Apuleius' story of Cupid and Psyche, the relationship of the human Soul with divine Love, is one of the great allegories of world literature. It forms an integral part of and profoundly illuminates the message of his novel Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, which relates the adventures of a young man and his spiritual fall and redemption. To enrich and deepen his basic plot, the origins of which are obscure, Apuleius has combined poetic sources, Platonic philosophy and popular iconography (...) in an unprecedented tour de force of literary creation. This edition sensitively elucidates the subtle art with which this transformation has been accomplished, and comprehensively illustrates both Apuleius' inventive handling of his various models and sources and the exuberant and idiosyncratic Latinity with forms the vehicle for it. It places in a fresh light the results of recent work on the ancient Novel and on Apuleius himself, and offers a stimulating, occasionally provocative, reading of his much-discussed text. The Latin is accompanied by a facing English translation, making the edition more accessible to students of comparative literature as well as to classicists. (shrink)

Educators are increasingly concerned with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in student writing. Much of the concern focuses on the issue of students using ChatGPT to complete their work. I introduce the CUPID model for instructors to use when thinking about how to pedagogically handle ChatGPT. The CUPID model lays out five general approaches: Catch, Utilize, Prevent, Ignore, and Disincentivize. I suggest that instructors should especially consider using certain assignments that fall under the approach “Disincentivize”. Philosophy instructors (...) in particular should assign more low-stakes writing, such as journals and reflection pieces. The adoption of low-stakes writing assignments aims to discourage students from relying on AI while promoting clarity of thought and deeper engagement with philosophical ideas. (shrink)

The general significance of Ovid's Apollo-Dapbne within its immediate context seems plain enough. Ovid's technique, as Otis remarks, is to set epic pretensions beside elegiac behaviour and thus to show a struggle between incompatible styles of life and poetry. Yet the episode still poses certain problems. These mainly concern the significance of the story within the wider context of the opening of Ovid's poem. One difficulty is hinted at by Otis himself. He observes that with the Apollo-Dapbne and Jupiter-10 Ovid (...) has ‘deflated his divine prologue’. Yet elsewhere3 Otis remarks that in one sense the gap between the behaviour of the gods in the concilium deorum and their philandering in the Daphne and Io stories is very slight. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 126.4 (2005) 613-622 [Access article in PDF] The Triumph of Cupid: Marlowe's Dido Queen of Carthage Mary-Kay Gamel University of California, Santa Cruz e-mail: [email protected] is a lot for classicists to like in Marlowe's The Tragedy of Dido Queen of Carthage. There was a lot for theatergoers to like in Neil Bartlett's production of this play at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) in Cambridge, (...) Massachusetts (March 5–26, 2005).The script of Dido is based primarily on the Aeneid (Books I, II, and IV). Vergil's text contains many formal and thematic allusions to tragedy, especially in IV: the agonistic speeches; Anna's role as nutrix/confidante; comparisons of Dido to a raging Bacchant (301–3), Pentheus (469–70) and scaenis agitatus Orestes 471; and her thoughts of imitating the savage violence of Medea and Atreus 600–602. Aeneid IV raises the possibility that the poem will metamorphose from epic to tragedy, with Dido taking center stage from Aeneas.That is what happens in Ovid's Heroides 7, and it happens again in Dido Queen of Carthage. Marlowe probably wrote this play—his first—in 1585, when he was a twenty-one year old student at Cambridge University. An excellent Latinist, Marlowe did a superb translation of Ovid's Amores, probably before writing Dido. In writing Dido, Marlowe focused on Aeneid I, II, and IV, the books of the poem best known to ancient, Elizabethan, and modern audiences, and in a few places his characters speak Latin lines from the Aeneid. In dramatizing this material, Marlowe did not simply translate but made many changes in structure, characters, and language. Aeneas' account of the fall of Troy, for example, condenses all of Aeneid II (more than 800 lines) into 163 lines (still a very long speech, which includes horrific details not in Vergil: "young infants swimming in their parents' blood, / headless carcasses piled up in heaps" [II.i.193–94]).1 [End Page 613]Most significantly, Marlowe makes his gods Ovidian rather than Vergilian—selfish and petty, concerned only with status and pleasure, using human beings only to satisfy their desires. Jupiter is a middle-aged man making a fool of himself over a teenager: in the first scene he is not, as in the Aeneid, looking down from Olympus and already thinking about Aeneas, but rather trying to seduce Ganymede, a "female wanton boy," when Venus indignantly interrupts with "Ay, this is it!" (I.i.50).Venus' encounter with Aeneas in Carthage (Aeneid I.314–417) ends with Aeneas' unanswerable question, "Why talk we not together hand in hand / And tell our griefs in more familiar terms?" (I.i.245–46). Venus and Juno's plot to unite Dido and Aeneas is complete with sexual double-entendre: in the cave, Juno says, they will "interchangeably discourse their thoughts / Whose short conclusion will seal up their hearts" (III.ii.93–94). Costumes in the ART production reflected the gods' iconic status, though more in terms of Hollywood than ancient representations: Juno was a drag queen, Hermes an unearthly figure in gold paint with huge wings, while Venus was played by an African-American actress in white satin and spike heels (including her hunting outfit) with exaggeratedly "black" gestures and intonations—waving her long fingernails, arching her neck, posing her head, and calling Juno "sistah!" Bartlett was clearly not worried about using sexual and racial stereotypes to make an impact.Marlowe's mortals are dignified, yet wounded and vulnerable. His Dido is proud, independent, initially uninterested in Aeneas; his Iarbas genuinely loves Dido, warmly welcomes Ilioneus and the others; Anna is in love with Iarbas. All try to behave reasonably and honorably but are invariably thwarted by the gods' games. The ART Aeneas was deeply damaged by his experiences in Troy. A craggy man, wearing a scoured breastplate over worn fatigues, he staggered on, stooped, beaten. The text supports this interpretation: before beginning his speech about the fall of Troy, he says "memory... beats forth my senses from this... (shrink)

The philosopher and his passion for the “gentle sex”.

Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche is shown to feature detailed knowledge of ancient magic integrated into the plot, especially the magic of the so-called ‘Sword of Dardanus’ spell and of other papyri with Middle Platonic content. A recently published gemstone from Perugia testifies to the wide distribution of the ‘Sword’. Apuleius’ allusion to the erotic spell involves both Cupid and Venus torturing Psyche. Although Venus’ intentions are to prevent the bond between the lovers, her actions inadvertently echo (...) those depicted in the ‘Sword’ and contribute to the couple's eternal union. Ancient magic is therefore shown to be potent and effective, despite Venus’ plans. This is a methodology Apuleius is known to use widely, for example in his obvious allusions to, and adaptations of, Hellenistic poetry in the story. Magic joins poetry and philosophy as a category of texts shown to be playfully integrated into Apuleius’ construction of the plot of Cupid and Psyche. (shrink)

This article offers a new interpretation of Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche. Most scholars have previously offered a second-time reading of this story, according to which the reader reaches Book 11 and then looks back at Psyche's story of fall and redemption as a parallel for Lucius’ life. Following Graverini's and other scholars’ emotional approach to theMetamorphoses, I argue that the ecphrasis of Cupid's palace within the story of Cupid and Psyche includes multiple re-enactments of the (...) novel's prologue. These re-enactments invite the reader to undertake a first-time and immersive reading of this story, which focusses on Psyche's experience of Cupid and her reaction to his epiphany. In its use of immersion, this article draws from recent developments in cognitive narratology and pushes scholars of Apuleius to focus on the reader's immersive and emotional response in order to reassess the value of a second-time reading of theMetamorphoses. (shrink)

That the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius' Metamorphoses is a version of a common world-wide folk-tale has long been recognized. Scholarly debate has concentrated on the conclusions to be drawn from this with regard to the significance of the story—mythological, religious, allegorical, and so on. With the additional information provided by Swahn's comprehensive monograph on the subject an attempt can now be made to study some of the aspects of literary technique involved in the adaptation of the (...) folk-tale. In what follows I have tried to avoid making any assumptions about a possible literary source of Apuleius' tale. I am concerned with the ways in which the literary version which we possess modifies the folk material, and not with the author of this modification. (shrink)

That the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius' Metamorphoses is a version of a common world-wide folk-tale has long been recognized. Scholarly debate has concentrated on the conclusions to be drawn from this with regard to the significance of the story—mythological, religious, allegorical, and so on. With the additional information provided by Swahn's comprehensive monograph on the subject an attempt can now be made to study some of the aspects of literary technique involved in the adaptation of the (...) folk-tale. In what follows I have tried to avoid making any assumptions about a possible literary source of Apuleius' tale. I am concerned with the ways in which the literary version which we possess modifies the folk material, and not with the author of this modification. (shrink)

French rebels ate no cupid's earfor ribald amorous naughty complications enfeeblefist's robust ambitions, nurse corruption, enthrallfighter's reason and nudge coward's eros.First, rub a nose clean, engenderfriendly relations and name candidate earmarkedfor roses and nature's compliments: emptyflattery. Read a newspaper, count eminentfailures, rate all notorious collaborators enemies,find rapture at nocturnal clandestine election,foster rebellion, animate novice's campaign energies,frisk, ransack antiquated notions, claustrophobic elementaryfallacies, rattle a nation's complacent experience.Fly, rant at nominations, crass errors,flawed rotten apples, nepotism's classic entryfor rakish adventurers. Nine councillors (...) endfree rampage as neurotics clamor excitedlyfor religious absurdities, needling curious envy. (shrink)

Introduction: Women in love -- Cupid doffs his blindfold : love as wisdom -- The power of power differentials : love as inequality -- The blade between us : love as transgression -- We must be two before we can be one : love as absence -- On my blood I'll carry you away : love as heroism -- Anonymous except for injury : love as failure -- Carving in the flesh : love as art -- Epilogue: Waging love (...) : toward a new definition of eros. (shrink)

