Literature and Psychoanalysis: The Question of Reading: Otherwise

by Shoshana Felman (Editor)

The relationship between literature and psychoanalysis has never been one of equals. Traditional (particularly in American tradition), literature has been relegated to the position of foil for its more abstract counterpart--a mere body of language to be explained through the theoretical authority of psychoanalysis and, through its need to be interpreted, to add justification anjd pretige to Freudian theory.

Such a relationship has always bothered literary critics--who feel that psychoanalysis refuses to even to recognize literature as such--and, of late, it has begun to both some scholars of psychoanalysis, as well. This volume proposes a fundamental reorientation of the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis, arguing that neither discipline dominates the othr. Instead, the contributors assert that the subjects traverse each other's boundaries and that their relationship is one of give and take.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Literary Criticism, Theory, Nonfiction

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Shoshana Felman is an American literary critic and current Woodruff Professor of Comparative Literature and French at Emory University. She was on the faculty of Yale University from 1970 to 2004, where in 1986 she was awarded the Thomas E. Donnelly Professorship of French and Comparative Literature. She specializes in 19th and 20th century French literature, psychoanalysis, trauma and testimony, and law and literature. Felman earned her Ph.D. at the University of Grenoble in France in 1970.

Felman works in the fields of psychoanalytic literary criticism, performativity theory, feminism, Holocaust testimony, and other areas, though her writings frequently question, ironize, or test the limits of the very critical methods being employed. Often in her writing a reversal will occur so that the critical vocabulary gets subjected to and converted into the terms of the literary or cultural object being scrutinized rather than simply settling the meaning of the object; thus in Felman's style of criticism there is no fixed hierarchy of theory over and beyond the reach of the literary object. As such, her methods share an affinity with deconstruction, for which she is sometimes associated with the Yale School and colleagues such as Paul de Man.

Jacques Lacan is a significant influence on Felman and she was among the vanguard of theorists—and perhaps foremost among those addressing Anglophone audiences—to rigorously apply his concepts to the study of literature.

Since the 1990s Felman has written texts on testimony and trauma, particularly in the context of the Holocaust and other collective trauma.

Reviews

[Peter Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literature and Psychoanalysis is a reprint of a 1977 issue of Yale French Studies - which explains why there are so many contributors from that particular university!

As with many collections about Lacan from this time period, there is plenty of dross here that is not very interesting to today's reader. However, there are a number of historical texts available in this edition that are useful for tracing the interpretation and understanding of Lacan in Anglophone circles.

The first of these is Shoshana Felman's introduction, which nicely summarizes the tension between the discourses of literature and psychoanalysis. Also of interest is her long chapter on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, although I would suggest that it is better to read it as it (re)appears in her book Writing and Madness: Literature/Philosophy/Psychoanalysis.

Another piece that I really liked was Peter Brooks's essay on narrative, which he theorizes using Beyond the Pleasure Principle. This essay is innovative and insightful, and one of the collection's highlights.

Two other pieces are important here, not because they are of lasting value, but because they have been influential touchstones in Lacanian criticism. First, there is Fredric Jameson's long essay that attempts to reconcile Lacan with Marxism, and which (to me, anyway) just comes across as nonsense. The real is the same thing as history? I don't think so! Second, there is Barbara Johnson's look at the contradictions of Derrida's reading of Lacan, which makes some good points but seems pretentious and outdated from today's perspective.

All in all, this is a book that, while it has lost a lot of resonance, remains historically interesting for readers of Lacanian criticism.