Conflict and reconciliation in Hegel's theory of tragedy

The aims of this article is to expound and defend Hegel's theory of the tragic and to clarify his concept of reconciliation. These two aims are Related in that a widespread but misleading conception of the tragic and a common, but mistaken, understanding of Hegel' s concept of reconciliation can seem to offer mutual support. I argue that once these are properly understood we can better understand Hegel's curious readings of the Antigone by Sophocles and the Eumenides by Aeschylus. I show that the latter rather than the former better exemplifies Hegel's theory, of which I offer a qualified defense