,e.g, Steiner, Antigone, 49-51: T C W. Oudemans and A P. M. H Lardinois, Tragic ambiguity(Leiden, 1987), 10-17. 6. Steiner, 34-35INTRODUCTIO N goes beyond the horrific chthonic gods of the old myths and the old religion to more impersonal gods, who do not appear on the stage as anthropomorphic beings and are more important for the principles they endorse than for any visual effects. The weaknesses of Hegel's reading have long been clear.5 It is as simplistic to identify Kreon with "the law of the State" as it is to identify Antigone with individualism tout court. Even Antigone's devotion to family love, or philia, is problematical, given the incestuous bonds within this family and her harsh treatment of her sister, Ismene. Antig￾one, to be sure, may be identified with the emergence of an individual ethical consciousness that resists the domination of certain laws that have been imposed by Thebes' present ruler, but the play calls into question whether these laws may be associated with an abstract, im￾personal Law of the State. It is questionable to identify a small fifth￾century city-state or polls with the modern abstract notion of State. The polis of Antigone is rather the total civic space in which the religious and the political, the private and the public are closely intertwined, and the fact that they are so intertwined creates the tragedy. Each protagonist sees only half of the whole, and each acts as if the two realms are independent of the other. Nevertheless, Hegel's influence should not be taken lightly, and his articulation of his position in his earlier work offers a more nuanced and profound reading. In Hegel's dialectical thinking of this period, the position of human and divine changes places. The family, in its honoring of the dead, can also embody the divine law, while the city￾state's law, as the creation of human beings and as the visible regulator of day-to-day affairs, can embody the human. In the fact that the two sides share in both human and divine law lies the irreconcilably tragic nature of the conflict. And this conflict is also gendered between the "feminine-ontological" and the "masculine-political," between the woman's domestic world of hearth and home and the man's public world of civic assemblies and legislative bodies.6 Political, historical, and social considerations add further nuances. Antigone is opposing not the city's Law (nomos) as a totality, but rather Kreon's specific "decree" forbidding the burial of her brother's body. She is primarily the champion not of the individual against the State but of the ties of blood and birth that rest on the solidarity of the family. 5. Among the earliest criticism is Goethe's, in J. W. von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, trans. John Oxenford (1850; reprint New York, 1998), 174-78 (March 28, 1827). For further discus￾sion see, e.g., Steiner, Antigones, 49-51; T. C. W. Oudemans and A. P. M. H Lardinois, Tragic Ambiguity (Leiden, 1987), 110-17. 6. Steiner, 34-35. 4