“April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire… ” So, begins T.S. Eliot’s iconic poem, “The Wasteland,” challenging the memory of Chaucer’s April from Canterbury Tales, as being a delightful month to go on pilgrimage. Platonic teachings emphasize that you don’t create, you just remember. Might the inverse might also be true, “You don’t remember, you just create.” As the oneirocritic, Robert Bosnak, contends, you do not actually remember your dreams. You remember (...) your memory you recreate the dream in this time. Since the challenges of post-modernism, this is no longer a far-fetched idea. The eminent historian of immigration, Deborah Dash Moore, defines history in this regard, as “a search for a plausible narrative.” “History” is not a record of what happened, but rather, is a record of what we believe happened, or what we want to believe happened. This brings to the fore Foucault’s documenting the relationship of knowledge to power, as well as Freud’s assertion that material which is unacceptable to the ego, is disguised, in order to make them palatable. This places the notion of memory in a different light. There are incidents that occurred fifty years ago that seem as if they occurred five minutes ago. The depth psychologist and champion of the imagination, James Hillman, referred to this process as “soul-making.” Back to T.S. Eliot: when he studied Sanskrit at Harvard, he was certainly aware that the Sanskrit word for memory, smara (from which smrti “that which is remembered,” is derived) is also an epithet for Kama Deva, the Indian Cupid. Hence, the mixing of memory and desire. Perhaps, in this light, the study of history, which is a form of collective memory, is also a form of mass therapy, an effort to process the collective past. Hegel and Marx both believed classical India to be an inferior civilization because it had “no history,” but collections of mythologies. Maybe classical India, however, held an awareness that all memory is myth, a word which in its early Greek form literally translates as “plot.” Jesus declares (in the Gospel story) “Let the dead bury the dead.” As the Jesus narrative exemplifies, however, burying the dead is no easy task. Perhaps our ongoing, ever-morphing narratives, allow us an oblique opportunity to connect with and process our pain. And in this theatre of memory, the goal may not be to accumulate or catalogue what has been spoken (itihasa), but look a good miller, to process the grain into its essence: from what has passed, and is passing, and is to come, into what always is. Perhaps, the pilgrimage of the mind, on its endless perigination of story, is meant to ultimately take us to love, but that may be unspeakable. Keywords: memory, desire, narrative, history, myth, power. (shrink)

In the ancient legend of Cupid and Psyche, Venus was jealous of Psyche’s beauty and plotted to punish her by binding her through love to a hideous creature that would appear once Cupid scratched Psyche with his arrow of desire while she slept, so that she would fall in love with the next thing she saw upon awakening. But when Cupid saw her beauty, he was so overwhelmed that he accidentally wounded himself with his own arrow and (...) thus fell deeply in love with her. The tale then describes how Venus unsuccessfully tried to keep Cupid and Psyche apart, which makes a nice allegory for the difficulty of separating the soul from desire. Though this mission may seem as undesirable as it is unlikely to achieve, we should .. (shrink)

Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, reveled in perfume (Plutarch, Life of Marcus Antonius 26.2). She even used it in her seduction of the Roman general Marc Antony. Sailing up the river Cydnus to meet him, she reclined in a canopy spangled with gold, adorned like Venus in a painting. Boys dressed as cupids fanned her and wondrous scents from incense offerings wafted along the riverbanks. Not long after her death in August 30 BCE, a book (...) circulated under her name called Cleopatra’s Cosmetic, full of recipes for fragrant oils and cleansers (Totelin 2017: 114–18). (shrink)

Grasping. Avarice. Covetousness. Miserliness. Insatiable cupidity. Overreaching ambition. Desire spun out of control. The deadly sin of Greed goes by many names, appears in many guises, and wreaks havoc on individuals and nations alike. In this lively and generous book, Phyllis A. Tickle argues that Greed is "the Matriarch of the Deadly Clan," the ultimate source of Pride, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, and Anger. She shows that the major faiths, from Hinduism and Taoism to Buddhism and Christianity regard Greed as (...) the greatest calamity humans can indulge in, engendering further sins and eviscerating all virtues. As the Sikh holy book Adi Granth asks: "Where there is greed, what love can there be?" Tickle takes a long view of Greed, from St. Paul to the present, focusing particularly on changing imaginative representations of Greed in Western literature and art. Looking at such works as the Psychomachia, or "Soul Battle" of the fifth-century poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the paintings of Peter Bruegel and Hieronymous Bosch, the 1987 film Wall Street, and the contemporary Italian artist Mario Donizetti, Tickle shows how our perceptions have evolved from the medieval understanding of Greed as a spiritual enemy to a nineteenth-century sociological construct to an early twentieth-century psychological deficiency, and finally to a new view, powerfully articulated in Donizetti's mystical paintings, of Greed as both tragic and beautiful. Engaging, witty, brilliantly insightful, Greed explores the full range of this deadly sin's subtle, chameleon-like qualities, and the enormous destructive power it wields, evidenced all too clearly in the world today. (shrink)

The constitutional monarchy of present-day Britain hardly seems the same sort of institution as fourteenth-century feudal kingdoms, but Dante’s Monarchia (c. 1313) and Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution (1872) share fundamental assumptions about what the purpose and strengths of monarchy are. In the Monarchia, Dante lays out the essential attributes of monarchy that endure even today: authority, impartiality, and unity. Dante values and promotes monarchy as final arbiter of conflicts, sole just judge without cupidity, and unifying will. More than 550 (...) years later, Bagehot, despite his distrust concerning the Crown’s actual effectiveness, conceives of monarchy in surprisingly similar terms. The monarch is ‘the regulating wheel of our Constitution’, an authority outside and above partisan politics, and the ‘dignified’, ‘intelligible’, unifying element of government. In both cases, the monarch functions as the government’s source of impartial, unifying authority – whether monarch or Parliament ultimately wields that authority. The broad outlines of monarchy are surprisingly similar for both writers, suggesting a basic continuity in the conceptualization of monarchy from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century (and beyond) and an abiding store of reserve symbolism within the monarchic concept that writers, thinkers, and politicians throughout those centuries are able to tap at will. (shrink)

