Matt Roth (to JM's "
What I find strange in Maar's title and Banville's commentary about the
"Medusa" theme is that although both mention Freud and his work "The Uncanny"
(Das Unheimliche), they fail to mention Freud's "The Medusa head" (1922/1940,
Das Medusenhaupt"..) Maar uses the medusa metaphor in two ways, the latter
of which bears some resemblance to Freud's conception, as I understand it.The
first kind of medusa experience is as you've described it, a feeling of oneness
with the universe...(the universe filtered through the individual, as light
through a jellyfish). But Maar's point is that in VN's books, this "shimmer"
doesn't last and is replaced by the Medusa experience...--the moment of clear
perception, quickly followed by the scales falling from the disillusioned
person's eyes. Is this a particular feature of Russian lit in general...
JM: My surprise derived from the
absence of a clear reference to Freud's works (particularly the one about the
Medusa), although Freud is mentioned here and there. Your comment is very rich
and I hope there'll be participants helping along with your inquiry related to
the moment of "shimmer" followed by "disillusionment," in Russian
literature.
A quick aside: the feeling of oneness with the
universe (Romain Rolland's "oceanic feeling"* ) is not
really "filtered through the individual" but it comes closer to a pantheistic
dissolution and mingling bt. self and world.
The "Medusa" experience (presented by Maar and Banville
in connection to "the uncanny") is mainly related to "castration
anxiety."
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*remember that Nabokov translated some of his
works. Also Freud often returned to RR, Cf. in particular "A disturbance of
Memory in the Acropolis," 1936 and "Civilization and its discontents"
(1929).