Cologne, 13-Oct-1999
Rene de Bakker wrote:
> At 20:27 12-10-99 +0200, Michael Eldred wrote:
> >You're right, Oedipus is not about psychology (some internal psychic
> workings of
> >the unconscious) but about someone being hidden to himself in who he is, for
> >Oedipus' origins are hidden to himself when he kills the man at the
> crossroads and
> >marries the Queen of Thebes. Who Oedipus is in the world remains hidden to
> him,
> >for who he is includes who he has been, i.e. his origins.
>
> Michael,
>
> But during the play he wants to learn more and more, till he knows too
> much, or, as Hoelderlin said: Maybe Oedipus has an eye too MUCH.
> So the lesson, in my view, is that indeed we are hidden for ourselves, but
> we'd better stay that way and leave the truth about past, present and
> future to the blind.
>
> Didn't Wotan too pay for his knowledge with an eye?
Oedipus had one eye too many. That makes him into a tragic figure; otherwise,
there would be no tragedy.
And for us? To have an eye for where we come from and therefore who we are is a
dangerous practice. It takes courage to question and not to accept the answers (of
a given, consolidated historical world) that are meant to placate us.
Hoelderlin saw very early on that the gods had flown.
Losing one's eye can allow us to see, to become ourselves.
Plato's parable of the cave teaches that once one has seen the light of the sun
and returns to the cave, one is blind for the shadows that others take to be real
reality. In speaking incomprehensibly of something seen elsewhere this is regarded
as madness by the others who would put the mad one who has seen the sun to death
if they had a chance.
Regards,
Michael
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