Unconscious in Literature
This book aims to investigate the unconscious in literature using Freudian and Lacanian psychology. The works of Thomas Hardy, William Golding, and Iris Murdoch are discussed from Chapter 1 through to Chapter 8. Based on the argument in these chapters, this volume considers the environmental problem by examining the unconscious in the literary texts, including poetry, in the light of philosophers and critics on ecology in Chapter 9. There is a focus on the Oedipus complex, the death drive, and the unsymbolic void, as they have much relevance to each other in the unconscious, and underlie the plots and leitmotifs of the literary texts discussed. The author, furthermore, carefully examines the complicated relationship between the unsymbolic void within nature and the unconscious of human beings in our environment.
Yasunori Sugimura is Professor Emeritus at Otaru University of Commerce, receiving his Ph.D. from Tohoku University. He has published articles on Thomas Hardy, William Golding, and Iris Murdoch in major journals including The Modern Language Review, and has been a visiting scholar at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. His most recent publication includes The Void and the Metaphors: A New Reading of William Golding’s Fiction with Peter Lang.