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In defense of Joy: C. S. Lewis and psychoanalysis

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Abstract

The imaginative experience of Joy, as he calls it, was central to the career of C. S. Lewis: it informed his work as literary scholar, writer, and religious thinker. Cognizant that psychoanalytic concepts held implications for the meaning of this experience, Lewis offers a critical commentary on these implications and their presuppositions with regard to literary imagery. His commentary suggests possible conflicts between a view of humankind that is psychoanalytically-derived and one which is aesthetically informed.

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Bishop, L.C. In defense of Joy: C. S. Lewis and psychoanalysis. J Med Hum 13, 103–111 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01149652

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