Narcissan

Universal exhibitionism—the Narcissan instinct—in its relation to evolution: here is a vein of thought in which I have lately been working.

Even though she links the Narcissan element in Plotinus with the ‘mirror of Dionysus’ (Kristeva 1988: 107) Kristeva does not foreground the threat of disintegration through confrontation with the maternal. This threat does, however, surface in Ovid’s integration of the story of Narcissus with that of Pentheus and is discernible in Plotinus’ identification of the mirror of Dionysus with the Narcissan error of ‘image-laden dispersion’ (107).

What initially recommends the Narcissan metaphor is paranomasia:^([sic]) Alberti is seduced by the pun on ‘flower’ that drives the pseudo-syllogism (or enthymeme) ornamenting the hubristic claims he makes on painting’s behalf.