[lit-ideas] Re: What, then, is wanting to know?

  • From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:32:45 -0500

>>As far as knowledge being erotic, we need to define erotic. Carnal knowledge is miniscule, virtually irrelevant "knowledge" paraded as wisdom (your average "maturation story" is virtually always about sexual maturity). Miniscule, virtually irrelevant knowledge turned into obsession and tragedy.



Andy, you highlight the negative. Erotic doesn't mean orgasmic. I commend to you the Greek myth "Eros and Psyche" and "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. Also consider Socrates and his relation to the young men about him or the relation between Shakespeare and the beloved of his Sonnets. Or the "ladder" of the neoplatonists, where crude erotic love sophisticates itself to knowledge of forms.

Or just as well, the great movie, Groundhog Day, where an erotic obsession, pursued in a day that constantly repeats, leads the character from a coarse and selfish view to a truer understanding of himself, his community, and his beloved.

If Satan is the "spirit that denies," eros is the spirit that affirms. Like the Greek myth or the Mann story, one doesn't want to look that force in the face; otherwise one gets the dark obsessions you describe above.
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