The Gaze of Tiresias

Abstract

Tiresias, the famous Greek seer, is blind. Therefore his gaze is a paradigm because what he seeks, he lacks, managing to escape from the abstract universe. In the first part of this article, we will discuss Tiresias' gaze by reviewing the theme through classical sources and elements taken from psychoanalysis. We aim to show that the essence perceived by someone with no objective vision has a gaze directed to a vanishing reality. Our second object of analysis is the truth revealed by the prophetic voice, which points to an absent essence does not tell its truth in meaning since it is hidden behind the words. Gaze and voice show absences that dissolve all possible action and reality.