Shakespeare's madman/lover/poet triad
setpiece · Shakespeare ·
retold in 3 talks
From A Midsummer Night's Dream he develops a triad: the madman misperceives a real object (a bush as a bear), the lover transubstantiates an ordinary face into sublime beauty, and the poet gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name, the last being the model for political imagination.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“the poet gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.”8:09 Slavoj Zizek on Importance of Theory: Psychoanalysis, Belief, Deconstruction, Cognitivismpub. 2017-09-11 · 21:18
“The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact”20:59 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 9 (Q & A)pub. 2018-11-29 · 1:59:32
“The poet gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
political imagination
×2
materialization of nothing
×1
transubstantiation
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Raoul Walsh1Jan van Eyck1Steven Rose1House of Karađorđević1Dwight D. Eisenhower1John Foster Dulles1Gustave Le Bon1Georges Bataille / Chesterton1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
8:09 Slavoj Zizek on Importance of Theory: Psychoanalysis, Belief, Deconstruction, Cognitivismpub. 2017-09-11 · 21:18
From A Midsummer Night's Dream he develops a triad: the madman misperceives a real object (a bush as a bear), the lover transubstantiates an ordinary face into sublime beauty, and the poet gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name, the last being the model for political imagination., illustrating materialization of nothing,transubstantiation,political imagination
20:59 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 9 (Q & A)pub. 2018-11-29 · 1:59:32
Žižek analyzes Shakespeare's distinction: the madman misperceives (bush as bear), the lover sees the sublime immanently in the real (Helen in an Egyptian brow), and the poet creates something from nothing (airy nothing to a name)., illustrating absolute immanence of negativity,cinema-art-culture
From A Midsummer Night's Dream: madman misperceives a bush as a bear; lover sees the divine in the beloved's imperfect face; poet gives to airy nothing a local habitation. Žižek uses this to define poetry/theory as the materialization of genuine novelty, not misperception, not transfiguration, but creation from nothing., illustrating airy nothing / give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name,political imagination,the role of theory