() 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. is the word-forming element in 'agony', explaining the concept of agon(y) in

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

by its fundamental characters, the

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a ...

and antagonist.

Athletics

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

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

(Ὀλυμπιακοὶ Ἀγῶνες). Agon was also a mythological personification of the contests listed above. This god was represented in a statue at Olympia with '' halteres'' ( dumbbells) () in his hands. This statue was a work of sculptor , and dedicated by Micythus of Rhegium.

Religion

According to Pausanias, Agon was recognized in the Greek world as a deity, whose statue appeared at Olympia, presumably in connection with the

, which operated as both religious festival in honor of

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

and athletic competition. 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). More generally, Agon referred to any competitive event that was held in connection with religious festivals, including athletics, music, or dramatic performances. also appears as a concept in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

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).

Theater

In Ancient Greek drama, particularly

Old Comedy Old Comedy is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians.Mastromarco (1994) p.12 The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes – whose works, with their daring pol ...

(fifth century B.C.), refers to a contest or debate between two characters - the prot''agonist'' and the ant''agonist'' - in the highly structured Classical tragedies and

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

s. The could also develop between an

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and the

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

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 Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

. 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 ''Agons premiere, it became the final ballet in a series of collaborations between choreographer George Balanchine and composer

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

. Balanchine referred to this ballet as "the most perfect work" to come out of the collaboration between Stravinsky and himself.

Literature

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...

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 William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

. In '' Man, Play, and Games'' (1961),

Roger Caillois Roger Caillois (; 3 March 1913 – 21 December 1978) was a French intellectual and prolific writer whose original work brought together literary criticism, sociology, poetry, ludology and philosophy by focusing on very diverse subjects such as ...

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."

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 Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...

, and

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

(see also

agonistic democracy Agonism (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'struggle') is a political and social theory that emphasizes the potentially positive aspects of certain forms of conflict. It accepts a permanent place for such conflict in the political sphere, but seeks to s ...

Derivatives

Words derived from ''agon'' include agony, agonism, antagonism, and