Psychoanalysis involves understanding the motivations behind our behaviors, especially motivations that are unconscious.
Browning, of course, did not have the advantages of knowing about modern psychoanalysis, but in several of his poems he has the narrator unwittingly reveal aspects of his personality and motivation that he himself is blind to.
For example, in "My Last Duchess," the duke, thinking he is justifying having his last wife killed, actually reveals himself to be an overly controlling and jealous man who could not tolerate the innocent kindnesses his late wife bestowed on the rest of the world. We see—though he himself is not conscious of it—that his wife was innocent and that he himself is a highly disturbed individual.
Likewise, in "Fra Lippo Lippi," the narrator attacks Brother Lippo for his innocent gestures, such as tending to plants, revealing that he, the narrator, is in fact the sick, twisted person.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
What is psychoanalysis? How does Robert Browning explain psychoanalysis through his poems?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment