Subject
Boyd's elegant reply (fwd)
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*** Jim's comment about children as sexual beings and Freud's influence on
that perception got me thinking whether one can come up with pre-Freudian
examples of the same as portrayed in literature. I suspect children as
young humans -- rather than decorative presences -- are not that common in
literature at all until the early 19th century. Much of that, I presume,
has to do less with psychology than with social and demographic trends,
with who populated literature until then and how the children of the
classes who populated it -- and wrote it -- were raised, or how often they
participated in the lives of grown ups. I think it's an interesting issue
to explore. Any comments? GD***
From Jim Morrison jamorrison@metronet.de
How about Brian Boyd's nicely worded reply to
my nasty email? Once again, thank you Brian,
for your composure and your thoughtfulness. I hope
you read my later two postings that apologized
for my near shrieking tone. The longer that
original post stays into existence, the more embarrassed
by it I become. Good luck with your new book.
Just for the record, I not very much in favor of a Freudian
reading of Lolita. I actually have problems with the
idea of psychoanalyzing fictional characters. After all,
they don't have any psyche's to analyze. I simply wanted
to purpose a possible application of Freudian
theory that didn't seem to be absurd. Maybe wrong, but
not totally lacking in substance.
If you can bear with me, I'd like to go into greater detail on
what Freud can bring to the discussion by way of quoting
Boyd on Lolita. "By the covert parallels he [Nabokov] constructs between
the climaxes of the novel's two parts, he indicates that in
both scenes there is the same romantic sense of the imperious
dictates of desire, the same overriding quest for self-satisfaction
even at the expense of another life." Well said. My charitable reading of
Freud allows me to appreciate that Freud could have
written something very close to this. Postulating the existence
of such an entity as the libido may be going too far, but if we
think of the libido as simply a metaphor for desire, ignoring Freud's
insistence that it actually exists, it seems to me that we can
cite Freud's writings as support for Boyd's assertion about
Humbert's motivation. We don't need to, but to me it seems like
an intellectual exercise worth doing, an analogy worth considering.
I think a lot can be learned by examining positions that are close to
but not quite the same as positions we favor. It's gives us a better
grasp on what we feel is correct.
I don't think there is much point in reading Freud's writings
as a big handbook for living, but I do feel he has written very many
suggestive things that we can rewardingly ponder. I'd like to
quote a few lines from Freud. I believe you'll see they have worth.
Please keep in mind that I think these quotes are more evocative
than absolutely correct conclusions derived from intense scientific
inquiry. Much of Freud is obviously very far removed from what
we usually think of as science. He seems to me more speculator
than scientist.
Consider the following with respect to Nabokov's stance
against totalitarianism. " No matter how much restriction civilization
imposes on the individual, he nevertheless finds some way to
circumvent it. Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved."
How about this for a comment on religion seen in the
light of the Freud/Nabokov issue?
"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be
forced into unbelief." Isn't that close to what someone
on the list said about politics, religion and Freud?
"Nothing can be bought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is
past or forgotten." That sounds close to what Nabokov thought
about memory. (Nabokov must have detested the idea
of the unconsciousness. I'd like to ask him just what he thought was doing
the dreaming when he slept.)
Here is Freud on Jung. He might as well have been talking
about himself. "Anyone who promises to mankind liberation
from the hardship of sex will be hailed as a hero, let him talk
what ever nonsense he chooses."
Here's a quote that I'm not going to comment on at all.
"The great question that has never been answered, and which
I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research
into the feminine soul: What does a woman want?"
How about this in relation to Humbert's attitude towards Lolita?
"To touch is the beginning of every act of possession, of every
attempt to make use of a person or thing."
Someone of the list mentioned he didn't like Marx. Freud
too had reservations. "The writings of Marx have
taken the place of the Bible.. though they would seem to be
no more free from contradictions... than those older sacred works."
And let's consider the following in relationship to Nabokov's
praise of the individual. "As regards intellectual work, it remains
a fact indeed, that great decisions in the realms of thought and
momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only
possible to an individual, working in solitude."
And how about this as a reason for the tone of some of
our recent postings. "...the first man to use abusive language
instead of his fists was the founder to civilization." We were
just imitating the founders of civilization. I feel better already.
Notice the absolutist rhetoric in those quotes. Freud frequently
overstates the case. It's one of his biggest faults. But isn't
literature full of such sayings? (Along with our everyday
conversations.) Don't we still talk about those
literary statements with enthusiasm. Truth is beauty, beauty
truth. To thine own self be true, etc.
I've also been wondering about the relationship between
Freud's ideas on the sexual lives of children and Lolita.
Were there people before Freud who thought of
children as sexual beings? Not simply as bodies to be
raped and abused, but as desiring creatures. I'm no sexual historian. I
don't know.
It seems to me that Lolita can be seen as an example
of a child free of sexual repression. She can be seen as other things,
of course. I'm just offering one interpretation among many. Don't many
scholars
make heavy use of her coming onto Humbert? Doesn't the use of
that tactic, which in effect puts Humbert in a slightly sympathetic light,
have some origin in Freud's being able to get people talking about
the amorous urges of children? I think that without Freud's influence
we would find much of Lolita's behavior fantastical instead of
that of a preciousness young teen.
The preceding paragraph was actually a simplification of my
views on the issue, but the length of this posting would have
greatly increased if I would have gone into more detail.
Jim
that perception got me thinking whether one can come up with pre-Freudian
examples of the same as portrayed in literature. I suspect children as
young humans -- rather than decorative presences -- are not that common in
literature at all until the early 19th century. Much of that, I presume,
has to do less with psychology than with social and demographic trends,
with who populated literature until then and how the children of the
classes who populated it -- and wrote it -- were raised, or how often they
participated in the lives of grown ups. I think it's an interesting issue
to explore. Any comments? GD***
From Jim Morrison jamorrison@metronet.de
How about Brian Boyd's nicely worded reply to
my nasty email? Once again, thank you Brian,
for your composure and your thoughtfulness. I hope
you read my later two postings that apologized
for my near shrieking tone. The longer that
original post stays into existence, the more embarrassed
by it I become. Good luck with your new book.
Just for the record, I not very much in favor of a Freudian
reading of Lolita. I actually have problems with the
idea of psychoanalyzing fictional characters. After all,
they don't have any psyche's to analyze. I simply wanted
to purpose a possible application of Freudian
theory that didn't seem to be absurd. Maybe wrong, but
not totally lacking in substance.
If you can bear with me, I'd like to go into greater detail on
what Freud can bring to the discussion by way of quoting
Boyd on Lolita. "By the covert parallels he [Nabokov] constructs between
the climaxes of the novel's two parts, he indicates that in
both scenes there is the same romantic sense of the imperious
dictates of desire, the same overriding quest for self-satisfaction
even at the expense of another life." Well said. My charitable reading of
Freud allows me to appreciate that Freud could have
written something very close to this. Postulating the existence
of such an entity as the libido may be going too far, but if we
think of the libido as simply a metaphor for desire, ignoring Freud's
insistence that it actually exists, it seems to me that we can
cite Freud's writings as support for Boyd's assertion about
Humbert's motivation. We don't need to, but to me it seems like
an intellectual exercise worth doing, an analogy worth considering.
I think a lot can be learned by examining positions that are close to
but not quite the same as positions we favor. It's gives us a better
grasp on what we feel is correct.
I don't think there is much point in reading Freud's writings
as a big handbook for living, but I do feel he has written very many
suggestive things that we can rewardingly ponder. I'd like to
quote a few lines from Freud. I believe you'll see they have worth.
Please keep in mind that I think these quotes are more evocative
than absolutely correct conclusions derived from intense scientific
inquiry. Much of Freud is obviously very far removed from what
we usually think of as science. He seems to me more speculator
than scientist.
Consider the following with respect to Nabokov's stance
against totalitarianism. " No matter how much restriction civilization
imposes on the individual, he nevertheless finds some way to
circumvent it. Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved."
How about this for a comment on religion seen in the
light of the Freud/Nabokov issue?
"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be
forced into unbelief." Isn't that close to what someone
on the list said about politics, religion and Freud?
"Nothing can be bought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is
past or forgotten." That sounds close to what Nabokov thought
about memory. (Nabokov must have detested the idea
of the unconsciousness. I'd like to ask him just what he thought was doing
the dreaming when he slept.)
Here is Freud on Jung. He might as well have been talking
about himself. "Anyone who promises to mankind liberation
from the hardship of sex will be hailed as a hero, let him talk
what ever nonsense he chooses."
Here's a quote that I'm not going to comment on at all.
"The great question that has never been answered, and which
I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research
into the feminine soul: What does a woman want?"
How about this in relation to Humbert's attitude towards Lolita?
"To touch is the beginning of every act of possession, of every
attempt to make use of a person or thing."
Someone of the list mentioned he didn't like Marx. Freud
too had reservations. "The writings of Marx have
taken the place of the Bible.. though they would seem to be
no more free from contradictions... than those older sacred works."
And let's consider the following in relationship to Nabokov's
praise of the individual. "As regards intellectual work, it remains
a fact indeed, that great decisions in the realms of thought and
momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only
possible to an individual, working in solitude."
And how about this as a reason for the tone of some of
our recent postings. "...the first man to use abusive language
instead of his fists was the founder to civilization." We were
just imitating the founders of civilization. I feel better already.
Notice the absolutist rhetoric in those quotes. Freud frequently
overstates the case. It's one of his biggest faults. But isn't
literature full of such sayings? (Along with our everyday
conversations.) Don't we still talk about those
literary statements with enthusiasm. Truth is beauty, beauty
truth. To thine own self be true, etc.
I've also been wondering about the relationship between
Freud's ideas on the sexual lives of children and Lolita.
Were there people before Freud who thought of
children as sexual beings? Not simply as bodies to be
raped and abused, but as desiring creatures. I'm no sexual historian. I
don't know.
It seems to me that Lolita can be seen as an example
of a child free of sexual repression. She can be seen as other things,
of course. I'm just offering one interpretation among many. Don't many
scholars
make heavy use of her coming onto Humbert? Doesn't the use of
that tactic, which in effect puts Humbert in a slightly sympathetic light,
have some origin in Freud's being able to get people talking about
the amorous urges of children? I think that without Freud's influence
we would find much of Lolita's behavior fantastical instead of
that of a preciousness young teen.
The preceding paragraph was actually a simplification of my
views on the issue, but the length of this posting would have
greatly increased if I would have gone into more detail.
Jim