Subject Of Enunciation Research Articles

Can AI Lie? Chabot Technologies, the Subject, and the Importance of Lying

This article poses a simple question: can AI lie? In response to this question, the article examines, as its point of inquiry, popular AI chatbots, such as, ChatGPT. In doing so, an examination of the psychoanalytic, philosophical, and technological significance of AI and its complexities are located in relation to the dynamics of truth, falsity, and deception. That is, by critically considering the chatbot’s ability to engage in natural language conversations and provide contextually relevant responses, it is argued that what separates the AI chatbot from anthropocentric debates, which allude to some form of conscious recognition on behalf of AI, is the importance of the lie – an importance which a psychoanalytic approach can reveal. Indeed, while AI technologies can undoubtedly blur the line between lies and truth-speaking, in the case of the AI chatbot, it is detailed how such technology remains unable to lie authentically or, in other words, is unable to lie like a human. For psychoanalysis, the capacity to lie bears witness to the unconscious and, thus, plays an important role in determining the subject. It is for this reason that rather than uncritically accepting the chatbot’s authority – an authority that is easily reflected in its honest responses and frank admissions – a psychoanalytic (Lacanian) perspective can highlight the significance of the unconscious as a distorting factor in determining the subject. To help elucidate this argument, specific attention is given to introducing and applying Lacan’s subject of enunciation and subject of the enunciated. This is used to assert that what continues (for now) to set us apart from AI technology is not necessarily our ‘better knowledge’ but our capability to consciously engage in acts of falsehood that function to reveal the social nuances and significances of the lie.

Langgam Buya Syafii Merawat Rindu dan Nurani


 
 
 
 Buya Syafii Maarif conveys his critical thoughts through sharp and readable writing. In some of his writings, Buya Syafii uses elements of Minang language which is his mother tongue. This method makes the writing have its own amazing characteristics. This article will discuss the figure of Buya Syafii who is behind the Minang style of speaking Indonesian. The focus will be on how Buya chooses Minang style words and expressions and the context of the ideas and thoughts that underlie them, as well as why he uses Minang linguistic elements in some of his writings. By positioning Buya as a subject who is conveying/ expressing something (the subject of enunciation), this paper finds that his writings in the Minang style are an expression of a dialectical way of thinking and an expression of longing for the Ideal.
 
 
 

The use of personal pronouns in lyrical poetry

The article presents separate formulae that fix the morphological means of expressing the subject and subject-object relations in lyrical poetry. These formulae include personal pronouns with different grammatical characteristics (here the categories of person, number, and case are meant). The author performs a linguo-stylistic analysis of texts written by A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, S. A. Esenin, B. L. Pasternak relying on the experience of studying the ways personal pronouns are semanticised in lyrical poetry. The paper concludes that the lyrical text does not exist outside the pronominal formula which facilitates the disclosure of the subject of enunciation’s life philosophy (psychological state). The article highlights the sequence of personal pronouns or their case forms within the poetic text. In the author’s opinion, the variety of pronominal formulae is indicative of the lyrical structure flexibility as it tolerates different variants of pronominal expression of the subject of enunciation and those objects to which he expresses his attitudes.

«Anhelo la libertad de salir sola: ir, venir, sentarme…». La flâneuse entre dos siglos: del XIX a la mujer moderna en la Edad de Plata española

Pasear es una actividad del cuerpo y de la mirada que implica ocupar el espacio público; hacerse ver y observar. Si hay un prototipo literario de paseante, ese es el flâneur. No pocas voces se han preguntado si, en consecuencia, existe una flâneuse, y cuáles son sus características y condiciones. En este trabajo pretendemos explorar a través de un ejercicio de comparatismo literario, la relación entre la mujer moderna y la flâneuse entre dos siglos (XIX y XX), con tal de comprender cómo las mujeres paseantes que se convierten durante la Edad de Plata de la Literatura Española en el sujeto de enunciación del texto lírico pueden plantear o bien una transformación o bien una disidencia tanto de los modelos de género como de visualidad en el seno de la vida moderna.

