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Toward a methodology for applying psychoanalysis to literature

G S Reed

    The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
    |January 1, 1982
    PubMed
    Summary

    This study suggests psychoanalysis can reveal literary text qualities by analyzing reader unconscious fantasy. Critics unconsciously re-enact a text's organizing fantasy in their writing, a phenomenon examined using Diderot's "Jacques le Fataliste".

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    Area of Science:

    • Literary Criticism
    • Psychoanalytic Theory
    • Reader-Response Theory

    Background:

    • Traditional psychoanalytic approaches risk reducing literary texts to symptoms.
    • A novel methodology is needed to explore the unconscious dimensions of literary engagement.
    • Reader reception and critical interpretation involve complex psychological processes.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To propose a psychoanalytic methodology for analyzing literary texts.
    • To investigate the hypothesis that literary texts evoke unconscious fantasies in readers.
    • To examine how critical responses may unconsciously re-enact a text's organizing fantasy.

    Main Methods:

    • Applying psychoanalytic concepts to literary analysis without pathologizing the text or author.
    • Examining critical responses to Denis Diderot's "Jacques le Fataliste et son Maître".
    • Utilizing the clinical analogy of parallelism to understand critical re-enactment.

    Main Results:

    • Literary texts can evoke specific unconscious fantasies in their readers.
    • Critics' empathic responses, lacking full conscious understanding, can mirror the text's underlying fantasy.
    • The phenomenon of parallelism in criticism serves as an analogy for this unconscious re-enactment.

    Conclusions:

    • Psychoanalysis offers a valuable lens for understanding the unique, unconscious qualities of literary texts.
    • Critical writing can be a site for the unconscious re-enactment of literary fantasies.
    • This methodology provides a framework for analyzing the psychoanalytic dimensions of literary criticism.

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