“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
Monday, October 29, 2012
The Patriarch...
Fulchran-Jean Harriet, Oedipus at Colonnus (1798)
...and the pure and innocent one for whom appearances MUST be maintained!
btw - In case you're wondering, THAT is Antigone in the painting. Colonus, and the Sacred Grove of the Euminides (Furies), is the place where Oedipus will "disappear underground" in a location known only to "Theseus". Antigone will then return to Thebes to "bury" her brother, and in turn, be "buried alive" herself.
Sorry, if this is but a dull chronology to you, as I suspect it may be.
...I hate it when YOU play Devil's advocate. I only like it when I'm playing the lead role, myself. ;)
btw - I posted this painting for the quote at the bottom. I was listening to a recent Slavoj Zizek lecture on ideology, and "one" interpretation of the "big other" for whom certain ideological acts must be performed is the "rational" power himself, and on the "flip" side, his "perverse" repressed and irrational "reasons".
In this tale is the prohibition against incest. Oedipus sits with his daughter/sister. His heart/ her heart. The purity of HER innocence, THAT is the reason that his desires must be repressed (and he must (internally) blind himself to her sexuality).
6 comments:
Don't you think Jocasta should at least have been required to share a little bit in her son's guilt?
I mean the least she could have done would have been to poke out ONE of her eyes to show contrition, don't you think?
};-)>
Suicide wasn't ENOUGH? Egads....
btw - In case you're wondering, THAT is Antigone in the painting. Colonus, and the Sacred Grove of the Euminides (Furies), is the place where Oedipus will "disappear underground" in a location known only to "Theseus". Antigone will then return to Thebes to "bury" her brother, and in turn, be "buried alive" herself.
Sorry, if this is but a dull chronology to you, as I suspect it may be.
...I hate it when YOU play Devil's advocate. I only like it when I'm playing the lead role, myself. ;)
btw - I posted this painting for the quote at the bottom. I was listening to a recent Slavoj Zizek lecture on ideology, and "one" interpretation of the "big other" for whom certain ideological acts must be performed is the "rational" power himself, and on the "flip" side, his "perverse" repressed and irrational "reasons".
In this tale is the prohibition against incest. Oedipus sits with his daughter/sister. His heart/ her heart. The purity of HER innocence, THAT is the reason that his desires must be repressed (and he must (internally) blind himself to her sexuality).
Through one window, we see the natural world... a wild wilderness... through the other, civilization... Colonnus (a suburb of Athens).
This painting presents a "liminal" moment.
....soon to be subliminal. ;)
For we can all detect which "way" the wind is blowing. ;)
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