Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
A woman turns into a piece of furniture (Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest); a writer of children's books takes photos of naked little girls (Lewis Carroll); Mont Blanc becomes the maternal breast (Shelley); Hamlet mistakes Ophelia for a phallus (Lacan's Hamlet seminar); and mom turns out to have thermonuclear arms (Laurie Anderson's United States). Reviewing the ways in which women have been fantasized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western culture, Herman Rapaport offers a series of brilliant insights into the concept of the fantasm in modern art.Synopsis
A woman turns into a piece of furniture (Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest); a writer of children's books takes photos of naked little girls (Lewis Carroll); Mont Blanc becomes the maternal breast (Shelley); Hamlet mistakes Ophelia for a phallus (Lacan's Hamlet seminar); and mom turns out to have thermonuclear arms (Laurie Anderson's United States). Reviewing the ways in which women have been fantasized across nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western culture, Herman Rapaport offers a series of brilliant insights into the concept of the fantasm in modern art. This gathering of new and previously published essays centers on a key question in psychoanalytic theory - the primacy of visual (iconic) versus linguistic (auditory) realms in the construction of fantasy. Rapaport first provides a lucid analysis of the historical development of the French psychoanalytic concept of the fantasm - which includes such phenomena as dramas and daydreams, delusions, hallucinations, primal scenes, imaginary objects, fantasies, and complexes. In the chapters that follow, Rapaport considers both visual and linguistic aspects of the fantasm in penetrating interpretations of many well-known works, ranging from poetry to performance art. Engaging such controversies as the conflict between Lacanian and Derridean viewpoints, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in literary theory, feminist theory, and the intersections of psychoanalysis and philosophy in literary criticism.
Booknews
Ten essays, most previously published, that, according to the author, "may be read as a sustained reflection on how fantasmic constructions traverse both theoretical and applied analyses that take us from detailed considerations of psychoanalysis to those of literary study and closely related fields." Among the topics: Jane Eyre and the Mot Tabou, Effi Briest and La Chose Freudienne, and Geoffrey Hartman and the spell of sounds. Paper edition (8133-3), $16.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)