
Freud's Rome
Psychoanalysis and Latin Poetry
Ellen Oliensis(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 22. October 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-0-521-60910-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book is a meditation on the role of psychoanalysis within Latin literary studies. Neither a sceptic nor a true believer, Oliensis adopts a pragmatic approach to her subject, emphasizing what psychoanalytic theory has to contribute to interpretation. Drawing especially on Freud's work on dreams and slips, she spotlights textual phenomena that cannot be securely anchored in any intention or psyche but that nevertheless, or for that very reason, seem fraught with meaning; the 'textual unconscious' is her name for the indefinite place from which these phenomena erupt, or which they retroactively constitute, as a kind of 'unconsciousness-effect'. The discussion is organized around three key topics in psychoanalysis - mourning, motherhood, and the origins of sexual difference - and takes the poetry of Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid as its point of reference. A brief afterword considers Freud's own witting and unwitting engagement with the idea of Rome.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
195 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-60910-4 (9780521609104)
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E-Book
12/2009
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€27.99
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Book
10/2009
Cambridge University Press
€79.23
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Person
Ellen Oliensis is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published essays in various journals and collections on a range of Latin poets, including Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Her first book, Horace and the Rhetoric of Authority, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1998.
Content
Introduction: psychoanalysis and Latin poetry; 1. Two poets mourning; 2. Murdering mothers; 3. Variations on a phallic theme; Afterword: Freud's Rome.