Examples Of Strophes In Antigone

In my Concept Study assignment I will be exploring the concept of strophes. Throughout Antigone, Sophocles utilizes strophes and antistrophes, dividing the narrative of the play. One passage that demonstrates the use of this concept is a passage from lines 331 to 351,where the use of strophes and antistrophes is presented for the second time. This passage was interesting to me as a reader, because it was the first time that I noticed how drastically the strophe and the antistrophe starkly contrasted the other, and was the first time that I even realized that this was what they were meant to do. Furthermore the passage is interesting in its use of language, particularly the words Sophocles chooses to describe the actions of man. The perception

In ancient Greek drama the strophe was the first part of a choral ode that was performed by the chorus while it moved from one side of the stage to the other. The strophe was followed by an antistrophe of the same metrical structure (performed while the chorus reversed its movement) and then by an epode of different structure that was chanted as the chorus stood still (britannica.com). I found it interesting that strophe in greek used to literally mean to twist, which makes a lot of sense in the way in which the strophe and antistrophe were a twist to each other. I also found that antistrophe was a dance in which the dancers would sometimes step to the right and sometimes step to the left (wikipedia.com). This definition of antistrophe mirrors the the different views projected by the strophe and antistrophe sometimes going left and sometimes going right. I also found it interesting that in researching the definition of both strophe and antistrophe their definitions went hand in hand, both words were defined by the turning or choosing of opposites. Surprisingly, strophe didn't directly mean good and antistrophe didn't exactly mean bad, but that they both meant something that was not straightforward, a reversal of