Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: What kind of person are you and how do you perceive the world of books and the world around you?

For easy skimming of this blog post please see the index and the descriptions that is located directly below the introductory paragraph labeled INDEX.

The questions I would like blog readers to possibly answer is what blog post they have done and seen that can help with my Psychoanalytic research of Shakespeare to discover what kind of man he is and how we can identify his personality from his writings because we have very little primary documents from or about him.  Some specific questions I plan to address are

Why Shakespeare wrote Henry v, Hamlet, and A Winters Tale?
How people have responded to Henry v, Hamlet, and A Winters Tale?
How the later plays reflect more of Shakespeare's personality?
Why do people read Shakespeare?
What kind of man was Shakespeare?
Why did Shakespeare write what he did?
Why this information is important? 

For those of you that don't know too much about Psychoanalytic Literary criticism this blog post is to educate and build your confidence to comment and contribute a part of the classes extensive new found Shakespeare knowledge, with regards to my topic or to understand what questions about your topics that I could help with. The information in this blog was taken from Wikipedia.com under Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism and the article Psychoanalysis in Literature by Norman N. Holland.

For easy skimming please see the index of the three subject headings in this blog and description of the sections that is located directly below this sentence.

Index
1. What is Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism?
- The technical definition of Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism

2. Ok ... What is Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism?
-The simple brake down of what Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism is

3. Example
- A short and simple example of Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism from an expert of one of Shakespeare's plays.

 What is Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism?

Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism refers to literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud.

Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior, although it can also be applied to societies. Psychoanalysis has three main components:

1. a method of investigation of the mind and the way one thinks;
2. a systematized set of theories about human behavior;
3. a method of treatment of psychological or emotional illness

Under the broad umbrella of psychoanalysis, there are at least 22 theoretical orientations regarding human mentation and development

After the demise of New Criticism around 1970, psychoanalytic approaches became more prominent in Shakespeare criticism. Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism will continue to be an enduring form so long as people are willing to search for motivations. However today psychoanalysis has not garnered the same degree of popularity or credibility as some other approaches to literary critique. (Wikipedia.com)

Ok ... What is Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism?

 The article above may appear overwhelming but the article by Holland brakes it down to be simply understood. In his article he has three parts. The three parts he reviews are what Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism and the history is, what to look for in the future, and what people are doing now. 

In the first part he states the history which we dont need to review for this article but he also lists what it is. First he stats that Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism is applicable to three "minds" in a text, they are

1.Author

2.The characters

3. The reader

Over the course of the next three parts he tells how Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism is being used today and in the future. I made a small list of subjects that Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism includes based upon what Holland wrote so that you can get understand what it is and can compare what you (the reader) have researched this year and see how you have already used Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism.   

What Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism includes

1.      Gender issues

2.      Object-relation

3.      self-psychology

4.      Lacanian Psychoanalysis to the reader or author or someone else connected to text

-Lacanian Psychoanalysis is a group of theories that were taught by Jacques Marie Emile Lacan, a controversial French Psychoanalysis among other advancements that he made  in Psychoanalysis. The theories include

A. The Unconscious mind, Which is defined as that part of the mind which gives rise to a collection of mental phenomena that manifest in a person's mind but which the person is not aware of at the time of their occurrence. These phenomena include unconscious feelings, unconscious or automatic skills, unnoticed perceptions, unconscious thoughts, unconscious habits and automatic reactions, complexes, hidden phobias and concealed desires.  

B. Castration anxiety is the fear of emasculation in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

C. Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organized, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role

D. Identification is a psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property, or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model the other provides.

5. literary work as a transitional or transformational object (literature exists in potential space).

6. A Study of the Personality of the three minds listed as subject to analysis
7. Language

8. Symbolism

9. New psychoanalytic insights and discoveries coming from brain research and cognitive science in the future.

10.  Sigmund Freud theory

-Psycho
-sexual development

-Life and death drives

11. Reader responses

In other words, what kind of person are you and how do you perceive the world of books and the world around you? 

It boils down to a study of how the mind works! 

Example

One example on Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism taken from Shakespeare is by the author Sigmund Freud. Freud used the Oedipus Rex theory to explain why Hamlet could do everything but avenge his father. The theory states that as children get older and mature they have love for there mother, and jealousy of father. Scientific research has found this theory to be a universal evident in children. According to Freud Hamlet was oppressed growing up and his fathers murderer shows Him the repressed wishes of his youth. Many literary critics have wondered why it was so hard in the play for Hamlet to kill his father and the Freud's Psychoanalytic theory is a very plausible answer. This is just one example of how Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism brings a whole new light on the author, characters in play, and the reader, and makes reading much more entertaining.