Cet article s’appuie sur la thèse de Galien formulée dans le titre de son traité Que le meilleur médecin est aussi philosophe, afin de mieux appréhender les situations de pandémies, passées et présentes. On abordera la relation entre la philosophie antique et la médecine à la lumière des propos sarcastiques et sévères de Galien à l’égard des médecins cupides et immoraux de son temps, ainsi que dans le contexte plus large des relations socio-philosophiques de la société antique et médiévale, où (...) la théorie philosophique et la médecine comme praxis appartiennent à différents domaines aristotéliciens : le loisir ( sholé ) et le travail ( asholía ). Plus largement, c’est en adoptant une approche à la fois médicale et philosophique sur les maux auxquels l’humanité est confrontée que l’on peut espérer les surmonter avec une conscience éclairée. (shrink)

In his magisterial new commentary on the Amores J. C. McKeown alleges an ‘inconsistency’ or ‘flaw in the dramatic continuity’ between Amores 1.1 and 1.2: ‘whereas Ovid is fully aware in 1.1 that he is under Cupid's domination, he shows no such awareness in the opening lines of 1.2.’ Previously A. Cameron had used this ‘inconsistency’, together with the evident programmatic character of 1.2, as an indication that the second poem must in fact have been the first poem of (...) one of the original five books of Amores; then when Ovid decided to reduce the number of books from five to three, he wanted to keep Esse quid hoc dicam and had no choice but to put it as near as possible the front of the first book, immediately after that book's own introductory poem. This reconstruction McKeown rightly rejects on the ground that 1.2's emphasis on Ovid's newness to love makes it out of place in any book other than the first. (shrink)

In his magisterial new commentary on the Amores J. C. McKeown alleges an ‘inconsistency’ or ‘flaw in the dramatic continuity’ between Amores 1.1 and 1.2: ‘whereas Ovid is fully aware in 1.1 that he is under Cupid's domination, he shows no such awareness in the opening lines of 1.2.’ Previously A. Cameron had used this ‘inconsistency’, together with the evident programmatic character of 1.2, as an indication that the second poem must in fact have been the first poem of (...) one of the original five books of Amores; then when Ovid decided to reduce the number of books from five to three, he wanted to keep Esse quid hoc dicam and had no choice but to put it as near as possible the front of the first book, immediately after that book's own introductory poem. This reconstruction McKeown rightly rejects on the ground that 1.2's emphasis on Ovid's newness to love makes it out of place in any book other than the first. (shrink)

Esprit, l’un des mots clés des Pensées, reçoit chez Pascal deux significations : la raison et le souffle intérieur. Si l’esprit en tant que mens rationalis appartient au deuxième ordre, l’esprit en tant que mens spiritualis relève du troisième ordre. Deux dualismes se croisent dans la distinction pascalienne des trois ordres : le premier de nature philosophique, cartésienne, oppose le premier ordre, voué au corps, et les deuxième et troisième ordres, voués à la mens ; le second, de nature éthico-religieuse, (...) oppose le premier et le deuxième ordres, ordres de la cupidité, au troisième ordre, celui de la charité. Au-dessus de l’esprit/raison se tient l’esprit/amour. Pascal tisse, au sein du troisième ordre, un lien entre l’esprit et le cœur. Dans la notion de spiritus cordialis, d’esprit cordial, se situe l’apport essentiel de l’auteur des Pensées.« Esprit », one of the key-words of Pascal’s Pensées, has two meanings according to Pascal : i.e. reason and interior creative inspiration. If esprit as mens rationalis belongs to the second order, esprit as mens spiritualis refers to the third order. Two dualisms cross themselves within the Pascalian distinction of three orders. The former – of a philosophical nature, i.e. Cartesian – opposes the first order, devoted to the body and the second and third order devoted to the mens ; the latter – of an ethico-religious nature – opposes both the first and second order, i.e. the orders of cupidity to the third order, i.e. that of charity. The esprit as love rests above the esprit as reason. Pascal weaves, amid the third order a link between the esprit and the heart. The major contribution of the author of the Pensées rests in the concept of spiritus cordialis. (shrink)

Thomas Taylor in England, by K. Raine.--Thomas Taylor in America, by G. M. Harper.--Biographical accounts of Thomas Taylor.--Concerning the beautiful.--The hymns of Orpheus.--Concerning the cave of the nymphs.--A dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic mysteries.--Introduction to The fable of Cupid and Psyche.--The Platonic philosopher's creed.--An apology for the fables of Homer.--Bibliography (p. [521]-538).

Statius' last, unfinished poem, the Achilleid, is a more varied and charming work than readers of the The baid could ever have imagined, and is perhaps the most attractive approach to this highly imitative and professional poet. It is generally agreed that both Statius' diction and his narrative form are greatly influenced by Virgil and Ovid: but if he considered the Theban poem as his own Aeneid, we might fairly see the Achilleid as more akin to the Metamorphoses; diction and (...) epic devices may remain recognizably Virgilian, but the relaxed tone, the gentle irony and open humour take us into Ovid's world. As an illustration, the brief episode in which Thetis conveys her sleeping son from Thessaly over the sea to Scyros probably draws its original inspiration from Venus' substitution of Cupid for Ascanius in Aeneid 1: Venus' son procures his own arrival, but she spirits away the sleeping Ascanius; ‘at Venus Ascanio placidam per membra quietem/ irrigat et fotum gremio dea tollit in altos/Idaliae lucos’. (shrink)

