The Burial at Thebes
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The Burial at Thebes | |
Cover of the first edition |
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Author | Seamus Heaney |
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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.