The Role of Prophecy in Sophocles' Antigone

Dakota Smith

The Role of Prophecy in Sophocles’ Antigone

Prophecy is a highly privileged form of speech, itself set off from ordinary political discourse in most societies. Importantly, it is thought to bear a special kind of authority, the authority of divinity or inspiration. Humans fashion prophecy as the way divinity speaks to us about our own lives. Yet the language of prophecy is difficult and specialized, and we may misread it or fail to recognize it as meaningful. In tragedy, prophecy often functions as the antagonist, providing the necessity of conflict. Prophets speak in tragedies so that the hero may defy them and thus define themselves in speaking the prophet’s contradiction. Because the heroes must defy prophecy and prophecy must always come true, tragedy both valorizes and criticizes opposition to authority and divinity. On the one hand, tragedy celebrates the heroic will to defy authority as it is represented by prophecy; on the other hand, such an ...