Routledge A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Reading Literature: Reading the Reader (Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis Book Series)

What are the unconscious processes involved in reading literature? How does literature influence our psychological development and existential challenges? A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Reading Literature offers a unique glimpse into the unconscious psychic processes and development involved in reading. The author listens to the 'free associations' of various literary characters, in numerous scenarios where the characters are themselves reading literature, thus revealing the mysterious ways in which reading literature helps us and contributes to our development. The book offers an introduction both to classic literature (Poe, Proust, Sartre, Semprún, Pessoa, Agnon and more) and to the major psychoanalytic concepts that can be used in reading it – all described and widely explained before being used as tools for interpreting the literary illustrations. The book thus offers a rich lexical psychoanalytic source, alongside its main aim in analysing the reader’s psychological mechanisms and development. Psychoanalytic interpretation of those literary readers opens three main avenues to the reader’s experience: the transference relations toward the literary characters; the literary work as means to transcend beyond the reader’s self-identity and existential boundaries; and mobilization of internal dialectic tensions towards new integration and psychic equilibrium. An Epilogue concludes by emphasising the transformational power embedded in reading literature. The fascinating dialogue between literature and psychoanalysis illuminates hitherto concealed aspects of each discipline and contributes to new insights in both fields. A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Reading Literature will be of great interest not only to psychoanalytic-psychotherapists and literature scholars, but also to a wider readership beyond these areas of study. Review "Kenneth Clark defines civilization by citing Ruskin’s statement: "Great nations," Ruskin said, "write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the books of their words, and the book of their art... But of the three, the only trustworthy one is the last." The present book sheds light on the mutual insights (and the tools) of both psychoanalysis and literature, in order to explore, in an unprecedented manner, our daily modes of practicing civilization through the activity of reading. What happens when we read? We are introduced into this mystery in cumulative ways, by looking closely – through the author’s psychoanalytic eyes – at a whole mosaic of exemplary reading experiences, as depicted by a great diversity of literary writers who originate from different cultures and who write in different languages. We are presented with a sort of world-wide encyclopedia of (literary) reading experiences, as illuminated by the author’s psychoanalytic observations. Psychoanalysts as well as literary scholars, students of humanities as well as teachers, and anyone who loves to read, can gain a deeper understanding of themselves and others, and a subtler grasp of the meaning and the use of literature for life, by engaging with the insights of this book."-Shoshana Felman, Author of Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History "Merav Roth’s book makes an important and unique contribution to the burgeoning study of reciprocal relations between literature and psychoanalysis. It will enrich true readers and writers alike with better understanding of the deep psychic processes involved in reading. As an author with a wealth of experience in both writing and teaching literature, as well as someone for whom - thanks to my late wife, the psychoanalyst Rivka Yehoshua - psychoanalysis was ‘family’, I was astonished to discover through this book intriguing ideas of which I was previously unaware. At a time when writing workshops are flourishing and people write more than they read, Merav Roth’s book is particularly important in challengin