Abstract

This article seeks to explore the overlapping of theories of language and subjectivity in the writingsof French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Lacan’s particular brand of psychoanalysis takes itsinspiration from Sigmund Freud, but Lacan has radicalized the discipline by opening it up to areaslike linguistics, anthropology and philosophy. The subject as theorized by Lacan is consequently anindividual whose identity is constructed through language itself, which both ensures the individual’ssocialization but simultaneously splits the subject by cutting him/her off from the real order ofexperience.Considering this background to the development of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, this articlequestions anew the relationship between psychoanalysis and literary criticism. It is my contentionthat the link between the two centers around the crucial position of language within Lacan’sthought. Showing how the purpose and mechanisms of the literary critic parallel those of the analystwithin the situation of analysis, I will argue that the objective of both discourses is the uncoveringof truth or meaning. However, both the analyst and the critic are also condemned to pursue theirinterpretations through language, as no metadiscourse is available. Since language in Lacanianpsychoanalysis serves to disguise the unconscious, the truth cannot be found within language itself,but beyond it: in the interstices of signification, inter-dit. In this way, it becomes evident that theanalysis of any piece of literature or art necessarily involves a response that is dictated primarily notby the words on the page or the paint on the canvas, but a message received by the subject which addresses the unconscious Other