Towards Reading Freud – Self–Creation in Milton, Wordsworth, Emerson & Sigmund Freud: Self-Creation in Milton, Wordsworth, Emerson, and Sigmund Freud - Hardcover

Edmundson, M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691068682 ISBN 13: 9780691068688

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1992

Synopsis

In this book Mark Edmundson reverses the usual practice of using Freud to analyze literary texts. Instead, he reads Freud by analogy with major imaginative writers for whom the figuring and refiguring of the self is a central activity. His readings expose a dialectic between the therapeutic Freud and Freud the sublime author and challenge the normative role of psychoanalysis both in society and in literary criticism. Edmundson begins by comparing the Oedipal passage in The Interpretation of Dreams with works of Sophocles and Shakespeare. He reads Freud's "On Narcissism" through the lens of Eve's Narcissus scene in Paradise Lost; considers the papers on therapeutic technique against Wordsworth's Prelude and major lyrics; and places the ethos of "Mourning and Melancholia" in contrast to the American "refusal to mourn" that informs Emerson's essays. The readings show that even as Freud is representing general human limits, he is frequently reinventing himself symbolically in ways that defy his own normative standards. Edmundson asks, then, whether Freud's self-creating drive, or that exemplified by any of the "literary" authors in the study, can serve as an example of useful resistance against the tendencies that normative psychoanalysis reinforces within society.

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Review

& #8220; Marvelous. . . . Edmundson& #8217; s book offers an extraordinary challenge both to practicing analysts and to a scholarly community which all too uncomplainingly inhabits and reinforces the Freudian paradigm of interpretation. Edmundson reinvents an adventurous and dissident Freud as an antidote to . . . weary psychoanalytic commonplaces.& #8221; & #8212; Malcolm Bowie, Raritan

0;Marvelous. . . . Edmundson7;s book offers an extraordinary challenge both to practicing analysts and to a scholarly community which all too uncomplainingly inhabits and reinforces the Freudian paradigm of interpretation. Edmundson reinvents an adventurous and dissident Freud as an antidote to . . . weary psychoanalytic commonplaces.1;2;Malcolm Bowie, "Raritan" -- Malcolm Bowie "Raritan"

"Marvelous. . . . Edmundson's book offers an extraordinary challenge both to practicing analysts and to a scholarly community which all too uncomplainingly inhabits and reinforces the Freudian paradigm of interpretation. Edmundson reinvents an adventurous and dissident Freud as an antidote to . . . weary psychoanalytic commonplaces."--Malcolm Bowie "Raritan "

"To deflate exaggerated praise on dustcovers is a critic's pleasure. This time, however, I join the praise."--John Neubauer "Comparative Literary Studies "

"Practising analysts would do well to heed this book's warning against becoming the Super-egoic subject who is not only supposed to know but comes to believe that he does know; literary critics can find here a brilliant model of how to read literary texts side by side with psychoanalytic theory. . . Edmundson's book shows how literature can, and psychoanalysis should, help rein in one another's desire to know."--David Hillman "MLR "

Marvelous. . . . Edmundson s book offers an extraordinary challenge both to practicing analysts and to a scholarly community which all too uncomplainingly inhabits and reinforces the Freudian paradigm of interpretation. Edmundson reinvents an adventurous and dissident Freud as an antidote to . . . weary psychoanalytic commonplaces. --Malcolm Bowie "Raritan ""

From the Back Cover

In this book Edmundson reverses the usual practice of using Freud to analyze literary texts. Instead, he reads Freud by analogy with major imaginative writers for whom the figuring and refiguring of the self is a central activity. His readings expose a dialect between the therapeutic Freud and Freud the sublime author and challenge the normative role of psychoanalysis both in society and in literary criticism.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691068682
• ISBN 13: 9780691068688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184