Here, the image of Polynices’ scattered limbs being abandoned to the dogs and the birds
as a consequence of the hybrisof the law is clearly meant to evoke the state of our bod-
ies following nuclear holocaust....
Ibid., p. 279.
Ibid., p. 278.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 279.
Ibid., pp. 279 , 283 (emphasis added).
Guyomard, La jouissance du tragique,p. 86.
248 .The Seminar. Book VII,p. 239 (my translation).
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 262 (my translation).
On Kant’s and Sade’s similar “apathetic” rejection of all sentiments, see Baas’s excellent
analysis in “Le désir pur,” especially pp.40‒41. “Apathy quanegation of sensitivity
leads beyond pleasures, beyond pleasure tout court,[and achieves] what [Sade] names
‘sovereign jouissance.’”
252 .The Seminar. Book VII,p. 261 (emphasis added).
Ibid., p. 281.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 282.
Ibid., p. 216.
Ibid., p. 298.
Ibid., p. 217.
259 .Le séminaire livre V,p. 246.
Further proof of this ambiguity is provided by the fact that Antigone seems also to em-
body the epitome of scientific discourse: at one point, Lacan says that she possesses a
“kind of completeself-knowledge” (The Seminar. Book VII,p. 273 ; emphasis added; the term
“complete” is curiously absent from the English translation). B. Baas has himself em-
phasized the proximity between Antigone (“apathetic figure par excellence”) and Sadean
heroines (see “Le désir pur,” p. 61 ).
J.-A. Miller, “I sei paradigmi del godimento,” in I paradigmi del godimento(Rome: Astro-
labio, 2001 ), p. 18.
There is another fundamental problem with Miller’s reading: he never problematizes
the equation between (Antigone’s) pure desire and the jouissanceof transgression. As I
have shown, this equation is precisely what, for good reasons, Lacan desperately and
unsuccessfully attempts to disprove in Seminar VII.
J. Lacan, Le séminaire livre XXIII. Le sinthome, 1975–1976(Paris: Seuil, 2005 ), p. 121.