Un diálogo en el mundo del otro

El documento tiene como objetivo abordar las implicaciones en el diálogo entre el Otro y la Modernidad. Donde el lenguaje destaca como elemento primordial en la experiencia de la vida y que devela la historicidad de ese otro mundo, oculto en la palabra no dicha. Un lenguaje que traducido como elemento de poder ante la resistencia, siendo este, una pieza importante de enarbolar para abordar y enfrentar los mecanismos de la Modernidad. Este documento forma parte de un proyecto de investigación en curso, y entre los autores citados para apoyar este análisis se encuentra Ngugi wa Thiong'o (2015), Enrique Dussel (2008) y Ramón Grosfoguel (2007). Una vez hecho el análisis, es determinante la necesidad que existe de visualizar las subjetividades en un mundo que aúnsigue siendo negado. Debido a que, en la actualidad, el accionar ante el diálogo franco requiere canales apropiados, no vislumbrados. Es necesario pasar de inmediato, de la teoría crítica a una práctica real contundente, que drene en las capas más profundas de la periferia.

Relações intersubjetivas em “extrair”, de Arnaldo Antunes

Este artigo visa a apresentar mecanismos de significação que estão por trás de relações intersubjetivas dos textos. A metodologia empregada tem por base, por um lado, a Semiótica de linha francesa, notadamente as contribuições de Greimas, Zilberberg, Fiorin e Tatit. Por outro lado, a metodologia nutre-se da segunda tópica freudiana e da matriz intersubjetiva de Coelho Jr. e Figueiredo. Greimas contribui com o percurso gerativo do sentido, no plano do conteúdo, além da postulação de sua junção com o plano da expressão. Zilberberg auxilia com a revisão do nível mais abstrato da significação, além da oposição entre os valores de absoluto, de universo, de apogeu e de abismo. Fiorin provê a distinção entre os sujeitos do discurso. Tatit fornece sua praxeologia, que permitirá proceder a uma oposição entre diferentes modos enunciativos de fazer e, com isso, de estatuir o ser do enunciador, além de uma releitura do acontecimento greimasiano. A essas contribuições, acrescento uma oposição entre os campos objetivo e subjetivo, que organiza interações entre tipos diferentes de sujeito. O poema “extrair”, de Arnaldo Antunes, foi escolhido para a demonstração desses mecanismos de significação. Como resultado, a análise possibilitou compreender o arranjo intersubjetivo que está por trás da configuração de sujeito insurgente do narrador do poema

Ensaio de semiótica perspectivista: as revoltas de Junho de 2013 e a política da significação

Resumo Acontecimentos com a intensidade das revoltas de Junho de 2013 no Brasil colocam um problema incontornável para os teóricos da comunicação e da semiótica: a política da significação. A multiplicidade de percepções e de sentidos nos traz de volta o problema da relação entre fato e representação, entre objeto de enunciado e sujeito de enunciação. A revolta não é um dado inerte passível de múltiplas representações, mas é uma multiplicidade absoluta de agenciamentos em constante disputa. Os sujeitos e objetos da enunciação são muito mais um efeito da política de significação instaurada do que a condição de possibilidade dos discursos sobre a revolta. Como formular um diagnóstico com focos de enunciação tão instáveis, sem as dualidades prescritivas de praxe? O presente ensaio parte dessa problemática para pensar uma semiótica perspectivista no enredamento entre a antropologia de Viveiros de Castro e o processo aberto pelas revoltas de Junho.

The Drama of Sacrifice ‘So that the Country May Live’. The Last Words of Repressors in Trials for Crimes Against Humanity in Córdoba, Argentina

espanolEn este articulo, analizamos las ultimas palabras de cuatro represores al final de un significativo juicio por crimenes de lesa humanidad realizado en Cordoba, Argentina. Por medio de un analisis semiotico, nos proponemos reconocer las representaciones sobre la historia y las relaciones que los acusados establecen entre el pasado y el presente de los juicios. Nos interesa asignar a un conjunto de discursos, las declaraciones voluntarias de los acusados previas a la lectura de la sentencia, modelos de representacion y formalizacion de las memorias. Estos enunciados forman posicionamientos, o sujetos de enunciacion, y construyen un saber profesional compartido por los militares sacrificados por la patria en el pasado, y los exmilitares sacrificados en el presente judicial. EnglishIn this article, I analyze the last words of four perpetrators at the last stages of their trial for crimes against humanity in Cordoba, Argentina. Through semiotic analysis, I address the representations of the history and relationships that defendants establish between the past and the present of the trials. I am interested in assigning the voluntary declarations of defendants prior to the reading of the sentence, models of representation, and formalization of memories to a set of discourses. I argue that these discourses generate positions, or subjects of enunciation, and build a profesional knowledge shared by the military who sacrificed for the country in the past, and the ex-military sacrificed in the legal present.

