C. Discussion of Critical Approaches: Psychoanalytic

The scientific study of the mind is a product of psychodynamic theory as established by Sigmund Freud 0856-1939) and of the psychoanalytic method practiced by his followers. Psychoanalysis provided a new key to the understanding of character by claiming that behavior was caused by hidden and unconscious motives and drives. It was greeted as a virtual revelation, and not surprisingly it had a profound effect on twentieth-century literature.
In addition, its popularity produced a psychological/psychoanalytic approach to criticism. Some critics use the approach to explain fictional characters, as in the landmark interpretation by Freud and Ernest Jones that Shakespeare's Hamlet suffers from the "Oedipus Complex." Still other critics use it as a way of analyzing authors and the artistic process. For example, John Livingston Lowes's The Road to Xanadu presents a detailed examination of the mind, reading, and neuroses of Coleridge, the author of "Kubla Khan,”
Critics using the psychoanalytic approach treat literature somewhat like information about patients in therapy. In the work itself, what are the obvious and hidden motives that cause a character's behavior and speech? How much background (childhood trauma, adolescent memories, etc.) does the author reveal about a character? How purposeful is this information with regard to the character's psychological condition? How much is important in analyzing and understanding the character?
In the consideration of authors, critics utilizing the psychoanalytic
i mode consider questions like these: What particular life experiences explain \ characteristic subjects or preoccupations? Was the author's life happy? Miserable? Upsetting? Solitary? Social? Can the death of someone in the author's \family be associated with melancholy situations in that author's work? (All eleven of the brothers and sisters of the English poet Thomas Gray, for example, died before reaching adulthood. Gray was the only one to survive. In his poetry, Gray often deals with death, and he is therefore considered as one of the "Graveyard School" of eighteenth-century poets. A psychoanalytical critic might make much of this connection.)

Categories: Discussion of Critical Approaches