Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One The unconscious of psychoanalysis: Freud's literary allusions
- Chapter Two A sublime ambivalence: Freud as literary critic
- Chapter Three The literary-critical paradigm: sources of Freud's hermeneutic
- Chapter Four The frustrated Dichter: literary qualities of Freud's text
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter Two - A sublime ambivalence: Freud as literary critic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One The unconscious of psychoanalysis: Freud's literary allusions
- Chapter Two A sublime ambivalence: Freud as literary critic
- Chapter Three The literary-critical paradigm: sources of Freud's hermeneutic
- Chapter Four The frustrated Dichter: literary qualities of Freud's text
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
FREUD, FORMALISM, AND THE ARS POETICA
In the previous chapter I sought to establish that literature far transcends the status of a mere object of psychoanalysis. It should therefore be clear that the present chapter is not intended simply to constitute a psychoanalytical theory of literature, which, anyway, would not properly belong to a study of Freud's own literary culture. Nevertheless, a critique of the texts in which he attempts to put literature on the couch is essential to any account of his own complex relationships with Dichter. It is important, first of all, to point out that Freud's literary criticism is not some misguided secondary application of a medical technique to an inappropriate object. Psychoanalysis was always intended to be a general theory of the mind, and literature belonged within its compass from its very inception. Although it was not until 1907 that Freud published a primarily literary study, his letters to Fliess clearly illustrate that the germ of psychoanalytical literary criticism was present from the beginning. Detailed sketches of the analyses of Oedipus and Hamlet appear simultaneously with Freud's very first declaration of the ubiquity of the Oedipus complex in the letter to Fliess of 1897. Secondly, far from viewing them as mere caricatures of genuine psychoanalytical studies, Freud was himself particularly proud of his works of art criticism.
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- Information
- Freud's Literary Culture , pp. 63 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000