The Mind and the Book: A Long Look at Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

Abstract

This immense field can be summarized by recognizing that the psychoanalytic critic must address one or more of three minds: the author's, the reader's, or a mind derived from the text. The critic can then address them from any theoretical point of view. The future of psychoanalytic criticism, and indeed of psychoanalysis, lies in integrating the discoveries of brain and cognitive science with those of psychoanalysis. In the present, psychoanalytic critics need to recognize that their function is to delight and enlighten. Hence, no more pathography, no more id-analysis, no more symbol-mongering, no more jargon. Only that way, will psychoanalytic critics keep open psychoanalysis' royal road into the human possibilities offered by great literature.