ABSTRACT
In “The Gaze of Orpheus” this sense of openings is taken further, albeit via a more oblique route, to encompass the darkness beyond darkness or the second night. This sideways move from art or music to prophecy and divination via repetition is not, it should be stressed, arbitrary for this purview of Blanchot’s artistic and conceptual persona. Forgetfulness and memory are two significant clues as to the relation between disaster as crescendo and what author call here Orpheus’ “vanishing note,” as is the passing mention of “again, the outside.” The first two clues connect this notion of disaster immediately with the journey that Orpheus takes into the underworld to retrieve his greatest love in life Eurydice from perpetual imprisonment in death at the hands of the vanishing god Hades and his dark queen Persephone.
