agon

plural agons · plural agones

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

   One way of reading Beowulf is to think of it as three agons in the hero's life[.]

   1999, Seamus Heaney, “Introduction”, in Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page xiv

   2 more examples

   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.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 134

   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.

   2023 October 17, Volodymyr Yermolenko, “Europe seeks peace, not war. But will it be ready if war comes to Europe?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. countableAn intellectual conflict or apparent competition of ideas.

   Freud's originality stemmed from his aggression and ambition in his agon with biology.

   1986 March 23, Harold Bloom, “Freud, the Greatest Modern Writer”, in New York Times

   1 more example

   The point, though, is that to fully and uncritically surrender to such agon against individuals is to invite one's own ethical degeneration; […]

   2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC

3. countableA contest in ancient Greece, as in athletics or music, in which prizes were awarded.
4. uncountableA two-player board game played on a hexagonally-tiled board, popular in Victorian times.

   Synonyms: queen's guard