continent. 1.1 (2011): 27-32. “My”—what does this word designate? Not what belongs to me, but what I belong to,what contains my whole being, which is mine insofar as I belong to it. Søren Kierkegaard. The Seducer’s Diary . I can’t sleep till I devour you / And I’ll love you, if you let me… Marilyn Manson “Devour” The role of poetry in the relationalities between people has a long history—from epic poetry recounting tales of yore; to emotive lyric poetry; to (...) rude, irreverent limericks; to Hallmark cards which have ditties that allow one to cringe, and somehow fall in love at the same moment. Without going into a notion of aesthetics, or attempting to choose which form of poetry is superior, we might want to consider why the form of poetry itself has long been a part of relationality. And whilst doing so, we might always keep in mind that poetry—especially poetry that moves, transports us—is the form that Plato has been warning us about, particularly if we want to become good citizens.As Avital Ronell teaches us in Stupidity : the poet, irremediably split between exaltation and vulgarity, between the autonomy that produces the concept within intuition and the foolish earthly being, functions as a contaminant for philosophy—a being who at least since Plato, has been trying to read and master an eviction notice served by philosophy. The poet as genius continues to threaten and fascinate, menacing the philosopher with the beyond of knowledge. Philosophy cringes (287). And considering that the philosopher is the lover of wisdom, we might begin to ask ourselves why one lover is warning against another—if the philosopher is in love with wisdom, then is the poet perhaps his rival, his challenger, for that very love? For, one must also remember that Plato—through Socrates—mentions constantly that Homer is his favourite. Moreover, by adopting both his own voice, whilst mixing it with Socrates’, Plato is adopting the form of poetry that he warns most about—the warning almost serves more as a homage to poetry than anything else. Here, we might open the register that one of the main reasons that he ejects a particular kind of poet is on the grounds of effecting effeminacy on the populace—good poetry moves you, affects you, transports you, shifts you beyond reason, puts you “out of your mind.” However, Plato also teaches us that rhetoric in its highest form requires divine inspiration by way of the daemon, or the muse. This moment of divine intervention is one that seizes—perhaps even ceases—you; putting you “beyond yourself.” In other words, a good rhetorician must always already be open to the possibility of otherness—the same otherness that possibly resides in the feminine. One could also trace this back to the poet that he both loved, and feared, most—Homer. Perhaps the effect of effeminacy that Homer's poetry opened is precisely the source of its power: through listening to Homer, one's body, one’s habitus is opened to the possibility of the feminine. And here, one must remember that the source of all learning—and all teaching—also lies in mimesis, in repetition, in habit. Once the habitus is opened to the possibility of invasion, of intervention, of otherness, there is quite possibly no possibility of distinguishing whether the mimesis is that of reproduction, or if there is always already a productive aspect to it. And by extension, if learning cannot be controlled, the very notion of teaching itself is shifted from a master-student relationality to one where the master is potentially changed as well—the relationality between the master and the student is not only inter-changing, but one cannot even know who is teaching, or learning, at any point. All that can be said is that they are in a relationality; which means that one is ultimately unable to locate the locus of knowledge, of wisdom—the site of which Plato is attempting to convince us is the sole domain of the philosopher. And it is this that philosophy is cringing from. To compound matters, philosophy is striving for wisdom; which can only come from the Gods. In other words, this is a gift that has to be bestowed on them—and more than that, wisdom is always already exterior to one’s control and knowledge. At best, it is the role of one to recognise the gift, to answer the call as it were. Here, if we listen carefully, we can hear the echo of Alexander Graham Bell, and the telephone. And as we are attempting to respond to the call of wisdom—the call that both poetry and philosophy are listening out for—it might be helpful to recall the agreement between Alexander Graham Bell and his brother Melville. In the biography, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude , Robert V. Bruce notes that Aleck and Melly made a “solemn compact that whichever of us should die first would endeavour to communication with the other if it were possible to do so” (63). Since Melville was the one who passed on first, this pact put the onus on Aleck to receive the call of his brother. If you take into consideration the fact that until Melville’s death, both brothers had been working on an early prototype of the telephone, the instrument of distant sound can be read as an attempt by Aleck to maintain the possibility of keeping in touch with Melly, of hearing the voice from beyond. However, this was a connection that was not premised on any knowing, reason, or rationality; it was rather, one that was based on hope, and born out of love. And here, if we eves-drop on a cross-line with The Telephone Book , we can pick up the voice of Avital Ronell once again and hear, “the connection to the other is a reading—not an interpretation, assimilation, or even a hermeneutic understanding, but a reading” (380). In other words, the telephone can be read as the openness to the possibility of responding to the other; one that might always remain unknown. Even in this day of caller-identification, we can never know for sure who the other person on the line is until we pick up: hence, the only decision we can make—the effects of which we remain blind to until it affects us—is to either pick up or not, to either respond or not. And it is not as if the decision to pick up comes without risks: each time we answer a call, we run the risk of it ruining our day. Even when we don’t know who the caller is, perhaps especially when we don’t know who the person on the other end of the line is—and here one only has to think of prank calls—we are leaving ourselves completely open to being affected by another. Thus, philosophy finds itself in the position of Vladimir and Estragon. Since they have no idea who Godot is, they can never know if or when he shows up—thus, if he (and we are taking his gender on the word of the boy, some boy—we don’t even know if it is the same boy—who comes round in the evening) has already come, they would not be in the position to know it. And even if someone comes to them and announces that “I am Godot,” the wait would not be over—without referentiality to the name, they would have to take on faith that that person is indeed Godot. Hence, all they can know is that they are waiting for Godot; and Godot is the name of that waiting itself. All philosophy can