Psychoanalytic Criticism: A Reappraisal

by Elizabeth Wright

What is psychoanalytic criticism and how can it be justified as a type of criticism in its own right? In this new and thoroughly revised edition of her classic textbook, Elizabeth Wright provides a cogent answer to this question and a wide-ranging introduction to psychoanalytic criticism from Freud to the present day. 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 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.

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1998

Reviews

[javor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to different schools of psychoanalytic thought as they apply to literary criticism. Psychoanalytic criticism tends to be thought of either in terms of a simplistic id-psychology analyzing the author or a character, or of archetypal Jungian criticism; this book shows the vast ways in which other schools of thought have applied not just to clinical work but to criticism as well. Wright covers ego- and id-psychology, object-relations theory, Lacanian theory, deconstruction, discourse analysis and schizoanalysis, feminist theories, and more, examining not just literary fiction but music, art, theater, cinema, and even the reader themself.