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7 - Playing with Shadows in Heidegger’s Reading of Greek Tragedy

Encountering Oedipus, Antigone, and (Absent) Medea

from II - Heidegger and Greek Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

By
Silvia Benso
Edited by
Andrew Benjamin
Andrew Benjamin
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
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Summary

After a brief overview of Heidegger’s motivations and interest in engaging Greek tragedy understood as a downgoing in the realm of shadows, this chapter addresses three shadow figures that mark Greek tragedy as an experience of the uncanny – Oedipus, Antigone, and Medea. Whereas Heidegger addresses the first two figures at length, there is no mention of Medea in his works. By focusing on the notion of passion for being (originally advanced by Heidegger’s reading of Oedipus), this chapter explores relations of homeliness and unhomeliness, internal and external enmity, family and polis, citizen and foreigner/stranger, love and resistance, trust and betrayal of trust in Heidegger’s reading of tragedy. Ultimately, the chapter points to Medea’s (absent) character as a needed figure to maintain Heidegger’s relation to tragedy open to the possibility of a politically and existentially non-totalizing way of thinking aligned with Heidegger’s initial ambitions when returning to Greek tragedy as a theme for philosophy.

Keywords

HeideggerGreek tragedyMedeaenmitystranger/foreignertrust
Type
Chapter
Information
Heidegger and Literary Studies , pp. 150 - 182
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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