FROM ANTIGONE TO BRECHT'S LEARNING PLAYS

One acts not only to change society but also to change oneself: to abandon one’s innermost dreams and desires.

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I want to take the risk and draw an unexpected parallel between Antigone and Bertolt Brecht’s learning plays, especially the three versions of Jasager and Die Maßnahme (The Measure Taken). In both plays, the hero freely chooses his death in accordance with the great timeless custom (der große Brauch). In reaction to the negative reviews of the first version from across the political spectrum, Brecht added two further versions of Jasager: Neinsager, in which the boy refuses to follow the old custom and, through rational argumentation, convinces the group to establish a new custom (he will not be thrown into the valley), and Jasager 2, in which the boy consents to be thrown into the valley, but only after rational argumentation—not just because the old custom must be followed. Thus, we have as the zero level a self-sacrificial gesture performed solely out of respect for the old custom, and then two versions based on rational argumentation: one that negates the custom and another that confirms it. Maßnahme is closer to Jasager 2: the killing of the young revolutionary is justified by quite convincing argumentation. However, it is clear that the zero-level self-sacrifice is not only the most traumatic act but also logically the starting point; other versions are grounded in it, and even in Maßnahme, the trauma persists. What Maßnahme adds is that it brings the self-sacrificial gesture to its self-negation: the boy must not only be killed—his disappearance itself must disappear; his face must be erased from history.

So where does Brecht himself stand with regard to this topic? His position is doubly neutral. First, he treats the three versions of Jasager as equal—more precisely, with equal indifference. One is almost tempted to claim that Brecht’s stance resembles that of Groucho Marx when he said, “These are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” My principle is that the boy should accept his death in accordance with the old custom, but if you don’t like it, I have two others: the boy should reject the old custom; or the boy should accept his death, not because it is demanded by the old custom, but because it can be rationally justified. However, there is a second point that ruins this appearance of neutrality: Brecht presents the basic traumatic choice of self-sacrifice grounded only in itself (in the old custom), not as a deep, shattering insight but as a neutral fact of human life, with no reference to any ideological or political stance. Brecht totally ignores the incompatibility between the Rightist pathos of self-sacrifice for one’s nation (which, according to the Left, effectively means sacrifice for the ruling class and its continued reign), the Leftist pathos of sacrifice for the freedom of the exploited, and the liberal-centrist rational suspicion of any sacrifice not grounded in clear pragmatic logic. All he does is bring out the pure form of sacrifice in its (apparently) apolitical core—and in doing so, he does something unacceptable for all major political options. Liberals perceive him as a propagandist of extreme irrational violence; Leftists as too close to Fascism; Fascists as ignoring the patriotic greatness and meaning of sacrifice. Mladen Dolar¹ succinctly formulates the focal point of Brecht’s learning plays:

“Is there a left discourse on sacrifice? Are not all the slogans of ‘teaching pieces’—sacrifice, consent, renunciation—the paramount ideological mechanisms? Wouldn’t one have to oppose them in the name of autonomy, integrity, the critique of ideology? Is Brecht’s demand for sacrifice in contradiction with debunking all renunciation as ideological? This is where Brecht’s gesture appears clearest: at the time of the fateful rise of the ideology of sacrifice, with its fatal fascination—a rise that the Left was unable to confront and prevent—he didn’t fight the central slogans of that ideology but espoused them as his own. He doesn’t take the line of critical distance or rational argument against it, but proceeds, so to speak, in a way more ideological than the ideology. The bottom line is rather: ideology demands too little sacrifice; it doesn’t impose enough renunciation. It demands giving up the part that is at odds with the existing order in order to keep it going, but one should push this further by demanding to give up also the part that supports it and is in congruence with it, in order to dismantle and transform it.”

And where is Antigone here? The contrast is obvious: while Antigone is about unconditional fidelity to the old custom of the proper ritual of burying a corpse—independently of who the dead was while alive—Brecht’s Jasager and Maßnahme are about a self-sacrificial death without a proper burial: death should leave no trace in memory or history; it should itself disappear. (One can speculate that Brecht unites here two aspects that could, in principle, be separated: the gesture of saying yes to self-sacrifice and the disappearance of disappearance itself. One can easily imagine a version of Jasager in which the boy who was thrown into the valley is posthumously celebrated as a hero who made it possible for the medicine to be brought to his town from beyond the mountains—or a comrade is liquidated and his disappearance itself disappears without his consent.) But there is nonetheless a parallel between Brecht’s three versions of Jasager plus Maßnahme and my three plus one versions of Antigone: in both cases, the variations are grounded in a basic traumatic version—Brecht’s Jasager 1, and my own fourth version of Antigone that I added on the suggestion of Alenka Zupančič.²

In her path-breaking Let Them Rot, Zupančič[[ii]] provided a reading of Antigone (Sophocles’ original version) which doesn’t fit any of my three versions.³ Antigone insists on burying Polynices and is condemned to death; Antigone convinces Creon to allow the proper burial of Polynices and the town of Thebes is ruined; the Chorus intervenes, arrests both Creon and Antigone, and puts them to death. For the new edition of my Antigone, to appear on the 10th anniversary of the first edition (in 2026), I thus decided to supplement the text with another version in which Antigone’s act is presented in its truly subversive and traumatic dimension: Antigone is not just following the rule that every human being, independently of his or her crimes, deserves a proper burial; she does it because Polynices is an exception, an incestuous monster. So, what is so traumatic about her act, and what finds an echo in Jasager 1? Here is a summary of Jasager 1⁴:

ACT I: The chorus announces the theme of the work: It is important to learn the art of consent, since many people give consent to a wrong act and many refuse to give consent to a right act. The teacher, who keeps a school in the city, enters. He hopes to bid farewell to one of his students before he goes off on a trip over the mountains. At the house, he asks the boy why he has not been to school recently, and the boy replies that his mother has been ill. The teacher describes his trip to the mother, who suggests that he should bring the boy along, and the boy also asks to join the trip. The teacher forbids it—the journey is too long and difficult, and he should stay home. But the boy reminds him that he is visiting a great physician, who might be able to help his mother. His mother reluctantly allows the boy to make the trip. The chorus reinforces the decision.

ACT II: The chorus explains that the teacher, the boy, and three older students are on the way up the mountain, and the boy is exhausted—he confesses that he is not well. The teacher tells him it is forbidden to say such things on the journey, but the three students have overheard and demand to speak to the teacher. He admits that the boy is ill, and the students remind him of the strict old custom that whoever falls ill during the journey over the mountains must be hurled into the valley. The teacher reminds them that the sick person may also demand that the entire party turn back; the students admit this but point out that, according to the same custom, the sick person should be hurled into the valley independently of how he answers—i.e., if he agrees with it or not (this detail is often not mentioned in the summaries of the play). Then, the teacher goes to the boy and offers him the choice; after a moment of reflection, the boy decides that he knew the risks and should not impede the expedition. He asks only that the three students fill his jar with medicine and take it to his mother, and they agree. Then the three students bear him gently to the cliff and throw him over. The chorus reiterates the theme of the importance of learning consent.