The Burial at Thebes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Burial at Thebes
Image:The Burial At Thebes.jpg
Cover of the first edition
Author Seamus Heaney
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Publisher Faber and Faber
Publication date 2004
Pages 58
ISBN ISBN 0571223613

The Burial at Thebes is a play by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, based on the fifth century BC tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.

The title of the play recalls Antigone's punishment - to be walled up in a cave - and her crime. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus king of Thebes, Greece, learns that her brothers have killed each other fighting on different sides of a war. Creon, king of Thebes, buries one of the brothers, but refuses burial to the other 'traitor'. Antigone defies him, and as a punishment is walled up in a tomb. He eventually repents, but by then she has taken her own life.

[edit] See also