A language of the unconscious and the enervation of the text
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20156128 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susan Van Zyl, Joanne Stein (University of Cape Town) |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 77-86 |
| Publication date | 1990-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387 |
| Publisher | Unisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02564719008529934 |
| OpenAlex | W2060687357 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
The parallel between literary theory and psychoanalysis made by way of linguistics suggests that the psychoanalytic symptom, as an utterance of the language of the unconscious, speaks in a distinctively poetic style which formally and practically approximates the utterances of literary language, the poem and the text. However, an examination of the extent to which the symptom can be seen as an expression of an unconscious language, and the literary text as an instance of a rhetorical or poetic one, indicates that each is better understood as in opposition to the linguistic. Only if the text and the symptom are understood as the re‐implementation of a material or perceptual logic necessarily at odds with that governing language as a system can literature and psychoanalysis be recognised as both epistemologically privileged and programmatically radical
Art · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literary language · Literature · Poetry · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Rhetorical question · Unconscious mind · Utterance · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
|---|