ABSTRACT
Though the spurious ending of the Seven is one of the earliest documents in the reception history of the Antigone, the Antigone itself is deeply indebted to Aeschylus' play. Antigone's gesture becomes one of the means by which the self-destructive potential of Creon's thirst for power is realized. In terms of Bertolt Brecht's own antithesis, her stance may be 'moral', but it is not 'practical'. Brecht undercuts the exemplarity of the grand moral gesture by emphasizing its practical consequences and pointing out its subjectivity and self-referentiality. In doing so, he highlights the distinction between the internal divisions of the ruling class and the more fundamental, dialectical opposition between rulers and ruled. The Prelude in itself sets up an analogy between Creon's wish that Thebes be destroyed with him and the last days of Hitler; the failure of his aggression against Argos and the immediate turn in the tide of the war that this entails turns Argos into Stalingrad.
