On Antigone's Dionysian Spirit: An Inquiry Into Sophocles' Antigone

From Nietzsche's "Dionysian" and "Apollonian" dual conflict theory into the ancient Greek tragedy Antigone,this article tries to demonstrate the strong resonance between Antigone and Nietzsche's "Dionysian spirit" on the basis of the text reading.The irreconcilable conflict involved in the tragedy can be understood as the conflict between the "God Order" and the "Dionysus Order",in which Ismene and Creon are understood to be the beneficiary and the defender of the "God Order",while Antigone is the impact of the "God Order".Titan gods in ancient Greek mythology,Typhon,Prometheus and Oedipus were the important links of Antigone and Nietzsche's"Dionysian spirit" because of their common original source,so as to emphasize the foundation of "God Order" and the background of the world.Due to the lack of a transcendental "heaven" vision,although the divine law proposed by Antigone implies absoluteness and universality,can only temporarily hide in the "Underworld"(Hades).Antigone's Dionysian spirit finally stops at a kind of negative theology.