Blindness in a Culture of Light

This book examines the paradox: sight in blindness in Ancient Greek culture. Deprivation of light is almost as undesirable as death, yet blindness bestows a status of distinction in a culture where choice between light and honor is difficult. Blindness is punishment for breaking the limits of human knowledge, yet it is also the means to insight (truth-vision of metaphysical light). The (polluted) blind seers and poets enjoy the highest religious, social and political powers. Solutions to this paradox are provided through an examination of attitudes towards blindness in an analytical survey of Greek Literature in the first part. In the second part (an analysis of the Oedipus Coloneus), Oedipus' blindness is viewed as the key for unraveling the mystery of the drama and of the hero's fate. Oedipus is viewed as supreme seer, and his presentation indicative of Sophocles' ideas, since Sophocles is fascinated with blindness, especially the blind poets and seers - the epitome of the paradox: sight-in-blindness in a culture of light.