INTRODUCTION of expression of the two chief characters. The next to last chapter considers in detail the sensuous and ima of three of the odes in an effort to make clearer their complex meanings in the larger poem of which they are parts. The concluding chapter illustrates additional ways in which im- agery and expression are developed to depict the major char- acters and to express their divergent attitudes and their disparate methods of judgment. Here we have also close illustration for the interrelationship of the imagery and the theme of the tragedy, and an analysis of the theme andcon- tent of the tragedy is reserved to this point when it can be offered in the light of all the evidence at our disposal Primarily we are seeking to sharpen and enrich our under- standing of a play which has been enjoyed through the ages and about which much excellent criticism has already been written. No radically new interpretation of the theme of the play is to be offered. But the study of imagery can make a positive contribution to our understanding of the plays basic ideas, its inner consistency. The"idea "of the Antigone has been the subject of as much conflicting opinion as that of any play. Our study can support certain lines of this criticism with assurance and can help to reject others no less decisively It is in great measure through the patterns of imagery which the poet has created to convey and support his theme that we can know what that theme is, and it is through these patterns that we are led to share in the subtler insights and to feel some of the deepest human implications which the poet has built into and upon his theme 4. Preliminary to fuller consideration in subsequent chapters whiny set forth here briefly the nexus of ideas and attitudes which lies at the heart of the play's structure. Essentiall the Antigone is, as C. M. Bowra has recently described it, a tragedy of human folly [wherein] the illusions of men resist and rebut the claims of a higher reality and truth. "3 Blindness of soul causes a man in high position to oppose the final moral order of things, represented in particular by the raditional sanctity of burial and by a woman of unusual emotional insight and determination. For such error men are This content downloaded from 128... 148 on Thu, 23 Mar 201709: 44: 03 UTC Allusesubjecttohttpaboutjstor.org/termsINTRODUCTION of expression of the two chief characters. The next to last chapter considers in detail the sensuous and imagistic aspects of three of the odes in an effort to make clearer their complex meanings in the larger poem of which they are parts. The concluding chapter illustrates additional ways in which im￾agery and expression are developed to depict the major char￾acters and to express their divergent attitudes and their disparate methods of judgment. Here we have also close illustration for the interrelationship of the imagery and the theme of the tragedy, and an analysis of the theme and 'con￾tent of the tragedy is reserved to this point when it can be offered in the light of all the evidence at our disposal. Primarily we are seeking to sharpen and enrich our under￾standing of a play which has been enjoyed through the ages and about which much excellent criticism has already been written. No radically new interpretation of the theme of the play is to be offered. But the study of imagery can make a positive contribution to our understanding of the play's basic ideas, its inner consistency. The "idea" of the Antigone has been the subject of as much conflicting opinion as that of any play.1 Our study can support certain lines of this criticism with assurance and can help to reject others no less decisively. It is in great measure through the patterns of imagery which the poet has created to convey and support his theme that we can know what that theme is, and it is through these patterns that we are led to share in the subtler insights and to feel some of the deepest human implications which the poet has built into and upon his theme. Preliminary to fuller consideration in subsequent chapters, we may set forth here briefly the nexus of ideas and attitudes which lies at the heart of the play's structure. Essentially the Antigone is, as C. M. Bowra has recently described it, "a tragedy of human folly [wherein] the illusions of men resist and rebut the claims of a higher reality and truth."2 Blindness of soul causes a man in high position to oppose the final moral order of things, represented in particular by the traditional sanctity of burial and by a woman of unusual emotional insight and determination. For such error men are This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Thu, 23 Mar 2017 09:44:03 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms