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1media/T12617_10.jpg2018-11-27T22:40:20-08:00Emily MN Kugler98290aa17be4166538e04751b7eb57a9fe5c26a2312642Notes to Stevens Chapter 9plain2018-11-27T23:23:07-08:00Emily MN Kugler98290aa17be4166538e04751b7eb57a9fe5c26a2
Sigmund Freud and Freudian Criticism
Psychoanalytic Theory: Exactly how it sounds. An approach to literature that uses concepts from psychoanalysis, although how this is applied may vary. Do we, for example, psychoanalyze Hamlet the character or the play as a whole?
Unconscious: larger than the conscious mind, this is where Freudian slips and neurosis originate (according to Freud). It cannot be accessed directly, which is why one needs psychoanalysis.
Manifest vs latent content: the manifest portion of a dream is what the dreamer remembers. The latent is the unconscious desires that psychoanalysis must uncover. Freud also applies this technique to literary works.
Condensation: the way dreams combine and condense multiple things (recent experiences, childhood memories, bodily sensations, etc) into a single dream (or work of literature).
Displacement: "Rather than dreaming directly about a source of anxiety, unconscious desire, or fear, that emotional content gets displaced onto something less significant to the dreamer" (Stevens 214).
Overdetermination: Dreams and literary works may both originate from multiple sources, included those from the unconscious of the dreamer or artists.
Wish fulfillment: this is what dreams basically are, according to Freud.
Oedipus complex: a stage in Freudian male development in which the boy has a strong attachment to their mothers and murderous impulses towards their father. These primal desires can lead to Freudian slips and other issues. It is one of many examples of Freud drawing upon literature and mythology to explain his theories.
The Electra Complex comes from Jung.
Penis envy: "one of Freud's most notorious and discredited ideas" (Stevens 215), but one that persists in a lot of cultural and literary texts.
Ego, Id, superego: Freudian theory of the psyche.
Ego: "I" = the conscious mind
Id: "it" = the unconscious mind
Superego: the check preventing you from acting on the erotic and violent urges of the id.
The uncanny: the feeling of unease produced by something that is once familiar and strange, with its familiarity making its strangeness more disturbing.
Drives: fundamental drivers of human behavior: erotic/libido; death drive/instinct for violence. The two are in constant conflict and the repression of them creates civilisation See also Chapter 2 and 6 on figures of speech
Carl Jung and Jungian Criticism
Archetypes
Jacques Lacan and Lacanian Criticism
Marxism
Structuralist
Signifier
Signified
Lacan's Three Realms of Experience
Imaginary: mental images
Symbolic: language and signification (he is drawing on Saussure's structuralism for much of this).
Real: the realm that cannot "be captured in language, inaccessible to us because we're trapped in the imaginary and symbolic realms" (Stevens 261).
The Abject: "something that blurs the boundaries of the self and other or of the animal and human, such as waste, corpses, and bodily fluids. The experience of the abject produces disgust and unease because it reminds people fo their animal nature and mortality" (Stevens 257).