know is that it is waiting; and wisdom is the name of that waiting itself. Which brings us to Tina Turner’s eternal question, “what’s love got to do, got to do with it?” In order to begin to consider that, we have to first attempt to examine the notion of love itself. Perhaps we might begin to consider what the difficulty of the statement “I love you.” For, if love is a relationality between two persons—both of whom remain singular, and are attempting to respond to each other—this suggests that neither of them subsume the other under themselves. In other words, the other remains wholly other. If this is so, then the “you” in the statement always remains shrouded in mystery. And even if the “you” was replaced with the name of the person, the veiling remains: for, names refer both to the singularity that is the person, and also every other person bearing that name, at exactly the same time. To compound matters, the only time one has to utter a persons name is in their absence—thus, the correspondence of a name to that particular person is at best an affect of memory. And if we consider the notion of memory, we have to also open the register of forgetting—bringing along with it the problem that there is no object to forgetting. For instance, when one utters “I forgot,” all one is uttering is the fact that one has forgotten, and nothing more—the moment there is an object to the statement, one has strictly speaking remembered what one has forgotten. Moreover, we have no control over when forgetting happens to us. And since it is always already exterior to us, affects us, and has no necessary object, there is no reason to believe that every moment of memory might not bring with it a moment of forgetting. Hence, whenever we utter a name—even if we accept the correspondence between the utterance and the person in front of us—all we are doing is uttering the fact that we are naming. Thus, it is not so much that ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ but more appropriately, ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’—the relationality between its name and the phenomenon of its sweet smell can only be established after that moment of naming, that instance of catachresis. So, whenever one utters “I love you,” not only is it a performative statement, it is the very naming of that love—all you are doing is establishing a relationality between you and the other. And since there is no necessary referent—one is naming that referentiality as one utters it—this suggests that it is always already a symbolic statement; without which the mystery of the other cannot me maintained. In other words, one cannot love the other without maintaining this symbolic distance—through a ritual; in this case the utterance “I love you.” This might be why Valentine’s Day seems to provoke such a massive reaction: the most common one from people (besides florists) being, Valentine’s Day is mere commercialism. Those among the nay-sayers who maintain a soft spot for Karl Marx would proceed to call it the commodification of relationships; those who prefer the Gods would claim that the sanctity of relationships has been profaned; the gender theorists would note how the fact that males buy the gifts only serves to highlight the unequal power-relation between the genders. Whichever side and variation of the arguments they choose boils down to this: the discomfort lies in the fact that they are confronted with the notion of relationships moving into a mediated sphere. The underlying logic is that love is between two persons only; it should not only remain between them, but more pertinently, be an unmediated experience between two persons. Which of course completely misses the point. For, if we reopen the register that relationships are the result of a negotiation between two persons, there must then be a space between them for this very negotiation to occur. Otherwise, all that is happening is, one person is subsuming the other within their own sphere of understanding; effectively effacing the other. If that were the case, there would no longer be any relationality; all negotiation is gone and the other person is a mere extension of the self—one is in a masturbatory relationality with one’s imaginary. Hence, any relationship must always already carry with it the unknown, and possibly always unknowable. The other person is an enigma, remains—must remain—enigmatic to you. This is the only way in which the proclamation “I love you” remains singular, remains a love that is about the person as a singular person—and not merely about the qualities of the person, what the person is. For, if the mystery of the other is unveiled, then the love for the other person is also a completely transparent love: one that you can know thoroughly, calculate; a check-list. And if they are knowable, this suggests that they can also be negated, and hence, the love can also go away. Only when the love for the other person is an enigmatic one, one that cannot be understood, can that love potentially be an event—and if it is an event, then strictly speaking, it cannot be known before it happens; at best, it can be glimpsed as it is happening, or perhaps even only realised retrospectively. At the point in which it happens, it is a love that comes from elsewhere: this strange phenomenon is best captured in the colloquial phrase, I was struck by love;” or even more so by, “I was blinded by love.” This is a blinding to not only the subject of the encounter—the self—but also of the very object of that encounter, the “you”—all that can be said is that there is an encounter. And it is for this reason Cupid is blind: not just because love is random (and can happen to anyone at any time), but more importantly because even after it happens, both the reason you are in love, and the person you are in love with, remain blind to you. Since there is an unknowable relationality with the other person, the only way you can approach it is through a ritual. This is the lesson that religions have taught us: since one is never able to phenomenally experience the God(s), one has no choice but to approach them symbolically. These rituals are strictly speaking meaningless—the actual content is interchangeable—as it is the form that is important. Rituals allow us momentary glimpses at secrets; and secrets are never about their content(s). Rather, secrets entail the recognition that they are secrets; the secret lies in their form as secret. This can be seen when we consider how group secrets work: since the entire group knows the secret, clearly the content of the secret is not as important as the fact that only members within the group are privy to this secret. Occasionally the actual content can be so trivial that even other people outside the group might know the information; they just do not realize its significance. For instance, if I used my date of birth as my bank-account password, merely knowing when I was born would not instantly give you the key to my life savings. In order for that to happen, you would have had to recognise the significance of the knowledge of my birthday. This means that you have to know that you know something. Since the God(s) are, strictly