Psychoanalytic literary studies

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The psychoanalytic literature was as interpretative method as part of the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud founded, the u its clinical trials. a. linked to literary analyzes and interpretations.

Psychoanalytic basics of the interpretation of literature

According to Freud, literary works contain, analogous to daydreams, a surface that has arisen through the sublimation or repression of unconscious wishes or desires . According to Freud, this manifest content in literary texts can be deciphered by various psychoanalytic interpretive processes. Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (1900) contains a number of such images or symbolic patterns , created by displacement and condensation, as well as their interpretations.

Accordingly, psychoanalytic literary theory sees a close connection between the laws of dreams or daydreams and those of any kind of fantasy , i.e. H. also of the aesthetic or poetic imagination. In his essay The Poet and Fantasizing, Freud initially defines poetic activity in terms of the analogies between artistic activity and childish play . He connects this structural consideration with a genetic one: even the adult under the demands of the reality principle still tries to recreate experiences that he had as a child; According to Freud , the pleasure that was originally gained in play is now being replaced by fantasy and daydream. From this perspective, aesthetic production is understood as the equivalent of daydreams. The literary or poetic text that describes individual childhood experiences or "the secularization of young mankind" is accordingly on the one hand the result of a transformation of desire or desire, the laws of which Freud identified displacement, condensation and symbolization in the interpretation of dreams . On the other hand, according to this approach, the poetic work arises from the splitting and differentiation of psychic constellations.

Historical approaches in the psychoanalytic literature review

In the early days, psychoanalytic literary analysis was largely limited to psychobiographical interpretations in which the text was interpreted as a symptom of the author's individual unconscious. Characteristic is the effort to make the model of the " mental apparatus " developed by Freud in the interpretation of dreams , which covers the systems of consciousness and unconscious and the processes of repression and regression , fruitful for the interpretation of literary texts; the dream thus becomes the paradigm of the literary text as a “revival of childhood” that follows certain regularities.

According to the psychoanalytical understanding of literature, in the so-called “primary process”, different preconscious ideas are “condensed” into something common, “shifted” to incidental issues or expressed using “ symbols ” and adapted to ideas capable of being conscious . According to this literary theoretical model, the ideas transformed in this way are then processed in a "secondary process" after passing the censorship barrier and made communicable or narrative . The dream work creates the “ manifest dream ”, which the psychoanalytically oriented literary interpretation has to decipher in the opposite way in order to bring out the latent dream thoughts from the present dream. The available literary sources are accessed in their context, with a focus on the prehistory and situation of the dream and the dreamer, comparable to a hermeneutic reading.

The neuroses and traumas of the author as well as his repressed sexual fantasies come into recurring characters and motifs expressed by respective Character and symbol analysis in systematized considered and can be interpreted (see. Eg. As Ernest Jones ' analysis of the Oedipal motifs from Shakespeare's work in Hamlet and Oedipus , 1949). Freud's apostate student CG Jung is also a model in the psychoanalytically oriented literature review with his archetype theory, which emphasizes original collective patterns of meaning, which are effective beyond temporal and cultural boundaries as general psychological predispositions ( cf.e.g. Maud Bodkin: Archetypal Patterns in Poetry , 1934).

From these theoretical specifications, Freud's successor initially developed largely reductionist approaches to a psychoanalytical review of literature, which in their author-psychological orientation are mostly or predominantly fixed on the description of the author's oedipal or narcissistic disorders, which are reflected in his work. In contrast to the biographically oriented approaches of literary psychology , which want to analyze the aesthetic production process with regard to disturbances that influence it, the ego-psychologically oriented literature review places the transformation of psychological constellations at the center of its consideration.

Rosario Assunto compares the psychoanalytic interpretation of works of art and literature with the interpretation of medieval allegories , because it also presupposes a generally recognized meaning of the images.

Further developments in psychoanalytic literary interpretation

In the further development of post-Freudian psychoanalytic literary interpretation, interest shifts from the author and his text to the reader , whose active role in the constitution of the meaning of the literary work in the reception process is now increasingly recognized. The interaction between text and reader is increasingly taken into account and the identity , role and function of the reader are explored. For example, NN Holland, one of the founders of this direction in psychoanalytic literary studies, deals with unconscious desires as a determining factor in reader expectations and reactions ( The Dynamics of Literary Response , 1968). In The Anxiety of Influence (1973), H. Bloom sees the reader, especially if he is a writer or critic , in an "oedipal rivalry relationship" with the author; From this point of view, literary reception becomes the scene of appropriate behaviors such as idealization , envy or aggression .

Contemporary Approaches in Psychoanalytic Literature

Taking into account the methodical structural approaches of discourse analysis and deconstruction , psychoanalytic literary studies finally developed in a completely different direction from the 1960s onwards; Freud's model of the “wonder block”, which determines his conception of the interaction between perception and memory and which is significant in dream analysis, is taken up again by the text theory of deconstructivism . Derrida points out, for example, that Freud treats the unconscious as a “landscape of writing” in which meanings are not constant and unambiguous, but rather are only created contextually anew, so to speak, in the interplay of experiences and memories .

