The argument that psychoanalytic interpretations of the literature of the
past are anachronistic (often expressed by objections in the form
"Shakespeare never read Freud") have always seemed to me quite backwards.
Freud's project was to analyze the human soul (or "psyche" as he called it;)
so was Shakespeare's. Since the human soul doesn't change from generation
to generation, it should hardly be surprising if Shakespeare and Freud
reached the same conclusions about it. If an interpretation can establish a
similarity in their views of human nature, that similarity argues for, not
against, the validity of the interpretation. Political ideology, on the
other hand, is a cultural construct that changes as society changes, often
to the extent that current ones would be incomprehensible to previous
generations, so political interpretations really can be anachronistic.
I also must take exception to another common objection to psychoanalytic
interpretations, that they are reductionist, in other words, if the
interpretation is right, then the play is assumed to have been "solved" and
nothing more remains to be said about it. Some Freudian critics in the past
may have been shallow enough to make such an assumption, but I see nothing
in what I said which states or implies that if my interpretation is correct
there is nothing more to be said about the play, and I certainly would never
believe such a dumb thing. If there's anything in my interpretation, then
in fact that means that the interpretation is a place to begin, not end, our
understanding of the play.
I'd also like to suggest that psychoanalytic interpretation can have
heuristic value even for people who don't buy into its Freudian rationale.
For instance, it's simply true that Prospero is an aging man stranded on a
desert island with a nubile young woman, that there is binding and loosing
imagery consistently associated with all three of Prospero, Ariel, and
Caliban, and that Prospero acknowledges Caliban as his own as part of the
play's closure. People who hadn't noticed these things, or hadn’t thought
much about how important they are to the play, might benefit from having
them brought into focus, even if they don't subscribe to the methodology
which did it.
I'm rather surprised so much is being made of the brief reference to prayer
and mercy in Prospero's epilogue. That epilogue always struck me as a nod
to Christianity tacked on as a play-it-safe afterthought to a play which is
so thoroughly pagan in spirit that it could have been written by Ovid.
Thanks to Anny Ballardini for her comments on my "To Elli."
==================================================
Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
==================================================
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
|