2002
175 pages
$28.00
ISBN 0-8387-5517-8
LC 0007-2869
Bucknell Review
Romanticism, perhaps more than any other literary field, has obsessively sought its identity, origin, and its primal scene in order to understand not simply who we are, but how we have fallen from what we once were. From René Wellek and Arthur O. Lovejoy's now famous clash over the definition of Romanticism, to Jerome McGann's effort to escape its "false ideologies" and retrace some allegedly pure and unsullied truth that "predates" critical constructions of romanticism, we have failed at identifying "self." Psychoanalytic criticism has often been heralded as the ideal methodology by which to uncover such a self, whether it be through an analysis of the actual "historical" trauma of Romanticism, or even the romantic writer's life "laid bare" by critical analysis. However, this collection of essays illustrates, following Freud, that this very construction of origin is precisely a fantasy which emerges through critical analysis itself. That is, no mater how many empirical facts we can rally to our cause, no matter how "naked" our subject might be, it is in the very process of interpretation that meaning emerges. In the critical fantasy of being able to "reveal all" about its subject - in this case, the revelation of the "true" Romantic ideology or the "truth" of the poet's mind - our critical gaze reflects back upon ourselves. Contributors include: Guinn Batten, Joel Faflak, Ghislaine McDayter, Toril Moi, Marc Redfield, and Frances Wilson.
About the author:
Ghislaine McDayter is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Bucknell University. She is currently completing a book titled Convulsions in Rhyme: Byron, Hysteria, and the Birth of Celebrity.
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