The Aesthetic UnconsciousThis book is not concerned with the use of Freudian concepts for the interpretation of literary and artistic works. Rather, it is concerned with why this interpretation plays such an important role in demonstrating the contemporary relevance of psychoanalytic concepts. In order for Freud to use the Oedipus complex as a means for the interpretation of texts, it was necessary first of all for a particular notion of Oedipus, belonging to the Romantic reinvention of Greek antiquity, to have produced a certain idea of the power of that thought which does not think, and the power of that speech which remains silent. From this it does not follow that the Freudian unconscious was already prefigured by the aesthetic unconscious. Freud's 'aesthetic' analyses reveal instead a tension between the two forms of unconscious. In this concise and brilliant text Rancière brings out this tension and shows us what is at stake in this confrontation. |
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aesthetic regime Aesthetic Revolution aesthetic unconscious analysis artistic Carlo Ginzburg castration anxiety causal characters classical Conflict confrontation Corneille and Voltaire death drive Defective Subject domain dramatic etiology exemplary fact fictional figure Forms of Mute Freud's Corrections Freudian Hegel hermeneutics hero Ibsen idea of thought incest Interpretation of Dreams Jacques Rancière Jean-François Lyotard Jensen’s Gradiva Kinds of Medicine knowledge language literary literature logic logos and pathos Louis Marin Lyotard Maeterlinck manifest Maurice Maeterlinck mode moral Moses of Michelangelo Mute Speech nihilist entropy Oedipus Oedipus the King opposition Pleasure Principle plot poet poetic psyche psychoanalysis rationality Rebecca reestablish refute regime of art regime of thinking relation revelation Rosmer Rosmersholm Schopenhauerian secret seeks sensible Sigmund Freud signification Sophocles Standard Edition story theory things of art things of thought thinking about art thought and non-thought thought of art tion tragedy tragic trans truth uncon voiceless speech