The Burial at Thebes

Seamus Heaney · 2004 CE · Play · English · Contemporary

Creon, new ruler of Thebes, forbids the burial of his nephew Polynices as a traitor, and Antigone buries her brother anyway, setting a sister's duty against the state's decree. Heaney's version was commissioned for the centenary of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004, and he said that Creon's language of being with or against him spoke to the politics of the Iraq war.

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Lineage

• adapts ↑ Antigone
  Sophocles · c. 441 BCE · Play

Attributes

Closest analogues

• Antigone
  Sophocles · c. 441 BCE · Play

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• A Man for All Seasons
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• Arrow of God
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• Saint Joan
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  58% · 12 shared
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• Julius Caesar
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  58% · 11 shared
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• The Duchess of Malfi
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  55% · 11 shared
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