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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...
This section contains 11,449 words (approx. 39 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |