THE FIELDThe Field

Greek · ἔρως

Eros

Charge in the between. Not a synonym for sex, and not a proof of reciprocity.

Etymology

Greek erōs: desire, longing, the god. Plato’s dialogues made a philosophy of it. Later English erotic narrowed the range. Wider charge remains: attraction, polarity, exchange, play, the between. THE FIELD uses Eros as an editorial name for the move toward relation, not as a gendered essence and not as proof of reciprocity.1

Semantic range

Field 69’s territory inside THE FIELD. Projection and relation. What is known, imagined, inferred, communicated.

What the gloss loses

Reducing Eros to sex. Using psychology to erase the other person.

Misuse

Certifying that charge is returned. Reciprocity has to be said.

What happens when relation becomes charged?

Notes

  1. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), s.v. ἔρως.