agon

Definition

A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.

Etymology

From Latin agōn, from Ancient Greek ἀγών (agṓn, “contest”).

Example Sentences

• "It was not ecological pressure or shortages of protein, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has claimed; institutionalized violence, as opposed to the stylized agons of hunters over grievances, was the shadow side of the Neolithic Revolution."
• "One way of reading Beowulf is to think of it as three agons in the hero's life[.]"
• "The other ethical system is that of agon. Agon is a battlefield. We enter agon not to exchange, but to fight. We dream of winning but are also prepared to lose – including to lose ourselves, even in the literal sense of dying for a great cause."

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