agon

{{Short description|Ancient Greek personification of struggle or competition}}

{{translit|grc|Agon}} ({{langx|grc|ἀγών}}) is the Greek personification for a conflict, struggle or contest, describing a concept of the same name. This could be a contest in athletics, in chariot or horse racing, or in music or literature at a public festival in ancient Greece. {{translit|grc|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, {{translit|grc|agon}} meant a contest or a competition in athletics, for example, the Olympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ Ἀγῶνες).{{cite book|title=Oxford Companion to Classical Literature|edition=3|editor-last=Howatson|editor-first=M. C.|contribution=agon|contribution-url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199548545.001.0001/acref-9780199548545-e-0103}} Agon was also a mythological personification of the contests listed above.{{Cite book| last = Schmitz | first = Leonhard | contribution = Agon | editor-last = Smith | editor-first = William | title = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | title-link = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | page = 74 | publisher = Little, Brown and Company | place = Boston | year = 1867 | contribution-url = https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ACL3129.0001.001/89?rgn=full+text;view=image}} This god was represented in a statue at Olympia with halteres (dumbbells) ({{lang|grc|ἁλτῆρες}}) in his hands. This statue was a work of sculptor {{ill|Dionysius (sculptor)|lt=Dionysius|ca|Dionisi (escultor fill de Timàrquides)|sk|Dionysios (syn Timarchida)}}, and dedicated by Micythus of Rhegium.Pausanias, Description of Greece, book V (Elis), v. 26. § 3

Religion

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.Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 20. 3 and 5. 26. 3 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).{{Cite web|title=AGON - Greek God or Spirit of Contest|url=https://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Agon.html|access-date=2020-11-19|website=www.theoi.com}} More generally, Agon referred to any competitive event that was held in connection with religious festivals, including athletics, music, or dramatic performances.Trapido (1949)

{{translit|grc|Agon}} also appears as a concept in the New Testament{{Cite book|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004265936|title=Paul and the Agon Motif|date=1967-01-01|publisher=BRILL|doi=10.1163/9789004265936|isbn=978-90-04-26593-6|last1=Pfitzner}}As e.g. at 1 Timothy 6:12 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).[http://concordances.org/greek/73.htm Strong's Concordance]

Theater

In Ancient Greek drama, particularly Old Comedy (fifth century B.C.),{{cite journal|last=Humphreys|first=Milton W.|title=The Agon of the Old Comedy|journal=The American Journal of Philology|date=1887|volume=8|issue=2| pages=179–206|doi=10.2307/287385|jstor=287385}} {{translit|grc|agon}} refers to a contest or debate between two characters - the protagonist and the antagonist - in the highly structured Classical tragedies and dramas. The {{translit|grc|agon}} could also develop between an actor and the choir 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 of Plato.["agon." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 17 February 2014.] 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.

Dance

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.{{cite journal |last1=Alm |first1=Irene |title=Stravinsky, Balanchine, and Agon: An Analysis Based on the Collaborative Process |journal=The Journal of Musicology |date=April 1989 |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=254–269 |doi=10.2307/763771|jstor=763771 }} Balanchine referred to this ballet as "the most perfect work" to come out of the collaboration between Stravinsky and himself.{{cite journal |last1=Jordan |first1=Stephanie |title=Agon: A Musical/Choreographic Analysis |journal=Dance Research Journal |date=Autumn 1993 |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=1–12 |doi=10.2307/1478549|jstor=1478549 |s2cid=191572990 }}

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 (1961),{{Cite book |last=Simpson |first=Tim |title=Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China's Consumer Revolution |date=2023 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-5179-0031-1 |series=Globalization and Community series |location=Minneapolis |pages=97}} Roger Caillois uses the term agon 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."{{Cite book |last=Guo |first=Li |title=Games & Play in Chinese & Sinophone Cultures |date=2024 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=9780295752402 |editor-last=Guo |editor-first=Li |location=Seattle, WA |pages=118 |chapter=The Courtesans' Drinking Games in The Dream in the Green Bower |editor-last2=Eyman |editor-first2=Douglas |editor-last3=Sun |editor-first3=Hongmei}}

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 agonism, has been proposed most explicitly by a number of scholars, including William E. Connolly, Bonnie Honig, and Claudio Colaguori,Colaguori 2012 but is also implicitly present in the work of scholars such as Theodor Adorno, and Michel Foucault (see also agonistic democracy).

Derivatives

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