What happens when the intellectual giant of twentieth-century literature, James Joyce, is made an object of consideration and cause of desire by the intellectual giant of modern psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan? This is what Joyce and Lacan explores, in the three closely interrelated areas of reading, writing, and psychoanalysis, by delving into Joyce’s own relationship with psychoanalysis in his lifetime. The book concentrates primarily on his last text, Finnegans Wake, the notorious difficulty of which arises from its challenging the intellect itself, and our own processes of reading.
Key Features
- Explores the relationship between Joyce and Lacan.
- Focuses on Finnegans Wake and its complexities.
- Examines concepts of Joycean ontology, sanity, singularity, and sexuality.
- Introduces notions such as sinthome, lalangue, and Lacan’s topology and knot theory.
- Relevant for psychoanalysts, literary theorists, and students of literature.
Additional Information
To be ‘post-Joycean’, as Lacan describes it, means then to be in the wake not only of Joyce, but also of Lacan’s interventions on the Irish writer made in the mid-70s. It was this encounter that gave rise to concepts that have gained currency in today’s psychoanalytic theory and practice, and importance in wider critical contexts. The book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, literary theorists, and students and teachers of literature, theory, or the works of Joyce and Lacan.
