On the enchantment of angels, some remarks on love at first sight

by | Vol 20 (3) 2002

This paper examines the temporal and spatial properties of enchanted discourse on love at first sight. The encounter with the object of desire is almost always presented as a sudden, unexpected event. Based on Barthes’ Fragments d’un discours amoureux, Slauerhoff’s De verzuimde liefde and Sollers’ Une curieuse solitude, it is argued that the encounter with the object of desire is a mise en-scène directed by the subject itself. The specific modality in which Lacan’s categories of the real (the object of desire) the imaginary (the image in which this object is presented to the subject) and the symbolic (the discourse that gives the image its consistency) are connected in this encounter are demonstrated.

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