The Transitivity of “We” and Narrative Legions

. Terming the “we” as narrative legions, the following exploration establishes that “we” as a speaker is the missing subject of enunciation with a unique relation between its symbolicity and iconicity. That gives this shifter distinct powers as compared to “I” and “you”. The theory of narrative legions explains how “we” acquires diverse functions as the product of the literary work according to polynomia, that is, multiple laws of discourse which are text-specific. The passage from this missing enunciator to the polynomial “we” is proposed under the concept of transitivity whereby one can analyze the homological and analogical capacities of “we” activated in both literature and politics. Cognitivist, sociological, and phenomenological theories attempt to base the character of the social bond. Narratologists seek to ground we-locutions in the said theories to determine an existential counterpart of the shifter “we. These models for the relation between communication and community have been borrowing from each other within a zone of confusion which the concepts of polynomia and transitivity of “we” dispel.

A REPRESENTAÇÃO DO NEGRO NA POESIA AFRO-BRASILEIRA CONTEMPORÂNEA DE CUTI

A poesia afro-brasileira surge no momento em que o afrodescendente assume a posição de sujeito da enunciação. Ao tomar posse da palavra, o descendente de africano revela um "existir negro" no seu modo de ver e sentir o mundo, por meio de um eu-enunciador-que-se-quer-negro e que contesta os valores representados pela cultura dominante, além de mostrar os aspectos da sociedade não revelados pela literatura instituída. Nesses escritos, também chamados de contraliteratura, por promoverem a ruptura com a escrita ditada pelos brancos, o poeta não fala somente em seu nome. Nessa perspectiva, o escritor é o porta-voz de sua etnia e, portanto, afirma sua condição de negro. Ao mesmo tempo, busca uma identidade para representá-lo em sua poesia, visto que a procura de uma identidade negra é a característica fundamental da poesia afro-brasileira. Dentre esses poetas afro-brasileiros, encontra-se o autor Cuti (2011), cuja poesia será objeto de estudo nesse artigo, no sentido de compreender como esse poeta constrói a identidade negra nos seus escritos. Para atingir esse objetivo, identificaremos os elementos a que o poeta recorre para construir essa identidade.

Spanish

The article presents a re-description of the first-person with respect to its logical-pragmatic function: what ─action─ counts as a linguistic practice of enunciation of “I” as anaphoric operation. For this purpose, the idea of anaphora is used as inferential link with substitutional subsentential structures. Additionally, the concepts of language-games and forms-of-life ─Lebensformen─, understood as training for the practice of the player, are also considered. Bearing this in mind, the article follows thoroughly the structure developed by Robert Brandom in Making It Explicit. To sum up, the subject of enunciation should articulate the anaphorically assigned conceptual contents to establish a coherent network of deontic commitments.

The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life by Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni

Reviewed by: The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life by Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni Nick Mdika Tembo (bio) The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni Berghahn Books, 2016, 186 pp. ISBN 978-1785331183, $150 hardcover, $24.95 paperback. Using decolonial philosopher Nelson Maldonaldo-Torres's conception of the "third humanist revolution," and the fundamental principles of decolonial humanism and pluriversalism, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni's The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life proposes the "Mandela phenomenon" as an Afrocentric episteme that could help reposition Africa in the world. The author avers that since time immemorial blacks have been pushed by the consequences of imperial reason—imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, neocolonialism and underdevelopment (xv)—to inhabit what Frantz Fanon calls the "zone of non-being." Imperial reasoning is a constitutive part of what Ramón Grosfoguel once described as the myth of modernity, a self-generated and insulated Eurocentric modernity, "which develops on its own without depending on any one else on earth" (89). Grosfoguel reinforces his argument by stating that imperial reasoning is solipsistic in nature: Without solipsism, there can be no myth of a subject with universal rationality that confirms itself as such. We see here the beginning of the ego-politics of knowledge [. . .], which is nothing less than a secularization of the Christian cosmology of the theo-politics of knowledge. In the ego-politics of knowledge, the subject of enunciation is erased, hidden, camouflaged by what Santiago Castro-Gómez has called zero-point philosophy. (89) Understood from a critical decolonial perspective, the myth of modernity is the nerve center of Cartesian logic, an ego-politics of knowledge in which the nonwhite/black seems to have, according to Ndlovu-Gatsheni, "endured the consequences of being a racialized and dehumanized subject as well as being written out of the human ocumene and being reduced to dispensability" (12). [End Page 426] From its emergence, decolonial humanism quickly registered on the radar of critical theorizations of Blackness, Africanness, and Black solidarities, and Ndlovu-Gatsheni's monograph is only the latest in a long list of Afrocentric "initiatives and ideological/intellectual/political creations [such] as Garveyism, Ethiopianism, Négritude, African Personality, Conscienscism, Pan-Africanism, African Socialism, and Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), right up to the revived African Renaissance, [that] were produced within the context and course of African decolonial humanist struggle" (13–14). This critical thinking is from the Global South in general and Africa in particular, led by thinkers whose societies have experienced what Enrique Dussel calls "the underside of modernity." Ndlovu-Gatsheni's narrative is in harmony with decolonial perspectives in several respects. Central in The Decolonial Mandela is what Catherine Walsh calls decoloniality's ability "to make visible, open up, and advance radically distinct perspectives and positionalities that displace Western rationality as the only framework and possibility of existence, analysis, and thought" (17). Ndlovu-Gatsheni advances radically distinct perspectives and positionalities through his proposition of an analytical standpoint and coordinates that can galvanize an African decolonial body of thought, called the "Mandela phenomenon," which, in essence, is a "new reading of Mandela's political life and legacy informed by a critical decolonial ethics of liberation" (xvi). In Ndlovu-Gatsheni's view, this critical decolonial ethics of liberation, privileges [the] paradigm of peace, humanism, and racial harmony as opposed to the imperial/colonial/apartheid paradigm of war and racial hatred. At the core of critical decolonial ethics of liberation is the unmasking of an imperial/colonial/ apartheid system that was driven by the logic of racial profiling, and the classification and hierarchization of human beings. It resulted in the denial of the humanity of black people and enabled enslavement, conquest, colonization, dispossession, exploitation, and notions of impossibility of co-presence of human races. (xvi) Ndlovu-Gatsheni asserts that the "Mandela phenomenon" is "an authentically African invention and achievement that emerged and crystallised in the course of the anti-imperial, anti-colonial, anti-apartheid and anti-global coloniality struggles" (2; emphasis added). I revisit this assertion shortly. My point for now is to show that the author regards Mandela as an exceptional personality fit for scholarly discourse, and that therefore his book...

Oral poetry of the Andes and Amazonia

In the essay I propose to give an account of an ancestral corpus, although new in its outline, since it involves the appearance of the indigenous as a subject of enunciation. I will stop at the abduction of writing as a new process and I propose to focus our attention on the word-voice that is not reduced to the wordletter steed. This does not require alphabetic writing, we find it in various forms and it allows us to express what a culture wants to transmit: I think of the kené [1], expressions of the Shipibo-conibo design or the payllay among the Quechua that explains that they want to communicate, amen of the still indecipherable quipus [2] Andean [3]. These same can be found in facial designs, without forgetting that the body itself is a form of language. The lecture that I will do implies the presence of several systems. I suggest that the current corpus of indigenous literatures accounts for an oral poetics that explains them, rooted in the updated memory of the ancestors and expressed in their activities (daily, traditional, rituals, cycles and seasonal periods, etc.). I support it in the people-culture pair that is based on history and accounts for a demonstration, whose historical reference will be the “long duration”. It is not reduced, therefore, to the candid writing/orality opposition, but to a dynamic relationship between word-voice, brand, sign or trace, body designs, etc. These poetics correspond to the domain of the word, so the orality of which we speak involves the continuity of an expression that writing does not always show in its linear capture, with respect to the autonomy and the confluence of the different forms that are produced in the event. True, they are accusing a new scenario that has to do with the modern abduction of writing. In the same sense, I will dwell on the logic of violence that embodied the presence of the old stranger (conqueror, Spanish or Portuguese) who now lives in that colonized mixture of our being. At the same time, it implies a look with respect to the European ego that constitutes the disseminator of modernity. Impossible to explain it, if we do not include in our agenda a reflection on territory and dispossession.

A violência insuspeita da sociedade de classes no trâmite da enunciação em Passageiro do fim do dia

Resumo Em Passageiro do fim do dia, a forma como se estabelece o trâmite entre sujeito do enunciado e sujeito da enunciação põe em evidência as estratégias de que se lança mão para a apreensão do dado objetivo do “real”, cuja inapreensibilidade se torna, na fatura do romance de Rubens Figueiredo, índice que costura materialidades e sentidos, concretudes e simbologias sutis para o desvelamento da lógica das violências e de como elas se tornam cotidianas, banais e necessárias à reprodução de um modo de viver, se relacionar e sentir imposto pela dinâmica da sociedade de classes.

On Rhythm: Voice and Relation

I would like to start from a short proposition by Henri Meschonnic in his masterwork Critique du rythme – ‘La voix est relation’ 1 (‘The voice is relation’) – in order to propose a historical and relational anthropology of the voice. Such an anthropology necessarily passes through the poem, as a form of attentiveness building on the poem. Starting from the dialogism of the poem as ‘la position du sujet de l'énonciation et du sujet de la lecture’ (p. 456) (‘the position of the subject of enunciation and of the subject of reading’), and the specific continuity that the poem constructs from the individual to society, from the intimate to the political, we can constitute the voice as a medium favourable to listening to the overflows of meaning in the poem and therefore trans-subjectivations in and through language. My contribution will show the consequences of this anthropological orientation derived from Meschonnic, both in terms of traditional stylistics and postmodern semiotics.

Entrelaçamento entre nominação e lei jurídica

A demanda de pessoas transgêneras por alteração judicial do nome civil tem sido cada vez mais frequente, sendo os casos comumente encaminhados pelos juízes à avaliação psicológica antes de as decisões serem tomadas. Uma vez orientado por uma escuta analítica, o dispositivo da avaliação lança alguma luz sobre a articulação da nominação com o campo jurídico. A partir de um fragmento de caso, defendo a hipótese de que a mudança de nome civil é a resposta que o sujeito busca para se situar em dada posição sexuada. A mudança do prenome lhe proporciona o suporte simbólico que o singulariza e ao mesmo tempo representa o para o Outro. Para tanto, não se pode perder de vista a diferença entre sujeito do enunciado e sujeito da enunciação, assim como entre lei jurídica e lei simbólica.

La Relación de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui: un reflejo de la ética andina

La Relación de Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua es un texto colonial singular y uno de los pocos en contarnos episodios andinos prehispánicos de la mano de un miembro de una comunidad indígena. Sin embargo, aunque haya dado lugar a un número bastante grande de estudios y críticas, todavía no se ha llegado a un consenso completo a saber si sus contenidos son auténticamente andinos o el resultado de un proceso de aculturación. En este artículo, queremos reexaminar esta obra monumental desde un punto de vista poco trabajado, es decir, la posible postura que adoptó Pachacuti Yamqui al escribir su relación y que deja aparecer a través de su utilización de las tradiciones discursivas y el sujeto dicente de la obra.

Protagonista da amamentação ou instrumento da política de saúde infantil?: a enunciação da mulher nos materiais oficiais de promoção e orientação ao aleitamento materno

Resumo Este artigo analisa materiais de promoção e orientação ao aleitamento materno recentes, pro duzidos pelo Ministério da Saúde (MS) brasileiro, identificando aproximações e diferenças entre os discursos voltados a gestantes e lactantes e aqueles dirigidos a profissionais de saúde em relação aos sentidos propostos acerca da mulher. Com base na teoria da enunciação, identificamos que, mesmo permanecendo o eu ou sujeito da enunciação dos discursos analisados, identificado como MS, per sistem distinções significativas na abordagem da mulher. Nos manuais para profissionais de saúde, nos quais a mulher é o sujeito sobre quem se fala, é mais comum ela aparecer representada como in divíduo dotado de subjetividade e protagonista do processo. Por outro lado, de modo geral, as mulheres são tratadas de forma objetificada nos materiais voltados a elas mesmas, o que se revela por meio de linguagem normativa e imperativa que as configura como instrumento da política oficial de saúde in fantil. Defendemos que compreender como o objeto de que se fala é constituído por/nesses discursos, assim como desvelar como neles se constroem as posições de sujeito e relações de poder, possibilita -nos problematizar essa comunicação que, de modo geral, negligencia as experiências e expectativas da mãe no processo de amamentação.

