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‘The hieroglyphics of love’: the torch singers and interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John Moore
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Abstract

The first law of love is subjective: subjectively, jealousy is deeper than love, it contains love's truth. This is because jealousy goes further in the apprehension and interpretation of signs. It is the designation of love, its finality. Indeed, it is inevitable that the signs of a loved person, once we ‘explicate’ them, should be revealed as deceptive: addressed to us, they nonetheless express worlds which exclude us and which the beloved will not and cannot make us know … Love's signs … are deceptive signs which can be addressed to us only by concealing what they express: the origin of unknown worlds, of unknown actions and thoughts which give them a meaning. They do not excite superficial, nervous exaltation, but the suffering of a deeper exploration. The beloved's lies are the hieroglyphics of love. The interpreter of love's signs is necessarily the interpreter of lies. His fate is expressed in the motto: to love without being loved. (Deleuze 1973)

Type
Research Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 31 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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