speaking, unknowable, this suggests that rituals put one in a position to potentially experience the God(s). The meaningless gestures on Valentine’s Day play precisely this ritualised role. It is not so much what you give the other person, but the fact that you give it to them. The gift in this sense is very much akin to an offering; the gift opens the possibility of an exchange. Gift-giving does not guarantee that you will like what is returned; there is always a reciprocation of the gift, but what is returned to you is never known in advance, until the moment it is received. This means that the worst thing that one can do is not give the gift: that would be akin to a cutting off of all possibilities, a complete closing of all communication with the other person. This at the same time also means that you cannot wait for the other person to give you something before you get them their gift: if that were the scenario, the reciprocal gift would be nothing more than a calculated return. The only manner in which both persons can give true gifts is to offer them independently of the other person, whilst keeping them in mind. In this way, the two gifts are always already both uncalculated (in the sense of not knowing what the return is) and also a reciprocation for the other (without knowing whether the other person actually has a gift in the first place). Naturally, this would seem like an irrational, even stupid, way of buying gifts. But it is precisely the stupidity involved that saves the relationship from being banal—more importantly, stupidity prevents it from entering the mere profane. This is not to say that an enigmatic love cannot end—of course it can. However, the difference lies in the fact that if the relationality is wholly transparent, it is subsumed under reason—completely predictable, within the self, and thus never open to the possibility of otherness, exteriority, musing. A love that is an event is one that is also open to the possibility of the divine, the sacred—always already closer to the possibility of wisdom. If we establish that both love and wisdom are exterior, to our knowledge, and the finitude to our selves, this suggests that both are names for the possibility of openness to otherness. In other words, and what choice do we have here but to use the words of the other, the philosopher—the lover of wisdom—is a name for one who is waiting, and nothing more. But that still leaves us with the question of this uncomfortable relationality between philosophy and poetry. But before we address that question, we have to take a momentary detour, and consider the whether it is possible to call one a poet. For, if we take the notion of a poet to be one who reaches the highest levels of rhetoric (beyond the lawyer, and the orator, who only aim to either please the crowds, or convince by way of sophistry), then we must also acknowledge that one can only become a poet at the moment of seizing, the point of inspiration, by the muses. Without this divine moment, all (s)he can do is practice her craft. As no one can control when the muses make their appearance, one could always be practising in vain—in some way, one is always already practising to be least in the way when the muse whispers into one’s ear; one is practising so as not to be vain. And since one cannot know when the muse will appear, there is no time frame to the practising—unlike the lawyer who speaks against a clock, poetry knows no time; the only time that matters is the time appropriate to poetry itself. Thus, all the poet (if one can use this term) is practising for the possibility of effacing her/him self—and waiting. Thus, in order for poetry to occur, in order to be seized, the poet—along with all her concerns—must cease. In other words, there is no poet; there is only the possibility of poetry. However, even as there is no time frame to this waiting, even as all we can say is that poetry is a name for waiting, the one who is practising is always already also in time. And since (s)he is in a symbolic relationality with the possibility of poetry, this suggests that the practising is her sacrifice, and time is precisely what she is sacrificing. Here, it might be helpful to turn to a strange source when it comes to poetry—Georges Bataille—and consider his teachings in the first volume of The Accursed Share where he reminds us that, the “essence [of sacrifice] is to consume profitlessly .” This is where each exchange is beyond rationality, beyond calculability, beyond reason itself, “unsubordinated to the ‘real’ order and occupied only with the present.” He continues: Sacrifice destroys that which it consecrates. It does not have to destroy as fire does; only the tie that connected the offering to the world of profitable activity is severed, but this separation has the sense of a definitive consumption; the consecrated offering cannot be restored to the real order.” (58) Since there is no need for a physical change in the object of sacrifice—“it does not have to destroy as fire does”—this suggests that the tie is severed symbolically. Hence, there is an aspect of trans-substantiation in this sacrifice: the form remains the same; in fact there is no perceivable change—this is the point at which all phenomenology fails—but there is always already a difference, an absolute separation from the “real order,” from logic, calculability, reason. The object of sacrifice, the victim [,] is a surplus taken from the mass of useful wealth…Once chosen, he is the accursed share , destined for violent consumption. But the curse tears him away from the order of things…” (59). And it is this tearing away from the order of things—the order of rationality—that “restores to the sacred world that which servile use has degraded, rendered profane” (55). For, only when it is no longer useful, when it is no longer abstracted—subjected, subsumed under—merely a use-value, can the object be an object as such, can a subject be a subject as such; be a singularity. Thus, it is never so much who or what is sacrificed, but the fact that there is a sacrifice. So even as (s)he is sacrificing her time to poetry, it is always already beyond her knowledge whether what (s)he is doing is actually preparing her for poetry or not—all (s)he can know is that she is sacrificing and nothing more. Hence, all (s)he can do is to open her self to the possibility of this relationality—all (s)he can do is be in love with poetry. At the moment the muse whispers into her ear, (s)he ceases to be, and becomes a medium for poetry—and since this possession is always already beyond our cognitive knowledge, this is also a moment of divine wisdom. In other words, there is no difference between poetry and wisdom—the moment of poetry is the moment of wisdom. And this might be the very reason for the philosopher’s aversion to poets. Not so much because they may corrupt the youth (this is after all the aim of all thinking, all philosophy), but precisely because in order to do so, the philosopher must wait for a moment of possession, for divine musing, for poetry. Hence, all thought, all thinking, all philosophy, is nothing but the waiting for the possibility of poetry itself. (shrink)

