Abstract

Hegel’s admiration for Sophocles’ Antigone is well-known. In the Philosophy of Religion he declares it to be “for me the absolute example of tragedy.” In the Aesthetics he calls it “one of the most sublime and in every respect most magnificent works of art of all time” - and adds : “Of all the splendors of the ancient or modern worlds - and I know nearly all, and one should and can know them - the Antigone seems to me in this respect the most magnificent, most satisfying, work of art.” No less extravagant is Hegel’s praise of Antigone herself: “the heavenly Antigone, the most magnificent figure ever to have appeared on earth” as he puts it in his History of Philosophy.