Work · Renaissance & Humanism
Narcissus: A Discourse on “Know Thyself”
A philosophical dialogue that reads the myth of Narcissus as a call to self-knowledge: whoever finds the invisible, true human being within finds God.
Introduction
“Narcissus” is counted among Skovoroda’s earliest philosophical dialogues; it was written around 1770, during or shortly after his years at the Kharkiv Collegium, and circulated in manuscript like all his works. In a conversation between friends it turns the myth of Narcissus around: the youth who falls in love with his reflection becomes an image of the right kind of self-love, provided one looks beyond the visible body to the invisible, true human being within, which is God’s image and finally God himself. The dialogue develops Skovoroda’s doctrine of the two natures and his symbolic reading of Scripture, with many references to the Bible and to classical authors. It forms the core of his later treatises on self-knowledge and is a standard text in histories of Ukrainian philosophy.
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