Psychoanalytic Criticism

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Introduction

The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud spent much of his life exploring the workings of the unconscious. Freud's work has influenced society in ways which we take for granted. When we speak of Freudian slips or look for hidden causes behind irrational behavior, we are using aspects of Freudian analysis. Many literary critics have also adopted Freud's various theories and methods. In order to define Freudian literary criticism, we will examine how various critics approach Freud's work. We will pay special attention to issues of creativity , author psychology , and psycho-biography .

Creativity and neurosis

Many of us may be familiar with the notion that creativity is intertwined with repression and pain. We may look at the paintings of Van Gogh as a recording of his descent into madness. Both the literary critic Lionel Trilling and Freud have written on the connection between the unconscious and artistic production. In The Liberal Imagination, Trilling writes of the "mechanisms by which art makes its effects" (53). Trilling suggests that these "mechanisms" make the thoughts of the unconscious more acceptable to the conscious, and he refers to "mechanisms" such as the "condensations of meanings and the displacement of accent" (53).

The processes of "condensation" and "displacement" are both described by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams: thoughts and images in dreams may have more than one meaning, Freud says, and one thought or image may be transferred onto another one, possibly because the mind finds the second thought or image more acceptable than the first one. Freud labels the former process "condensation" and the latter one "displacement." Freud devised these terms for hi...

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... by the roles and portrayals of women in society.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. and trans. James Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1965.

Irigaray, Luce. "Another 'Cause'--Castration." Feminisms. Ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1991. 404-12.

Frederick, Karl. "Introduction to the Danse Macabre: Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. 123-138.

Murfin, Ross C. "Psychoanalytic Criticism and Heart of Darkness." Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. 113- 123.

Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal Imagination. New York: Viking, 1950.

Wilson, Edmund. The Wound and the Bow. New York: Oxford UP, 1947.