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MUCH
188
NEW LITERARY
HISTORY
I
To begin with,whyis the writerspeaking? What bringshim to put
words togetherin each setting?Of course, as severalof the authorsin
this issue point out, our writeris ambivalent,his motivesimpure. In
both settingshe vacillatesbetweenrevealingand concealingand often
does both in ways he can neither control nor understand. In each
but otherwisehis
settinghe both seeks and fears self-understanding,
fundamentalaims are different.As a patient,the writerseeks guidance in his search fora coherentself; an expert pointof viewthatwill
help him to organize and master the unruly mob of thoughts,and
impulses,and sensationsthat continuallythreatento swarmover his
poor defenses; protectionagainstchaos and pain: he seeks a storythat
willmake sense of itall. At the outsetof therapyhe strenuouslyresists
the analyst's(somewhat disingenuous) suggestionthat he must find
the answerswithinhimself.As a writerhe has a storyand he wantsto
tell it; he understandssomething;he himselfhas interpretedlife in a
new way, found a point of view that reveals new meanings,and he
seeks to communicate his insightsto others so as to transformtheir
lives. Even if he has created his firstdraftin the throesof forcesthat
seem beyond his control,he wantsto masterit himself,and he would
strenuouslyresist anyone's suggestion that he let another human
being provide the interpretation.
Of course, the distinctionbetweenneeding to findan interpretation
and wantingto impart an interpretationalready found is not always
clear. Some writers,perhaps particularlyin thisage of narcissism,and
perhaps most particularlyin their youth, may wish to broadcast
themselvesto a general public withoutofferinga general statement,
may feel thattheirprivatefumblingstowarda meaningfulvision are
themselves of such universal interest that they are worth communicatingto the world in all their genuine, unedited nakedness.
With self-consciousbravado theymimicthe voice of elemental cliche
that is the special province of PrimaryProcess. Thus some literary
textsmay now resemble psychoanalytictextsmore than theyused to.
This sortof blurringof the distinctionis common; the reversesortis
veryrare. A writerwho has a storyto tellor a visionto communicate,a
writerwho knows what his message is, does not choose to tell it to a
psychoanalyst.No matter how ambiguous or disturbingthe initial
himself,with
inspiration,the writerchooses to bring it to fulfillment
no interferencein the process of refinementand furtherinterpretation, and then to tell it to the world. During this process no live
audience can be trustedwithmore than fragments;onlyan imaginary
audience will do.
REGARDING
THE AUTHOR
AS PATIENT
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NEW LITERARY
HISTORY
REGARDING
THE AUTHOR
AS PATIENT
191
192
NEW LITERARY
HISTORY
REGARDING
THE AUTHOR
AS PATIENT
193
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NEW LITERARY
HISTORY
REGARDING
THE AUTHOR
AS PATIENT
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196
NEW LITERARY
HISTORY
IV
I thinkthatan interestingnext step for psychoanalyticliterarycriticismwould be to take account of some of these differences.As it is,
the critictypicallyconcentrateson one text at a time and offersno
explicitcriteriafor his choice of certainpassages as especiallysignificant or revealingof primaryprocess. I have argued thatliterarytexts
are much more carefullyorganized, much more likelyto have been
repeatedlycycled throughthe secondaryprocess than psychoanalytic
texts,much more informedby a coherent vision of the author's. It
seems to me thata literaryanalysisthattook account of both (or all) of
these levels would be much more interestingthan one whichoffersa
197
NOTES
1 In an attemptto keep mytextrelativelyfreeof both sexismand ineptitude,I have
adopted the conventionof using male pronouns to referto the author (or patient)and
female pronouns to referto the literarycritic(or psychoanalyst).
2 VirginiaWoolf,"The Common Reader," in The CommonReader (New York, 1925),
p. 1.
3 In psychoanalysis,the assumptionis thatthe interpretationis unstatedbecause it is
unrecognized by the patient. Psychoanalyticcriticsare often reticentin giving their
assumptionsabout the degree of the author's recognitionof latentmeanings.
4 See, e.g., D.J. Schneider, A. H. Hastorf, and P. C. Ellsworth,Person Perception
(Reading, Mass., 1979), for an introductoryreviewof this research.
5 See, for example, W. Mischel,Personality
and Assessment
(New York, 1968); M. T.
Orne, "The nature of hypnosis: Artifactand essence,"Journalof Abnormaland Social
58 (1959), 277-99.
Psychology,
6 Example taken from B. A. Maher, Principlesof Psychotherapy:
An Experimental
Approach(New York, 1966), p. 413.
7 Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty,"in The PoemsofGerardManleyHopkins,ed.
W. H. Gardner and N. H. MacKenzie, 4th ed. (London, 1970), p. 70.
8 Laurence Sterne,Tristram
Shandy,ed. James A. Work (Indianapolis, 1940), p. 200.
9 Nanette C. Auerhahn, "Interpretationin the PsychoanalyticNarrative: A TheoreticalFrameworkfor the AnalyticProcess," Diss. Yale 1980.
10 Nancy C. Horn, "AttributionBiases in Evaluative Situations,"Diss. Yale 1977.