Le donne, le parole e le cose. Filosofia, femminilità e finzione nel mondo antico

In this text the authors focus on two female figures of ancient greek litera- ture: Antigone and Helen. The first is the heroine of the Sophocle’s tragedy, the second is the homeric and sophistic figure of woman that is the cause of the Trojan War. In the Sophocle’s famous play, produced in Athens in the fifth century BC, Antigone decides to die to be faithful to the unwritten laws of respect for their dead loved ones against the written laws of the city. In the Gorgia’s text, also produced in the fifth century BC, Helen represents not only the mythical character of the homeric epic, but also the power of the word and the word as a drug. In the last part of this text the authors focus also on the Plato’s Timaeus, where Plato speaks of the chora as a material to be molded, as a mother, as a poet who receives divine inspiration.