The Gaze of Orpheus is both a loss (of primordial polymorphous, autoerotic wholeness) and an ‘achieved anxiety’ (a precocious anticipation of an impossible maturity or return to wholeness” (Linder 82) The Gaze of Orpheus The Gaze of Orpheus is derived from the antiquarian Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Following his descent into the Underworld Orpheus disobeys Hades’ and Persephone’s condition for release of his wife Eurydice. "To you this tale refers, Who seek to lead your mind Into the upper day; For he who overcome should turn back his gaze Towards the Tartarean cave, Whatever excellence he takes with him He loses when
The Gaze of Orpheus Common analogies are made between Orpheus’s gaze and writing processes, philosophical interpretation, and artistic origins. Some of the most famous uses of the gaze of Orpheus can be found in Maurice Blanchot’s work The Gaze of Orpheus, Geoffrey Sirc’s, The Composition’s Eye/Orpheus’s Gaze/Cobain’s Journals, and Jaques Lacan’s work on the mirror stage Blanchot's interpretation or use of the Gaze of Orpheus is in artistic creation. Some have offered, “…the Orpheus myth as a model which provides ways to discuss many of the features of Blanchot's work, which until now appeared not to have common thematic links” (Champagne 1254). The path