Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

By: Von Monique Rivera Bello

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

Refers to literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by

Sigmund Freud.

Psychoanalytic reading has beenpracticed since the early development of

psychoanalysis itself, and has developed into a rich and heterogeneous interpretive

tradition.

Sigmund Freud(6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939)

Born Sigismund Schlomo Freud, was an Austrian

psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school

of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of

the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating

the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through

dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.

Psychoanalytic Criticism Adopts the methods of "reading" employed by

Freud and later theorists to interpret texts.

It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses.

One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche.

Psychoanalytic Criticism Literary critics sometimes analyze the

action of literary characters using the 3 personality structures that Freud identified.

As critics explore the ego, superego and id of characters in a work, they focus on a ways that these parts of the characters personalities influence the work as a whole.

Psychoanalytic critics will ask such question as: "What is Hamlet's

problem?”

Freud suggested that an unconscious oedipal conflict caused Hamlet's hesitations.

The Oedipus complex, in psychoanalytic theory, is a group of largely unconscious (dynamically

repressed) ideas and feelings which centre around the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex.

The complex is named after the Greek mythical character Oedipus, who (albeit unknowingly) kills his father and marries his mother. According to

Freud, the Oedipus complex is a universal phenomenon, built in phylogenetically, and is

responsible for much unconscious guilt