Heidegger’s Antigone: The Ethos of Poetic Existence

Heidegger’s Antigone: The Ethos of Poetic Existence

In this article, I elucidate Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone from a topological point of view by focusing on the placecharacter of Antigone’s poetic ethos. Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s order and bury her brother Polynices is discussed as a movement that underpins her poetic disposition as a demigod. Antigone’s situatedness between gods and humans is identified as the place of poetic dwelling, and the significance of Antigone’s relation to the polis is explained. The main argument of the article is twofold: 1) When we read Antigone focusing on the notion of dwelling, we can better make sense how Heidegger’s engagement with the question of finitude closes the envisioned gap between ontology and ethics. 2) The idea of poetic dwelling is a confrontation with spatio-temporal limits of human existence, and requires a more holistic way of thinking about the place of humans in the world, thinking beyond being-action dichotomy

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