SOURCE: Punter, David. “Don Juan, or, the Deferral of Decapitation: Some Psychological Approaches.” In Don Juan, edited by Nigel Wood, pp. 122-53. Buckingham, Eng.: Open University Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Punter examines Don Juan through the lens of psychoanalysis, noting particularly the theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Otto Rank.

I

I write this essay as a contribution to the psychoanalytic criticism of literature, but I have to begin by saying that such criticism is in an appalling muddle. The main source of this muddle, it seems to me, stems from a continuing inability to take on board, and to attempt to find an articulation for, the analytic interrogation of the overvaluation of intellect.¹ In this respect, the critical literature recapitulates precisely the human difficulties summarizable under the head of ego-defence. The defence originates in a generating sentence of this kind: ‘If I, as a critic...