Beyond psychoanalytic literary criticism : [electronic resource] between literature and mind / Benjamin H Ogden.

Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; Permissions/acknowledgments; Preface; Introduction; PART I: Mysteries exchanged for words; 1. The risk of true confession: On literature and mystery; The mystery of looking; The mystery of thinking; The mystery of language; Final thoughts; Note; PART II: Bridging problems; 2. From literature to psychoanalysis: J.M. Coetzee's foray; Notes; 3. From psychoanalysis to literature: Bion and the apes; First rule: Problems posed must have solutions. Second rule: A problem must lead toward the more interesting thought, never the less interesting thoughtThird rule: He who designs the problem of the book must be able to think his way "into the being of another"; Notes; PART III: Losing, thinking, dreaming; 4. How language holds loss: On literature and a lost corner of the mind; Notes; 5. Thinking in Tarjei Vesaas' The Birds; Notes; 6. Reflections on the previous chapter; Notes; 7. What is a dream and how do you write one?; PART IV: Brief interlude; 8. Inside the magic circle: On Homero Aridjis' The Child Poet. PART V: Neither out far nor in deep9. The predicament of psychoanalysis and literature; How the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism defines itself; Reading with elements: what elements cannot say about literature; Stereoscopic thinking: seeing in parallel; Notes; References; Index.

"Through a series of radical and innovative chapters, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind challenges the tradition of applied psychoanalysis that has long dominated psychoanalytic literary criticism. Benjamin H. Ogden, a literary scholar, proposes that a new form of analytic literary criticism take its place, one that begins from a place of respect for the mystery of literature and the complexity of its inner workings. In this book, through readings of authors such as J.M. Coetzee, Flannery OConnor, and Vladimir Nabokov, the mysteries upon which literary works rely for their enduring power are enumerated and studied. Such mysteries are thereafter interwoven into a series of pioneering studies of how the conceptions of thinking, dreaming, and losing become meaningful within the unique aesthetic conditions of individual novels and poems. Each chapter is a provisional solution to the difficult "bridging problems" that arise when literary figures work in the psychoanalytic space, and when psychoanalysts attempt to make use of literature for analytic purposes. At every turn, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind acts as a living example of the territory it explores: the space between two disciplines, wherein the writer brings into being a form of psychoanalytic literary criticism of his own making. Forgoing traditional applied psychoanalysis and technical jargon, this highly accessible, interdisciplinary work will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as literary critics and scholars."--Provided by publisher.