engl 214 fall 2010 week 2.1 introduction to psychoanalysis
TRANSCRIPT
ENGL 214 Fall 2010
WEEK 1
Introduction to Freud/Psychoanalysis
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
Psychology
Psychiatry
Psychoanalysis
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
psyche: originates from Greek myth, a word that originally referred to the ‘soul’ ; in modern context refers to the mental life in contrast to the body
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
Sigmund Freud biography:- born 6 May 1856 in Freiberg - son of Jewish wool merchant- moved to Vienna at age of 4
- left in 1938, threats by Nazis - died in England 23 Sept. 1939
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
Freud began with clinical approach to curing neurosis (Studies in Hysteria, 1896), through hypnosis, free association and other means
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) Freud considered it to be his most important work. - Study of dreams moved him from clinical analysis of the ‘abnormal’ to the ‘normal’ - Most ‘radical’ claim: we are all neurotics
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
approached not just dream interpretation but also interpretation of the language of everyday life: day dreams, slips of the tongue (parapraxes), interruption of personal wishes/desires by social constraints
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
by the end of his life had expanded psychoanalysis to examine art, literature, war, death and the origins of culture, society and relgion
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
Literary Interpretation: Lessons of Psychoanalysis
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
Interpretation: - stories and images are not always what they
appear to be on the surface (role of symbolism) - not just deeper meaning, but often the
presence of two conflicting meanings - slips/mispoken words/chance + non-intended
meanings or associations should not be dismissed by readers, but become central
- not just ‘search for meaning’ but looking at blockage of communication and meaning: unconscious takes the form of a ‘resistance’ to speaking/remembering/retelling
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
stories and images are not always what they appear to be on the surface (role of symbolism, condensation +
displacement)
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
not just searching for deeper meaning, but often the presence of two conflicting meanings
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
slips/mispoken words/chance + non-intended meanings or associations should not be dismissed by readers, but become central to the literary + readerly enterprise
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
reading is not just ‘search for meaning’ but looking at the absence of meaning (gaps and silences), the blockage of communication: often the unconscious takes the form of a ‘resistance’ to speaking, remembering or retelling
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
1. The Unconsicous
P. Thurschwell. Sigmund Freud. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. 4. Print.
Unconscious: storehouse of instinctual desires and needs
- Preserves childhood wishes and memories (even those erased from consciousness)
P. Thurschwell. Sigmund Freud. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. 4. Print.
Unconscious: trash can that never gets taken out“in mental life nothing which has once been formed can perish – … everything is somehow preserved and … in suitable circumstances … it can once more be brought to light” -
– Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
1I. The Edo/Id/Superego
ENGL 214, Fall 2010
III. Oedipus Complex
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
Freud: the “cure” is self-reflection, self-knowledge
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
cure and catharsis: cleansing, purging, purfication
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
Poe invents the detective Story in
- no readership- 1st audience is for Sherlock Holmes stories in
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
Agatha Christie: best-selling author of all time
(tied with Shakespeare)
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
- 1st recorded use of the expression “detective story”
appears in 1878
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
- used by the American novelist Anna Katharine Greene
(1846-1935) in her book, The Leavenworth Case (1878)
- First work of detective fictionwritten by a woman
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
- 1st recorded use of the expression “detective story”
appears in 1878
scientific method
Poes interest in photography science and criminal investigation
Brave New World, published 1932
II. Defining “Detective Fiction”
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
III. The Economics of the Short Story
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
detective fiction
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
why short story?
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
towards the end of the 19th century the novel had come
to be seen as the artistically respectable form
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
serial publication (magazines)
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
UK: penny dreadful U.S: dime novel
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
In UK, detective fiction and short fiction has longer history of serialization in magazinesFree-standing ‘short story’ (not
serials) grows out of North American literary culture
Julian Symons, Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel. p. 86.
- short story – most popular form for crime fiction for 30 years
- its popularity begins to decline after WWI
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
Julian Symons:1) liberation of
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
short story’s popularitywanes again after WWI
ENGL 211, Summer 2010
short story’s popularitywanes again after WWI