Psychoanalytic scholia on the Homeric epics / By Konstantinos I. Arvanitakis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arvanitakis, Konstantinos I., author.

Series:

Contemporary psychoanalytic studies ; 1571-4977 20.

Contemporary psychoanalytic studies, 1571-4977 ; volume 20

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homer--Criticism and interpretation.

Homer.

Homer--Knowledge and learning--Psychology.

Psychology.

Poetry--History.

Poetry.

Psychoanalysis.

Medicine in Literature--history.

Greek World--history.

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

Greece.

Medical Subjects:

Psychoanalysis.

Medicine in Literature--history.

Greek World--history.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

114 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill Rodopi, [2015]

Summary:

This work attempts a psychoanalytic listening to the 'oral' Homeric epics in an effort to extract, as it were, from the ancient text certain elements of psychoanalytic understanding that are of relevance to contemporary psychoanalysis. There is, in addition, a consideration of related philosophical and linguistic issues that are linked to the basic psychoanalytic concepts that emerge from such a listening. The main themes treated rotate around the central axis of time as it is expressed in the Homeric epics. Thus, questions of transition, loss, mourning, tolerance, identity, metaphor and tragic fragmentation are addressed as they relate to the ancient text. The process of metabasis along contrasting psychic states of being is discussed as it provides the frame for the construction of the basic interval of time and of the flux of human identity. Although psychoanalysis from its early beginnings has shown - largely owing to Freud's positing the Oedipus complex as the nuclear conflict - a distinct interest in classical Antiquity, the area of the great Homeric Epics has been singularly neglected as a chosen focus of psychoanalytic attention. It is as if the Homeric Epics belonged to a prehistoric pre-oedipal world which, for a long time, was not the dominant concern of psychoanalysis. The merit of this book lies in the fact that it fills part of this lacuna in psychoanalytic studies. -- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Prologue

From wrath to ruth

Introduction: of time and mortality

Achilles' metabasis

Epilegomena

Homer's theory of poetry: psychoanalytic notes on the primal metaphor

Metaphora in the court of Scheria

Aoide: a metaphor of the primal metaphor

The return of Odysseus: questions of time, space, and creative discovery

Time, space

Nostalgia and epistemophilia

The other journey: Nekyia

The tragic in the Iliad

The tragic

the tragic in the Iliad

the tragic act

Concluding remarks

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789042039278

9042039272

OCLC:

904036950