Psychoanalytic Criticism: A Reappraisal, 2nd Edition
October 1998, Polity
Since each school of psychoanalysis has its own theory of the aesthetic process, the field is complex. Adopting a critical perspective, Elizabeth Wright focuses on major figures and texts in psychoanalysis and in literary and art criticism: classical psychoanalysis; Jungian analytic psychology; objects-relations theory; French psychoanalysis; French anti-psychoanalysis; feminist psychoanalytic criticism. Across these divisions certain problems recur, problems which conceal themselves in a wide range of surprising places, from Shakespearean tragedy to performance theatre from magic realism to detective fiction, from the German Lied to Wagner. These areas are investigated with reference to rival psychoanalytic theories, while connections are traced between the aesthetic process and the psychoanalytic approach.
Already established as the leading introduction to the field, this new edition of Psychoanalytic Criticism will be essential reading for students of literature and literary theory, psychoanalysis, feminism and feminist theory, cultural studies and the humanities generally.
Part One. .
1. Classical Psychoanalysis: Freud.
2. Classical Freudian Criticism: Id-Psychology.
3. Post-Freudian Criticism: Ego-Psychology.
4. Archetypal Criticism: Jung and the Collective Unconscious.
5. Object-Relations Theory: Self and Other.
Part Three. .
6. Structural Psychoanalysis: Psyche as Text.
7. Post-structural Psychoanalysis: Text as Psyche.
Part Four. .
8. Psychoanalysis and Ideology I: Focus on Subversion.
9. Psychoanalysis and Ideology II: Focus on Dialectic.
10. Feminist Psychoanalytic Criticism.
"Elizabeth Wright's Psychoanalytic Criticism is the only
place I know where two vital discourses, psychoanalysis and
literary criticism, can achieve more than a passing acquaintance
with each other. Professor Wright's central concern, the
problematic relation of art to psychoanalysis, shapes the
confrontations she carefully stages between the various Freudian
and post-Freudian theories and their literary-critical
counterparts. The new chapters that include contemporary work by
Zizek, feminists, and the new Lacanians maintain this book as
crucially relevant." Juliet Flower MacCannell, The University of
"Psychoanalytic Criticism provided a judicious and
indispensable guide to this often bewildering and complex field of
literary studies ... This second and updated edition, therefore, is
to be welcomed. Wright has not just reissued the book but has used
the opportunity to take stock of the field and reappraise the
current state of play in psychoanalytic studies." Psychoanalytic
'One cannot but admire its breadth and energy.' Psychoanalysis, Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory