Subject
Re: VN and Freud (response to Jansy Mello on VN's awareness of
Oedipal complex)
Oedipal complex)
From
Date
Body
Hi, Jo
Thank you for your reply and for correcting my faulty memory about the
"police state of sexual myth". But the point remains: after Freud
changed
his theory concerning the recovery of a repressed memory of an actual
seduction, by the theory about the "sexual phantasies" that occur with
every
boy and girl ( establishing the importance of "psychical
reality",sometimes
over-riding an equally constructed "external reality"), psychoanalysis
became what it is today.
Nabokov derided Oedipal theories quite openly in "Pnin" ( Victor Wind's
parents were both psychiatrists and fonds of psychology), but this also
doesn't change the idea I'm trying to convey.
If Nabokov had wanted to denounce his uncle, I'm certain he'd have found
other means different from hiding clues about him in "Lolita".
To interpret VN's texts following psychoanalytic techniques ( "applied
psychoanalysis") is, in my opinion, almost always un-ethical. This is
one of
the criticisms I direct against texts that follow the lead of Marie
Bonaparte's articles on Edgar A. Poe and even, to a lesser extent,
towards
Freud's article on Leonardo da Vinci.
Many revelations that can be found in most artistic works are
involuntary,
unconscious disclosures. Any author, despite his public persona, should
have
garanteed his rights of privacy and respect.
Jansy
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Thank you for your reply and for correcting my faulty memory about the
"police state of sexual myth". But the point remains: after Freud
changed
his theory concerning the recovery of a repressed memory of an actual
seduction, by the theory about the "sexual phantasies" that occur with
every
boy and girl ( establishing the importance of "psychical
reality",sometimes
over-riding an equally constructed "external reality"), psychoanalysis
became what it is today.
Nabokov derided Oedipal theories quite openly in "Pnin" ( Victor Wind's
parents were both psychiatrists and fonds of psychology), but this also
doesn't change the idea I'm trying to convey.
If Nabokov had wanted to denounce his uncle, I'm certain he'd have found
other means different from hiding clues about him in "Lolita".
To interpret VN's texts following psychoanalytic techniques ( "applied
psychoanalysis") is, in my opinion, almost always un-ethical. This is
one of
the criticisms I direct against texts that follow the lead of Marie
Bonaparte's articles on Edgar A. Poe and even, to a lesser extent,
towards
Freud's article on Leonardo da Vinci.
Many revelations that can be found in most artistic works are
involuntary,
unconscious disclosures. Any author, despite his public persona, should
have
garanteed his rights of privacy and respect.
Jansy
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm