Sophocles' great tragic play dramatises the clash between family and the city and, through high poetry and deep tragedy, presents an irreconcilable but equally balanced conflict.

Sophoclean heroine Antigone has become a cultural archetype - the personification of personal integrity and political freedom, and the play has been staged and adapted numerous times over the centuries.

It is published here in Don Taylor's classic translation with commentary and notes by David Bullen. The commentary looks at the original performance conditions that would have shaped the impact of Antigone in 441 BCE; key choices made by the translator; key ideas in the play taken up by philosophers such as Hegel and Butler; and more recent translations and adaptations.

Sophocles (c. 496 - 406 BCE) was one of the three great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece, along with Aeschylus and Euripides. He wrote 123 plays during a career of 60 years and was still writing at the age of 90. Only seven of his tragedies survive in their entirety.

David Bullen is a lecturer in drama and theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His research interests centre on myth, adaptation, feminist and queer theatre practice, and eco-dramaturgies. He is the author of Greek Tragedy in 21st Century British Theatre.