Agon

Agon (Greek ἀγών) is a Greek term for a conflict, struggle or contest. This could be a contest in athletics, in chariot or horse racing, or in music or literature at a public festival in ancient Greece. Agon is the word-forming element in 'agony', explaining the concept of agon(y) in tragedy by its fundamental characters, the protagonist and antagonist.

Athletics

In one sense, agon meant a contest or a competition in athletics, for example, the

According to Pausanias, Agon was recognized in the Greek world as a deity, whose statue appeared at Olympia, presumably in connection with the Olympic Games, which operated as both religious festival in honor of Zeus and athletic competition.^[4] Agon is, perhaps, more of a spirit than a god in Greek mythology, but was understood to be related to both Zelos (rivalry) and Nike (victory).^[5] More generally, Agon referred to any competitive event that was held in connection with religious festivals, including athletics, music, or dramatic performances.^[6]

Agon also appears as a concept in the New Testament^[7][8] and is defined in that context by Strong's Concordance as, agón: a gathering, contest, struggle; as an (athletic) contest; hence, a struggle (in the soul).^[9]

Theater

In

In 1948, Lincoln Kirstein posed the idea of a ballet that would later become known as Agon. After ten years of work before Agon's premiere, it became the final ballet in a series of collaborations between choreographer George Balanchine and composer Igor Stravinsky.^[12] Balanchine referred to this ballet as "the most perfect work" to come out of the collaboration between Stravinsky and himself.^[13]

Literature

Harold Bloom in The Western Canon uses the term agon to refer to the attempt by a writer to resolve an intellectual conflict between his ideas and the ideas of an influential predecessor in which "the larger swallows the smaller", such as in chapter 18, Joyce's agon with Shakespeare.

In "Man, Play, and Games" Roger Caillois uses the term Agon to define games of competitive nature.

Sociopolitical theory

In sociopolitical theory, agon can refer to the idea that the clash of opposing forces necessarily results in growth and progress. The concept, known as

Derivatives

Words derived from agon include agony, agonism, antagonism, and protagonist.

See also

• Man, Play and Games (Roger Caillois)

Notes

Further reading

Look up agon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Árnason, Jóhann Páll. Agon, Logos, Polis: The Greek Achievement and Its Aftermath. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001
  ISBN 978-3515077477
• Barker, Elton T. Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography, and Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009
  ISBN 978-0199542710
• Lloyd, Michael A. The agon in Euripides. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992
  ISBN 978-0198147787
• Pfitzner, Victor C. Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature. Leiden: Brill, 1967
  ISBN 9789004015968
• Trapido, Joel (October 1949). "The Language of the Theatre: I. The Greeks and Romans". Educational Theatre Journal. 1 (1): 18–26.
  JSTOR 3204106
  .
• Ramba, Dietrich (2014). Bestimmung der prägenden Wesenszüge im Sport der griechisch-römischen Antike [Determination of the Poignant Characteristics of Sports in the Greco-Roman Antiquity] (PhD) (in German).
  hdl:11858/00-1735-0000-0022-5EFD-8
  .
• Claudio Colaguori (2012). Agon Culture: Competition, Conflict and the Problem of Domination. de Sitter Publications.
  ISBN 978-1-897160-63-3
  .