Derrida's considerations form important theoretical prerequisites for the current connection between psychoanalysis and poststructuralism , as initiated above all by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan . In his structural psychoanalysis, Lacan, based on the linguistic models of Saussure and Jakobson , sets up the central thesis that the unconscious is structured like a language and is itself the result of entering linguistic structures and systems.

According to Lacan, the linguistic system, the place of the “ other ”, represents the social rules and regulations, in particular the “law of the father”, and represents a symbolic or linguistic-cultural order that is determined by patriarchal structures.

With the help of rhetorical means such as metaphors and metonymy , the symbolic can be described for Lacan. In doing so, Lacan takes up the separation already made in Saussure between the linguistic representation, the signifier , and the conceptual underlying idea, the signified , and expands this approach to a "always deferred meaning".

Due to the lack of fixed relationships to the signified, the subject is subject to a “linguistically-symbolically conveyed desire”, which, however, never reaches its goal. According to Lacan, the interpreter, too, is subject to this unconscious desire, which is always absent. According to him, meaning is fundamentally not fixable; the interpretation of the text can therefore only be "sliding along a chain of signifiers".

It is therefore the task of the interpreter to recognize in this writing system "behind the textual play of differences" a secret, not brought up text behind the respective written form.

In this respect, Lacan's conception of literary studies has more theoretical meaning than practical application or uses.

Ideology-critical radicalization in psychoanalytic literary interpretation

An ideology-critical radicalization of Lacan's concepts can be found in the philosopher G. Deleuze and the psychiatrist F. Guattari , who emphasize the connections between the "ideology of lack" in the psychoanalytic conceptions of the unconscious and desire on the one hand and capitalist power structures on the other. Accordingly, they reject Freud's and Lacan's oedipal theory concepts as “ bourgeois - imperialist constructs ” and understand the instability of the linguistically constituted subject postulated by Lacan and the constant shifting of symbolically conveyed desire “as a positive force beyond social-cultural capitalist mechanisms of repression ”. Using the example of Kafka , with the help of their “ schizoanalysis ” they try to show how literature can set in motion a “machine of desire” with “liberating”, even “ revolutionary potential”.

The provocative potential of today's psychoanalytic literature review is also expressed in other contemporary theories on cultural discourse , for example in M. Foucault's Histoire de la Sexualité (1976-84), in which the central role of sexuality in psychoanalysis as a focal point for modern knowledge. and power strategies is seen. From Foucault's point of view, the discourses are controlled by a cultural subconscious, which, unlike Jung, he understands as constantly fluctuating and, unlike Freud, as discontinuous or repressive and at the same time subversive .

literature

  • Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytic literary studies . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory. Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227.
  • Rolf Günter Renner: literary studies, psychoanalytic . In: Horst Brunner and Rainer Moritz (eds.): Literary Studies Lexicon · Basic concepts of German studies . Schmidt Verlag , 2nd edition Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-503-07982-3 , pp. 243–245.
  • Walter Schönau: Introduction to Psychoanalytic Literature . Metzler Verlag , Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-476-10259-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory. Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225–227, here p. 225.
  2. ^ Rolf Günter Renner: literary studies, psychoanalytical . In: Horst Brunner and Rainer Moritz (eds.): Literary Studies Lexicon · Basic concepts of German studies . Schmidt Verlag , 2nd edition Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-503-07982-3 , pp. 243–245, here p. 243.
  3. ^ Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225–227, here p. 225. See also Rolf Günter Renner: Literaturwissenschaft, psychoanalytische . In: Horst Brunner and Rainer Moritz (eds.): Literary Studies Lexicon · Basic concepts of German studies . Schmidt Verlag , 2nd edition Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-503-07982-3 , pp. 243–245, here pp. 243f.
  4. ^ Rolf Günter Renner: literary studies, psychoanalytical . In: Horst Brunner and Rainer Moritz (eds.): Literary Studies Lexicon · Basic concepts of German studies . Schmidt Verlag , 2nd edition Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-503-07982-3 , pp. 243–245, here p. 244.
  5. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225–227, here p. 225.
  6. ↑ a b c cf. Rolf Günter Renner: literary studies, psychoanalytical . In: Horst Brunner and Rainer Moritz (eds.): Literary Studies Lexicon · Basic concepts of German studies . Schmidt Verlag , 2nd edition Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-503-07982-3 , pp. 243–245, here p. 244.
  7. ↑ Rosario Assunto: Theory of literature among writers of the 20th century. Reinbek 1975, p. 54 F.
  8. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227, here pp. 225f.
  9. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227, here pp. 226f. See also Rolf Günter Renner: literary studies, psychoanalytical . In: Horst Brunner and Rainer Moritz (eds.): Literary Studies Lexicon · Basic concepts of German studies . Schmidt Verlag , 2nd edition Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-503-07982-3 , pp. 243–245, here p. 244.
  10. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227, here pp. 226f.
  11. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227, here pp. 226f. See also Jeremy Hawthorne: Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism . In: Jeremy Hawthorne: Basic Concepts of Modern Literary Theory · A Handbook . Translated by Waltraud Korb. Francke Verlag, Tübingen and Basel 1994, ISBN 3-8252-1756-6 , p. 260.
  12. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227, here pp. 226f.
  13. ↑ See Doris Feldmann: Psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 225-227, here pp. 226f.