“Ojo” or the Pedagogy of the Vigilant Gaze in Enrique Lihn

Abstract

This paper's central question is about how certain poems by Enrique Lihn represent the gaze critically. The article proposes reading the poem "Ojo," published in the book Una nota estridente (2005). The reading adopts concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis. We read the text as a poeticization of a scene in which the act of looking is transmitted in a repressive pedagogical space and is linked to the entry into language. Thus, entering language implies submitting to the mold of multiple codes (the visual is one of them) and the loss of other perceptual possibilities. Briefly, "Ojo" is understood as a counter pedagogical exercise that dismantles how a way of looking is installed through subjugation strategies.