Tesi per stampa 1 - Padis - Sapienza

Antigone nel Novecento. L’individuo e la polis 79
far more profound statement of the duties of the individual to
society than any our sociologists can offer us. Lame as the
English rendering is, Antigone’s five words are worth all the
sermons of all the archbishops. 38
Le parole cui Woolf si riferisce sono quelle del verso 523, in cui Antigone
si dichiara nata per amare e non per odiare (“Non sono nata per condi-
videre l’odio, ma l’amore” 39 ). Antigone qui appare come esempio di
comportamento etico da seguire e Creonte come rappresentante dei tota-
litarismi moderni. Ma Woolf indica anche il rischio che si corre nel vole-
re appiattire il significato della tragedia in una lettura esclusivamente
politica, tralasciando altre interpretazioni possibili. Come spiega la nota
39 della seconda parte:
Creon, again, […] who held that […] ‘whomsoever the city may
appoint, that man must be obeyed, in little things and great, in
just things and unjust’ is typical of certain politicians in the
past, and of Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini in the present.
But though it is easy to squeeze these characters into up-to-date
dress, it is impossible to keep them there. They suggest too
much; when the curtain falls we sympathize, it may be noted,
even with Creon himself. This result, to the propagandist
undesirable, would seem to be due to the fact that Sophocles
(even in a translation) uses freely all the faculties that can be
possessed by a writer; and suggests, therefore, that if we use art
to propagate political opinions, we must force the artist to clip
and cabin his gift to do us a cheap and passing service.
Literature will suffer the same mutilation that the mule has
suffered; and there will be no more horses. 40
38 VIRGINIA WOOLF, Three Guineas, cit., p. 272.
39 SOFOCLE, Antigone, cit., p. 293.
40 VIRGINIA WOOLF, Three Guineas, cit., p. 395, n. 39.