Análisis del discurso y ensayo literario: El sujeto enunciador en El laberinto de la soledad

In this paper we use the discourse analysis as theoretical framework to discuss the renowned Octavio Paz’s essay, The labyrinth of solitude. Although there are many studies that have been made about this theme which are mainly based on the history of ideas and the philosophy of the culture, in this case we propose a different perspective which focuses on the linguistic features that are used to construct the subject of enunciation in the literary essay. We consider Émile Benveniste’s concepts of his theory of enunciative operations in order to reveal the different positions that the author takes in the text, as well as how he constructs his reader.

Perspective and the Eye of the Beholder in Luis de Góngora’s Minor Poems

Perspective and the Eye of the Beholder in Luis de Góngora’s Minor Poems Natalia Fernández He serves only as a watcher… The relevance of the way of looking An anonymous contemporary of Luis de Góngora acidly commented on his Soledad primera. To his mind, the poem revealed as incoherent, plotless, illogical: Sale un mancebito, la principal figura que Vm. introduce, y no le da nombre. Este fue al mar y vino de el mar, sin que sepáis cómo ni para qué; él no sirve sino de mirón, y no dice cosa buena ni mala, ni despega su boca… (Qtd. in Smith [87]) This perception of Góngora’s poetic style, which derived from the astonishment of the readers at a “monster that appears to transgress the constrictive paradigm of sixteenth-century poetics” (Smith 88), became perpetuated through centuries. And, even the most remarkable researchers—and supporters—on the Cordovan’s work have felt uneasy at the frequently alleged human emptiness which characterizes his poetry: “With Góngora, we can’t imagine the poet behind the poem; we can’t take his pulse, hear his voice” (Gaylord 236). This blurred subjectivity, which has been highlighted as an aesthetic Baroque survival in twentieth-century poetry (Martín Estudillo 11), can be pointed out as a direct effect of a new way of looking that came to substitute the [End Page 320] centralism and linearity of Cartesian perspective—because, as Erwin Panofsky clearly showed, perspective encloses a symbolic meaning: Si la perspectiva no es un momento artístico, constituye, sin embargo, un momento estilístico y, utilizando el feliz término acuñado por Ernst Cassirer, debe servir a la historia del arte como una de aquellas formas simbólicas mediante las cuales un particular contenido espiritual se une a un signo sensible concreto y se identifica íntimamente con él. Y es, en este sentido, esencialmente significativa para las diferentes épocas y campos artísticos, no solo en tanto tengan o no perspectiva, sino en cuanto al tipo de perspectiva que posean. (Panofsky 24) At this light, Martin Jay (1993) and Christine Buci-Glucksmann (1994) have set the bases for the understanding of the link between aesthetic expressions and scopic trends. And, even more recently, Kirsten Kramer (“Einleitung” 16) has insisted on the absolute interconnection between cultural practices and visual regimes: Visualisierungstechniken sind in dieser Perspektive stets auf eine umgebende Kulturelle Ordnung bezogen, wie auch umgekehrt jede Kulturelle Formation in ihrer Entstehung und Durchsetzung auf konkreten visuellen Repräsentationssystemen und Bildpraktiken beruht, die sie in soziale Ablaufprozesse integriert und im Hinblick auf die Erlangung spezifischer Handlungsziele funktionalisiert.1 The general context of crisis which emerges in seventeenth-century Spain explodes into an epistemical crisis which dramatically affects the approach to reality and to the Self and, consequently, plays a decisive role concerning mimesis as a means of representation.2 This is at the base of the emergence of a scopic regime—according to Martin Jay’s concept—which rules uncertainty and, as a result, theatricality: “If life is a dream, the world is truly a theatre, and theatre is that ‘intermediate world,’ the metaphor for an invisible visible and a visible invisible, for an inganni gli occhi, to use the italian expression” (Buci-Glucksmann 60). The vague limits between observed and observer, reality and appearance, memory and perception, along with the indeterminacy of the subject of enunciation, reveal themselves as the rhetorical and [End Page 321] aesthetic responses to a way of looking which unavoidably pervades artistic expression. Moreover, the visual act itself, with all its possible nuances, becomes a thematic motif in a number of artistic expressions, both pictorial and literary. It is the ultimate consequence of a cultural paradigm which privileges the view—deceitful as it could be—over any other sense. It is not thus a coincidence that, according to the passage which I mentioned above, the figure of the Soledades is precisely a mirón, a watcher, a silent observer whose eyes work as a reality filter. The major works by Luis de Góngora, the Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea and the Soledades, both published in 1613, are extreme and...