Representation

A couple of years ago, I taught Antigone to a group of high school seniors. The class had more or less been together for six years, beginning as a cohort in seventh grade in Latin I, and finishing as the first Latin VI class that I taught. Over the years, they read Caesar, Vergil, Catullus, Ovid, Pliny, and Cicero; texts where there aren’t many women. My initial goal in choosing to teach Antigone was finding a classical text where a woman played a significant role. They knew Dido and Ariadne. But both of them were written in relation to the heroes who left them behind, Aeneas and Theseus, respectively.

The word representation surfaced in some of my reading as I prepared to teach Antigone, and it stuck with me. In The Poetics, Aristotle writes that “epic and tragic composition… are all… representations,” (Aristotle, 1) and that “representation is natural to human beings,” (Aristotle, 4). We like representation because through representations we can learn something (Aristotle, 4). Aristotle came up with the idea, but I couldn’t help but think of its relevance even now.

Today, we are calling for reforms in representation. Not only in the political offices that we hear about daily, but also in the stories that we read, the history we learn in school, and so many other places. Representation in stories is powerful. Greek tragedy is one of the few places in classical literature where women had powerful representation. And, even though Simon Critchley points out the flaws in this representation, it is still important. Critchley writes that characters like Antigone “are described as manly because of their assertiveness and rebelliousness” but because of this, they also always die, (Critchley, 54). He points out that “… if women are free in tragedy, then this freedom is realized only in death,” (Critchley, 54). LIke lesbian fiction, women in classical literature often die, by suicide or other means. It seems, women who are strong cannot always lead full, long lives. 

Aristotle breaks representation into three groups: “different media, different objects, or a manner that is different and not the same,” (1). He goes on to say that representation may also use “colours and forms… rhythm, speech, and melody,” (1). Representation is not limited to language, to words, to tragedy (as Aristotle was writing about tragedy in The Poetics). Representation is about actions and choices. 

I’ve had on my mind the presidential and vice presidential nominations: the present democratic nominations, but the past, too. Appealing to an audience, to the people who will vote them into office, is not only about words, but about actions and images. Barack Obama, a Black man, chose Joe Biden because he had to appeal to all of America. And the way that maybe he appealed to the all of us was by choosing a white man. Joe Biden choosing a Black woman, a South Asian-American woman, as his running mate speaks again to representation, to appealing to a certain audience, an audience of Black women, of minorities. In order for Biden to reach his audience, he’s got to get proper representation. We might not all be excited about Biden and Harris, but having someone who looks like those Americans who are Black and Brown, that strikes me as important. We all see Biden, a white man, but what about what Biden represents? America. America is tired of old, white men. 

Aristotle wrote many thousands of years ago. Representation for Aristotle and the tragedians was not the same as representation today, or really, we have a wider definition of the word. Representation is important across all walks of life. When people see others like them represented, they believe in the possibility for themselves and others like them. Another thing that strikes me as important is our continued redefining of classical theories. Our use of them and also their pliancy. Even as we break away from them, we’ve used them as stepping stones. 

Aristotle. The Poetics. Translated by Richard Janko. Hackett Publishing Company, 1987.

Critchley, Simon. Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us. Pantheon Books. 2019.