A reader suggests that the island enchantresses in “Odyssey” help the hero in his quest for integration.
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Tag Archives: Sigmund Freud
Overcoming the Siren Call of Domination
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Carl Jung, emasculation fears, Homer, individuation, Joseph Campbell, Odyssey Comments closed
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 […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beowulf, Beowulf poet, Carl Jung, fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkien, Joseph Campbell, Lord of the Rings, violence Comments closed
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.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beyond the Pleasure Principle, fort/da game, Norman Holland, psychological approaches Comments closed
Why Do We Laugh? Various Theories
Whether you see laughter as benign or hostile may come down to what kind of person you are.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anthony Ashley Cooper, Comedy, Laughter, Leviathan, Mikhail Bakhtin, Thomas Hobbes Comments closed
Beowulf Blog, 5 Years Old Today
Today is the five-year anniversary of this blog. I can’t quite believe that, in that time, I’ve written close to 1700 posts and probably over a million words. I have never had so much fun writing. I have particularly enjoyed my interactions with readers. Each month during the school year, around 10,000 different individuals visit […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ceremony, Creative Writers and Daydreaming, Leslie Marmon Silko Comments closed
Fantasy Provides Aid for Life’s Storms
As a child who grew up immersed in fantasy fiction, I knew, as deeply as I knew anything, that these books put me in touch with something that was deep and true. As I grew up, of course, I learned that I had to move beyond fantasy just as I had to move beyond childhood. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Eve of St. Agnes, fantasy, John Keats, Tempest, William Shakespeare Comments closed
“Harry, I Am Your Father” – Voldemort
Voldemort can be interpreted as the father in Harry Potter’s primal scene.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Brothers Karamazov, Carl Jung, fathers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Joseph Campbell, Maturation, Oedipus complex Comments closed
Forgive Me for Eating Your Plums
In my experience, no two people respond to William Carlos Williams’s “This Is Just to Say” in the same way. More than most short poems, it seems to function as a Rorschach test, with reactions telling us more about the reader than the poem itself.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "This Is Just to Say", analysis, Food, Plums, Relationships, William Carlos Williams Comments closed