1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910458367103321

Autore

Buchanan Bradley <1970->

Titolo

Oedipus against Freud : myth and the end(s) of humanism in twentieth-century British literature / / Bradley W. Buchanan

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2010

©2010

ISBN

1-4426-8715-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (210 p.)

Disciplina

820.9/384

Soggetti

English literature - 20th century - History and criticism

Humanism in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations Used in Citations -- Introduction: Oedipus Before Freud: Humanism and Myth in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine -- 1. Oedipus Against Freud: The Origins of D.H. Lawrence's Anti-Humanism -- 2. Anti-Humanists at Colonus: The Oedipus Myth in Wyndham Lewis and T.S. Eliot -- 3. Dystopian Oedipus: Freudianism and Totalitarianism in Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Malcolm Lowry -- 4. Freudful Mistakes in Sphinxish Pairc: Oedipal Humanism and Irish Nationalism in W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett -- 5. Oedipus Que(e)ried: Humanism, Sexuality, and Gender in E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf -- Conclusion: Oedipus Reconsidered: Humanism as a Post-Structuralist Narrative in Christine Brooke-Rose and Zadie Smith -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Sigmund Freud's interpretation of the Oedipus myth - that subconsciously, every man wants to kill his father in order to obtain his mother's undivided attention - is widely known. Arguing that the pervasiveness of Freud's ideas has unduly influenced scholars studying the works of Modernist writers, Bradley W. Buchanan re-examines the Oedipal narratives of authors such as D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce in order to explore their



conflicted attitudes towards the humanism that underpins Freud's views.In the alternatives to the Freudian version of Oedipus offered by twentieth-century authors, Buchanan finds a complex examination of the limits of human understanding. Following the analyses of philosophers such as G.W.F. Hegel and Frederick Nietzsche and anticipating critiques by writers such as Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze, British Modernists saw Oedipus as representative of the embattled humanist project. Closing with the concept of posthumanism as explored by authors such as Zadie Smith, Oedipus Against Freud demonstrates the lasting significance of the Oedipus story.