Tag Archives: Sigmund Freud

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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What Our Favorite Books Reveal about Us

I am having my students compose personal reading histories. Freud provides a useful framework for exploring anxieties and wishes.

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Poe: Trapped in the Prison of the Self

Two Chinese students have brought home to me, from their collectivist perspective, how Edgar Allan Poe went against the grain of American individualism. He exposed its dark side, even as Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman were unabashedly celebrated it.

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Why Do We Laugh? Various Theories

Whether you see laughter as benign or hostile may come down to what kind of person you are.

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