A Post-Kleinian Model for Aesthetic Criticism
(abstract)
Meg Harris Williams
The Dramatic Presentation of Inner Turmoil: Shakespeare and John Berryman’s Dream Songs
(abstract)
Jay Peters
At a Loss for Words: Writer’s Block in Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice
(abstract)
Shersten Johnson
article 080330 |
| A Post-Kleinian Model for Aesthetic Criticism |
by Meg Harris Williams |
This paper presents a piece of writing by the Kleinian art critic Adrian Stokes as a
model for aesthetic criticism in general. First the limits of psychoanalytic
interpretation are considered, with regard to the definition of an ‘art symbol’ made by
the philosopher of aesthetics Susanne Langer. The problem formulated by Langer is
the irreducibility of the meaning in an artwork. Then Stokes is used as an example of
the type of psychoanalytically informed writing that is not reductive but aesthetic and,
it is suggested, a species of artwork in its own right. Stokes demonstrates there is
room for the critic’s verbal creativity through immersing the ego in the artwork and
identifying with the artistic process it embodies. Finally this is related to recent
developments in post-Kleinian theory that value the artistic and intuitive features of
clinical analytic practice, in particular regarding the transference-countertransference
relationship.
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keywords: Kleinian interpretation, criticism, aesthetics, art-symbol identification, counter-
transference, Wilfred Bion, Susanne Langer, Donald Meltzer, Adrian Stokes
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url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_williams01.shtml
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To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Williams, Meg Harris. "A Post-Kleinian Model for Aesthetic Criticism" PSYART: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, Article 080330. Available HTTP: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_williams01.shtml, Mar. 30, 2008 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: 2008 || Published: March 30, 2008 || Copyright © 2008 by Meg Harris Williams |
author info: |
article 080329 |
| The Dramatic Presentation of Inner Turmoil: Shakespeare and John Berryman’s Dream Songs |
by Jay Peters |
This paper examines John Berryman's Dream Songs from a
psychoanalytic perspective. The paper formulates a means of
discussing three factors that impinge on Henry's construction of
himself: the heteroglossic nature of thought one's relationship
to power and one's relationship to the metaphysical. Though
other major mid-century "confessional" poets (such as Bishop and
Lowell) had developed ways of interiorizing the modernist poetics
of Eliot, Williams and Pound, the main lens through which the
paper examines the interiorizing poetics of the Dream Songs is
Shakespeare's tragic period, which Berryman had studied closely
his entire career. Berryman found in Shakespeare's tragedies not
only a means of dramatizing one's relationship to power and to
God, but also the use of dramatic dialogue to represent an
individual mind.
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keywords: Shakespeare, Berryman, Dream Songs, suicide, fratricide, tyranny,
oppression, heteroglossia, religion |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_peters01.shtml
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To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Peters, Jay. "The Dramatic Presentation of Inner Turmoil: Shakespeare and John Berryman’s Dream Songs" PSYART: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, Article 080329. Available HTTP: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_peters01.shtml, Mar. 30, 2008 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: 2007 || Published: March 29, 2008 || Copyright © 2008 by Jay Peters |
author info: |
| Jay Peters |
jaypeters@cox.net |
Writing, Literature and Publishing Department |
Emerson College
Boston, MA
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article 080302 |
| At a Loss for Words: Writer's Block in Britten's Death in Venice |
by Shersten Johnson |
Based on Thomas Mann's story about an aging novelist's fateful obsession with an adolescent boy, Benjamin Britten's opera Death in Venice artfully dramatizes Mann's story of repressed sexuality masked as creative inhibition. Aschenbach's introductory monologue, beginning "My mind beats on and no words come,” alludes to the psychosexual roots of his dilemma. The music itself even sounds blocked, as do his words, which not only describe his problem, but also are inhibited syntactically and semantically. In order to discover how music and text blend to portray Aschenbach's writer's block, this article examines the opening monologue using a combination of tools: musical-theoretical and grammatical, to discern how Aschenbach's block "structures" the music and text; psychoanalytical, to uncover the causes of his crippling inhibition; and cognitive-linguistic, to ground the analysis in certain conceptual blends that permeate notions of creativity, sexuality, language, and music in this opera. |
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keywords: Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Conceptual Blending, Opera, Benjamin Britten, Thomas Mann, Lawrence Zbikowski, Creativity, Homoeroticism, Der Tod in Venedig |
url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_johnso01.shtml
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To cite this article, use this bibliographical entry: Johnson, Shersten. "At a Loss for Words: Writer's Block in Britten's Death in Venice." PSYART: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, Article 080302. Available HTTP: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_johnso01.shtml, Mar. 3, 2008 [or whatever date you accessed the article].
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| Received: 2007 || Published: March 3, 2008 || Copyright © 2008 by Shersten Johnson |
author info: |
| Shersten Johnson |
srjohnson2@stthomas.edu |
Assistant Professor of Music Theory |
University of St. Thomas
2115 Summit Avenue BEC 09
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105 · USA
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