Agon (Ancient Greek:Ἀγών) is the Greek deity who personified conflict, struggle or contest. This could be a contest in athletics, inchariot 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) intragedy by its fundamental characters, theprotagonist and antagonist.
In one sense,agon meant a contest or a competition in athletics, for example, theOlympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ Ἀγῶνες).[1] Agon was also amythological personification of these kinds of contest.[2] This god was represented in a statue atOlympia withhalteres (dumbbells) (ἁλτῆρες) in his hands. This statue was a work of sculptorDionysius [ca;sk], and dedicated by Micythus ofRhegium.[3]
According to Pausanias, Agon was recognized in the Greek world as a deity, whose statue appeared atOlympia, presumably in connection with theOlympic Games, which operated as both religious festival in honor ofZeus 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) andNike (victory).[5] More generally, Agon referred to any competitive event that was held in connection withreligious festivals, including athletics, music, or dramatic performances.[6]
Agon also appears as a concept in theNew Testament[7][8] where thePaul the apostle writes in hisepistle to Timothy "Fight the good fight of the faith". It is defined in that context byStrong's Concordance as, agón: a gathering, contest, struggle; as an (athletic) contest; hence, a struggle (in the soul).[9]
InAncient Greek drama, particularlyOld Comedy (fifth century B.C.),[10]agon refers to a contest or debate between two characters - the protagonist and the antagonist - in the highly structured Classicaltragedies anddramas. Theagon could also develop between anactor and thechoir or between two actors with half of the chorus supporting each. Through the argument of opposing principles, the agon in these performances resembled the dialectic dialogues ofPlato.[11] The meaning of the term has escaped the circumscriptions of its classical origins to signify, more generally, the conflict on which a literary work turns.
From this usage comes the termsprotagonist, the first actor being foremost in the story's struggle, andantagonist, when the struggle is against this character. Thedeuteragonist andtritagonist act the second most important and third most important roles, and may overlap with the antagonist.
In 1948,Lincoln Kirstein posed the idea of a ballet that would later become known asAgon. After ten years of work beforeAgon's premiere, it became the final ballet in a series of collaborations between choreographerGeorge Balanchine and composerIgor Stravinsky.[12] Balanchine referred to this ballet as "the most perfect work" to come out of the collaboration between Stravinsky and himself.[13]
Harold Bloom inThe Western Canon uses the termagon 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 withShakespeare.
InMan, Play, and Games (1961),[14]Roger Caillois uses the termagon to describe competitive games in which the players have equal chances but the winner succeeds because of "a single quality (speed, endurance, strength, memory, skill, ingenuity, etc.), exercised, within defined limits and without outside assistance."[15]
In sociopolitical theory, agon can refer to the idea that the clash of opposing forces necessarily results in growth and progress. The concept, known asagonism, has been proposed most explicitly by a number of scholars, includingWilliam E. Connolly,Bonnie Honig, and Claudio Colaguori,[16] but is also implicitly present in the work of scholars such asTheodor Adorno, andMichel Foucault (see alsoagonistic democracy).
Words derived fromagon includeagony,agonism,antagonism, andprotagonist.
