Publisher's Synopsis
Psychoanalytic Criticism is a wide–ranging introduction to psychoanalytic theory and its impact on literature, literary criticism and film. It charts the development of psychoanalytic theory from classical Freudian psychoanalysis to contemporary feminist thought, and assesses the implications of this development for literary and film theory.
The book includes selections from the works of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, together with commentaries on these theorists by such writers as Toril Moi and Jaqueline Rose, and applications of the theories by literary critics including Marie Bonaparte, Harold Bloom, Peter Brooks and Peter Nicholls. The fiction covered includes writings by Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison and a concluding section addresses feminism and cinema.
Throughout the book a number of issues are discussed including the construction of gender, the role of pleasure in reading and writing, the textual presentation of the body, signification in texts and in the unconscious and how these may be linked.
Psychoanalytic Criticism is ideal as a textbook for students in literary theory and literary criticism, film theory and feminist theory, and it will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the cultural impact of psychoanalysis.