As the narrator of the Ciris prepares to describe Cupid's attack on Scylla, daughter of Nisus, he offers a concise aretalogy of this powerful god : sed malus ille puer, quem nec sua flectere materiratum potuit, quem nec pater atque auus idemIuppiter,idem tum tristis acuebat paruulus irasIunonis magnae...

The purpose of this article is to examine Pascal’s conception of imagination in its necessary articulation with the notion of self-love. Derived from Augustinian theology, the notion of self-love is identifed with the notion of pride and is one of the three fundamental cupidities that rule the fallen man when he is not under the action of divine grace. Pascal goes further than Augustine and makes this passion the defning feature of the fallen man, leading him in his tyrannical relationship (...) with other men. The instrument of self-love to achieve its goals is, precisely, imagination, a deceptive faculty that, even against reason, estimates the value of all objects and is the essential factor in determining purely human happiness. (shrink)

Till We Have Faces is a retelling of the Cupid/psyche myth with a few twists, namely, a nonstandard narrator and the inability of Psyche’s sister, Orual, to see the palace. Both innovations lead the reader to understand better the dynamics at play in Orual’s effort to disrupt Psyche’s life with her husband/god. The inability to see, on Orual’s part, at first suggests that the nature of the story is primarily epistemological. What is it that can be reasonably known or (...) inferred? Digging deeper, however, reveals that the epistemic elements are actually penultimate, and that instead the book bolsters an ethically robust epistemology. Who we are deeply affects what we can see. Before Orual could apprehend the nature of the gods, she had to be brutally honest about who she herself was. A victim of abuse who was constantly shamed for reasons beyond her control, she is a sympathetic character in several ways, but she gradually moves from being victim to victimizer, treating others as means to ends, and, in the case of Psyche, ‘loving’ her in a way that was more hate than love. Self-knowledge was needed for Orual to apprehend the truth. She comes to realize her treatment of Bardia, Batta, Redival, and especially Psyche was not as pure and altruistic as she had thought. She had to come to terms with the ugliness within herself, and her penchant for consuming others, before she could hope to see the beauty and love of the gods for what they were. (shrink)

Erotikon brings together leading contemporary intellectuals from a variety of fields for an expansive debate on the full meaning of eros . Renowned scholars of philosophy, literature, classics, psychoanalysis, theology, and art history join poets and a novelist to offer fresh insights into a topic that is at once ancient and forever young. Restricted neither by historical period nor by genre, these contributions explore manifestations of eros throughout Western culture, in subjects ranging from ancient philosophy and baroque architecture to modern (...) literature and Hollywood cinema. An idea charged with paradox, eros has always defied categorization, and yet it cannot--it will not--be ignored. Erotikon aims to raise the difficult question of what, if anything, unifies the erotic manifold. How is eros in a sculpture like eros in a poem? Does the ancient story of Cupid and Psyche still speak meaningfully to modern readers, and if so, why? Is Plato's eros the same as Freud's? Or Proust's? And what is the erotic dimension in Nietzsche's thought? While each essay takes on a specific issue, together they constitute a wide-ranging conversation in which these broader questions are at play. A compilation of the latest, best efforts to reckon with eros , Erotikon will appeal not just to scholars and educators, but also to artists and critics, to the curious and the disillusioned, to the prurient and the prudent. Contributors: Shadi Bartsch Peter Brooks J. M. Coetzee Catharine Edwards Anthony Grafton Tom Gunning David M. Halperin Valentina Izmirlieva Jonathan Lear Eric Marty Susan Mitchell Glenn W. Most Martha C. Nussbaum Robert B. Pippin James I. Porter Philippe Roger Ingrid D. Rowland Eric L. Santner Mark Strand David Tracy Richard Wollheim Slavoj Zizek. (shrink)

_Erotikon_ brings together leading contemporary intellectuals from a variety of fields for an expansive debate on the full meaning of _eros_. Renowned scholars of philosophy, literature, classics, psychoanalysis, theology, and art history join poets and a novelist to offer fresh insights into a topic that is at once ancient and forever young. Restricted neither by historical period nor by genre, these contributions explore manifestations of _eros_ throughout Western culture, in subjects ranging from ancient philosophy and baroque architecture to modern literature (...) and Hollywood cinema. An idea charged with paradox, _eros_ has always defied categorization, and yet it cannot—it will not—be ignored. _Erotikon_ aims to raise the difficult question of what, if anything, unifies the erotic manifold. How is _eros_ in a sculpture like _eros_ in a poem? Does the ancient story of Cupid and Psyche still speak meaningfully to modern readers, and if so, why? Is Plato's _eros_ the same as Freud's? Or Proust's? And what is the erotic dimension in Nietzsche's thought? While each essay takes on a specific issue, together they constitute a wide-ranging conversation in which these broader questions are at play. A compilation of the latest, best efforts to reckon with _eros_, _Erotikon_ will appeal not just to scholars and educators, but also to artists and critics, to the curious and the disillusioned, to the prurient and the prudent. (shrink)