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Can "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man" be given a Lacanian psychoanlytical interpretation? Posted by spn2008 on Jun 6, 2008. |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Group
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In order to answer this question, we first need to explain what a Lacanian psychoanalytical interpretation is. Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst who followed concepts set out by Freud. Lacan's methods were interdisciplinary, including linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. Lacan devised what he called the three psychoanalytic orders: the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary. According to the University of Chicago's online text "Theories of Media" (cited below):
So if you consider Joyce's text to be his exploration of what is real, what is symbolic, and what is imaginary in language and writing, then, yes, you can apply a Lacanian interpretation to it. For instance, Stephen is constantly aware of words as not simply a means of communication but as things. When he thinks back to his first communion, he contemplates the word "wine."
The real is the wine. The imaginary is the image of the grapes growing in Greece. The symbolic? I'll let you decide that one.
Posted by linda-allen on Jun 29, 2008. |

