Tag Archives: Sigmund Freud

How Toxic Masculinity Imprisons Men

Those men who are embracing toxic masculinity make themselves vulnerable since it’s so easy to deflate them. Lady Montagu pointed this out in an 18th century poem.

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The Meaning of Trump’s Shark Fears

Trump’s anxiety about sharks can be understood through an examination of “Jaws.”

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A Poem for When You’re Feeling Weary

Swinburne’s “Garden of Proserpine,” a good poem for when you’re feeling fed up with life.

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Got a Problem? Call a Poet

Tragedy, it turns out, is a powerful literary form for dealing with posttraumatic fear.

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Freud: Lit Leads to Self Mastery

A Freudian analysis of why we are drawn to literature and what it does for us.

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Why I Think the Way I Think

I survey my intellectual history, especially the evolution of my thinking about literature’s impact on human behavior.

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Glück: Teen Sex, Rape and Persephone

Louise Glück’s “Persephone the Wanderer” is a nuanced exploration of teenage sex and rape that goes in some unexpected directions.

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Overcoming the Siren Call of Domination

A reader suggests that the island enchantresses in “Odyssey” help the hero in his quest for integration.

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Fantasy and the Problem of Violence

Thursday Today I will be delivering the following talk as part of Sewanee’s Lifelong Learning series, delivered in a venue that used to be my high school and where I spoke 50 years ago. It may sound strange to some of you that a literary scholar such as myself would talk about fantasy. Aren’t we […]

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