FROM THE TEXT-AS-SYMPTOM TO THE CRITIC-AS-ANALYSAND: NEW APPROACHES IN PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM (original) (raw)

Psychoanalytical Theory and Literature: Some Reflections

isara solutions, 2019

During the last two centuries, literature has been filled with newer innovative theories of analysis and criticism. In fact, these theories enable us to examine through newer ways of interpretation and evaluation a work of art for tracing deeper hidden otherwise unthought-of meanings. Among these newer methods, we have psychoanalysis as one of the significant theories of evaluation and interrogation. While commenting on the development of the theory of psychoanalysis, we can't ignore especially the main contribution made initially by Sigmund Freud and later Jacques Lacan with whom this school is specially associated. This school of psychoanalysis as a psychological theory was developed in the late 19 th and the 20 th centuries by these two well-known sound psychologists. However, the credit of establishing psychoanalysis as a full-fledged school primarily goes to Sigmund Freud and Lacan later simply modified and reoriented what Freud devised and developed during his entire career. This paper will put forward some reflections on psychoanalysis with special reference to these two psychoanalysts-Sigmund Freud & Jacques Lacanand thus this humble endeavour will enable us to know how this school of analysis works in literature as a theory.

Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind

2018

Through a series of radical and innovative chapters, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind challenges the tradition of applied psychoanalysis that has long dominated psychoanalytic literary criticism. Benjamin H. Ogden, a literary scholar, proposes that a new form of analytic literary criticism take its place, one that begins from a place of respect for the mystery of literature and the complexity of its inner workings. In this book, through readings of authors such as J.M. Coetzee, Flannery O'Connor, and Vladimir Nabokov, the mysteries upon which literary works rely for their enduring power are enumerated and studied. Such mysteries are thereafter interwoven into a series of pioneering studies of how the conceptions of thinking, dreaming, and losing become meaningful within the unique aesthetic conditions of individual novels and poems. Each chapter is a provisional solution to the difficult "bridging problems" that arise when literary figures work in the psychoanalytic space, and when psychoanalysts attempt to make use of literature for analytic purposes. At every turn, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind acts as a living example of the territory it explores: the space between two disciplines, wherein the writer brings into being a form of psychoanalytic literary criticism of his own making. Forgoing traditional applied psychoanalysis and technical jargon, this highly accessible, interdisciplinary work will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as literary critics and scholars.

Review of Freud’s Psychoanalysis Approach to Literary Studies

American International Journal of Social Science Research

The purpose of this review article is to identify theories of Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud that play major roles in interpreting literary works. Psychoanalysis is among one of the modern theories used in literary analysis. Whether psychoanalysis has close connection with literature or not has been most controversial issues for many readers and least appreciated. In spite of being one of famous approach for interpreting literary text, it has become one of the mechanisms for interpreting hidden meaning of the text. The finding of this paper revealed Psychoanalysis is not simply branch of medicine, it has helped and is used to understand various fields as philosophy, culture, religion and first and for most used in literature. It also revealed that there is similarities and controversial issues between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychoanalytical criticism. Id, which is part of human personality playing a major role in forming literary work for its repressed behaviors,...

The Products of the Imagination: Psychoanalytic Theory and Postmodern Literary Criticism

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2000

This article considers some of the affinities between postmodern literary theory and the psychoanalytic theories concerned with intersubjective phenomena. Postmodern literary theory is described briefly, and it is argued that one of its major concerns is the nature of, and the political and cultural influences on, subjectivity and identity. Despite that, postmodernism generally, and literary postmodernism in particular, can be said to lack a theory of the psychological and interpersonal dimensions of the experience of self. This article contends that the more relational schools of psychoanalytic theory can provide an example of the construction of selfhood that is of importance to contemporary and postmodern literary criticism. The academy has, to a considerable extent identified ‘psychoanalysis’ with the work of Jacques Lacan, but since the 1980s the work of such theorists as Jane Flax and Jessica Benjamin, building on the work of Nancy Chodorow, have increasingly opened up the possibilities of relational and object relations theory for literary studies. The relational psychoanalytic theories operate in the same epistemological universe as postmodern literary criticism, congruent with the postmodern idea of ‘truth’ as constructed and relational, and selfhood as shifting, contingent, and always-in-process. Particular attention is paid to the work of Wilfred Bion, whose understanding of self provides an account both of the failure of meaning, and of the development of mind. Some examples of a relational approach to literary analysis are provided.

The Price of Admission: On The Predicament of Psychoanalysis and Literature (Keynote Address)

This paper describes why a psychoanalytic approach to literature often seems, to those working from within literature, to overlook or fail to appreciate what is inimitable and irreplaceable about literature. The paper does this by identifying an underlying rationale within the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism that governs how psychoanalysis is brought to bear on literature. This rationale detracts from what can be expressed about psychoanalysis in psychoanalytic literary criticism, and restrains literature within formulations that make it impossible to preserve what is most vital and irreducible about literature. How the Field of Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism Defines Itself Underlying the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism is, I find, a fairly consistent logic, one that must be confronted if the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism is to understand the rationale that determines its relationship to literature. This logic motivates even those works of analytic criticism that have attempted to move away from the more pathological, allegorical readings of literature that were common between sixty and ninety years ago.

A Comparison Of Two Literary Theories: Psychoanalysis And Archetypal Criticism

Social Sciences Studies Journal, 2019

Literary theories help literary works to be understood better and interpreted in a healthy way despite the differences in receiving the works. To this end, their practitioners apply their own unique methods for a particular purpose. A literary critic can discuss some elements in a single work, such as themes, characters, historical background, social and personal connections or implications. Literary criticism, while reading a literary work, is to go beyond the work and interpret it. To put it in a nutshell, critical theories are used as methods of interpretation. Within each piece of literature, there are clues to guide the reader to a deeper understanding of the work, of the author and even the inner workings of the individual reader. Through the critical theories, readers may have a chance to go deeper and change their primal perspective of the work. In this study, two critical theories, psychoanalytic criticism, theorized by Sigmund Freud and archetypal criticism by Carl Gustav Jung, one of Freud's disciples, will be compared to show the differences as well as similarities.