Antigone, the earliest of the surviving dramas by Sophocles, is, in Hegel's view, the finest and most complete work in the ancient and modern world.

In our era, it has been forged amid the great wars of the 20th century, the unburied dead, the guilt of those who survived; it has passed through the hands of remarkable creators - R. Rolland, J. Anouilh, B. Brecht, A. Gide, H. Boll, M. Yourcenar, S. Heavey, G. Ritsos, A. Alexandrou… - illuminating the "terrible" nature of humanity, the "demonic machine" of all forms of power.

G. Steiner recorded the hundreds of Antigones that have been played on stages and battlefields around the planet.

This volume is a "double book." In the first, the classic text is transcribed into Modern Greek and extensively commented upon. The second book presents, for the first time in Greek literature, three significant essays inspired by Sophocles' drama, by Fr. Holderlin (1802), S. Kierkegaard (1843), and M. Heidegger (1943). Each essay is interpreted and commented upon separately.

The final contribution is the lyrical rendering of the Choral Odes of the drama by the resident of Klagenfurt, Austria, Stefano Iona. An Antigone at the intersection of the Greek and German spirit, as a "contradictory discourse that opposes discourse," as Holderlin summarized the drama.