12 rows · · LIONEL TRILLING. “FREUD AND LITERATURE. In discovering the unconscious, Freud inspired by Freud and Literature. By. Lionel Trilling. I. The Freudian psychology is the only systematic account of the human mind which, in point of subtlety and complexity, of interest and tragic power, deserves to stand beside the chaotic mass of psychological insights which literature has accumulated through the blogger.com Size: 1MB Freud and Literature. "Freud and Literature." Originally published as "The Legacy of Sigmund Freud, Part 2: Literary and Aesthetic." Kenyon Review 2, No. 2 (Spring ): A revised version appeared in Horizon, September Excerpt, from Horizon: The Freudian psychology is the only systematic account of the human mind whch, in point of subtlety and complexity, of interest and tragic power, deserves to stand beside the chaotic mass of psychological insights which literature
Dr. Sreekumar's English Literature & Career Advancement: FREUD AND LITERATURE--Lionel Trilling
Thank you for this blogpost. I am teaching the essay Freud and Literature from this year. This really proved helpful, freud and literature lionel trilling. Lionel Trilling. Trilling was an American literary critic and teacher who brought psychological, sociological, and philosophical methods and insights into criticism. His critical writings include studies of Matthew Arnold and E. Forsteras well as collections of literary essays: The Liberal ImaginationBeyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning Trilling maintained an interest in Freud and psychoanalysis throughout his career.
However he never based his freud and literature lionel trilling on any one system of thought. He always remained loyal, like E. Forster, to the tradition of humanistic thought. His goal was to educate and stimulate the enlightened middle classes.
Trilling admired Freud enormously for his recognition of the dark side of life and for his courage in discovering and telling unpalatable truths. He also believed that the great modern writers -- D.
Lawrence and Franz Kafka, Yeats and Eliot, Joyce and Proust, Mann and Conrad —offered a subversive attitude towards the basic tenets of liberal democracy. In their works he found the abyss of terrors and mysteries. Trilling believes that Freudian psychology offers a systematic account of the human mind.
Psychoanalytical theory had a great impact on literature. Next Trilling speaks about the influences on Freud —. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche anticipated his ideas. But Freud did not read their works. It is nothing but freud and literature lionel trilling zeitgeist the direction of thought of that era.
Psycho- analysis is the culmination of the spirit of the Romantics. The Romantics thought that science is standing on the shoulders of literature. They believed that literature itself is a scientific search into the self. The Romantics believed in the hidden thing in the human soul. Blake, Wordsworth and Burke did not believe in the wisdom of mere analytical reason. Trilling speaks about the influence Freud had on literature. Kafka explored Freudian concepts of guilt and punishment.
It is to make the ego more independent of the superego, to widen its field of vision and so to extend the field of vision and to extend the organization of the id. It is reclamation work, like the draining of the Zyder Zee. F reud considered art as one of the charms of life.
He speaks with admiration about the artists, freud and literature lionel trilling. Writers understood the motives of men. Yet sometimes he speaks with contempt about art. Art is substitute gratification — an illusion in contrast to reality. Art serves as a narcotic. Freud thinks that artist is in the same category as the freud and literature lionel trilling. Freud believed that there are two ways of dealing with reality.
The practical and effective way of the conscious self. His subject does not possess him but he has dominion over it. The poet is in command of his fantasy. The neurotic freud and literature lionel trilling very little command over it.
The artist is not like the neurotic. Art has a therapeutic function in releasing mental tension. It promotes the social sharing of highly valued emotional experience. It recalls men to their cultural ideals. Freud has no desire to encroach upon the autonomy of the artist. The psychiatrist cannot yield to the author. The author cannot yield to the psychiatrist, freud and literature lionel trilling. Laymen may expect too much from psychoanalysis.
But it must be remembered that it does not throw light on the two problems that bother him most. It can do nothing towards elucidating the artistic gift. It cannot explain the way in which the artist works. Analytical method can do two things. It can explain the inner meanings of the work of art.
It can explain the temperament of the artist. Ernest Jones and the mystery of Hamlet. Jones tried to clear the mystery of Hamlet. Mystery in the play. Why Hamlet did not avenge the murder of his father? What is the secret of the magical appeal of the play? Jones believes that it is not solely on the impressive thoughts and the splendor of freud and literature lionel trilling language.
It is something beyond this. According to Jones the play is wrapped in a dream like quality. We have no quarrel with the assumptions of Jones. But it must be remembered that there is no single meaning to any work of art. Changes in the historical mood and changes in the personal mood change the meaning of a work of art. It makes art a richer thing.
It also does not lie in the effect of the work. The audience partly determines the value of a work. The mystery of Hamlet is not uniform. More over the elements of art are not limited to art. They reach into life.
To find out the mind of the artist is not practical. PSYCHO ANALYSIS AND HENRY IV. Freud tried to show that poetry is indigenous to the very constitution of the mind. Mind is seen as a poetry-making organ. Poetry is seen as a method of thought though unreliable and ineffective for conquering reality. The mind in one of its parts could work without logic. The unconscious mind works without any logic, freud and literature lionel trilling.
This point is very important — S. Sree Kumar. The pleasure principle worked in dreams. He feels that in cases of war neurosis — shell shock- the patient recollects the experience with utmost anguish. Freud says that in psychic life there is a repetition compulsion that goes beyond the pleasure principle. This traumatic neurosis is an attempt to mythridatize another term from medical science, where a patient is administered small doses of poison.
Ultimately, the dosage is increased and he becomes immune to poison. The nightmare that a person sees is an attempt to overcome a bad situation. By repeating it he is making a new effort to control it. In his theory of the effect of tragedy, Aristotle glossed over this function. The terror we experience when we see the bleeding sightless eyes of Oedipus has little cathartic function. Seeing this painful sight of the blind Oedipus, we become immune to the greater pain that life may inflict on us.
Freud says that in human pride is the ultimate cause of human wretchedness. He is an inextricable tangle of culture and biology. He is not simply good; there is a hell within him that is waiting to engulf the whole civilization. For everything he gains, he pays in equal coin.
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Part 1: Psychoanalytic literary theory
, time: 4:47Freud and Literature - Lionel Trilling
· Trilling returned to Freud throughout his career, with many important contributions such as his Freud Anniversary Lecture presented at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Society called Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture (); in this essay Trilling argues among many other things, that literature is fundamentally subversive, since its function is to make us aware not only of human Freud and Literature. By. Lionel Trilling. I. The Freudian psychology is the only systematic account of the human mind which, in point of subtlety and complexity, of interest and tragic power, deserves to stand beside the chaotic mass of psychological insights which literature has accumulated through the blogger.com Size: 1MB Freud and Literature. "Freud and Literature." Originally published as "The Legacy of Sigmund Freud, Part 2: Literary and Aesthetic." Kenyon Review 2, No. 2 (Spring ): A revised version appeared in Horizon, September Excerpt, from Horizon: The Freudian psychology is the only systematic account of the human mind whch, in point of subtlety and complexity, of interest and tragic power, deserves to stand beside the chaotic mass of psychological insights which literature
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