Thursday, April 2, 2009

epi 11 and the Cassandra Complex


Cassandra's story finds its origin in Greek mythology... She was the impeccably beautiful daughter of the the King of Troy. Merely upon seeing her, Apollo was struck with a desire to have her, wholly... he offered her gifts, bestowing upon her the unique quality of prophecy. However, when his love went unrequited he cursed her causing her prophecies, or warnings, to go unbelieved. Ah, in 1949 the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who influenced Derrida to Foucault, coined the term to refer to a belief that things could be known in advance.

He attempted to formulate a scientific philosophy that takes both rationalism and empiricism into account, incorporating this into the study of literature. In La Poétique de l'espace he offered a phenomenology of poetic image as inner and outer space. He considered the image in terms of the “reverberations” it inspired within him. And in La Poétique de la rêverie he theorized that since reality is fashioned by imagination, the state of day dreaming, or reverie, is the highest state of mind. In The Psychoanalysis of Fire, Bachelard introduced his theory that the four elements—earth, water, fire, and air—embody the creative temperament as well as the basic forms of life. He went on to explore the meanings of these symbols throughout time in world literature.

'It is not a question of observation which propels mankind forward as if toward a looking glass of great magnitude; it is an instance of aggrandized reflection that insinuates the human psyche to the inhuman.'

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