Chapter 6 Literary Terms

Psychoanalysis

A method first used by Sigmund Freud's psychological disorders. During this type of therapy , the psychoanalyst has the patient talk freely about his her childhood experiences and dreams.

Psychobiography

A method of interpreting text that uses biographical data of an author gained through biograohies, personal letters, lectures, and other sources to construct the author's personality, with all its idiosyncrasies, internal and external conflicts, and neuroses.

Typographical Models

A model of the human psyche devised by Sigmund Freud. In this model Freud divides the psyche into three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

Neurosis

A nervous disorder that has no known bodily or physical cause that can lead to a variety of physical and psychologicaal abnormalities.

Semanalysis

A new science developed by the psychoanalytic critic Julia Kristeva, who believes that during the Lacanian premirror stage of development, a child experiences a lack or separation from the mother, who shapes meaning and gives significance, moving from this lack to desire.

Archetypes

A recurrent plot pattern, image, descriptive detail, or character that evokes from the reader strong but illogical responses.

Phallus

A symbol or representation of the penis.

Aesthetic Theory

A systematic, philosophical body of beliefs concerning how meaning occurs and functions in texts, especially the element of beauty or pleasure.

Personal Unconscious

A term brought into literary criticism via the psychology of Carl Jung. According to Jung, the personal unconcscious exists directly below the surface of the conscious and contains elemtnts of private affairs that occur daily in each of our lives.

Collective Unconscious

A term brought into literary criticism via the psychology of Carl Jung. The collective inconscious is that part of the pysche that contains the cumulative knowledge, experiences, and images of the human race.

Conscious

A term brought into literary critics via psychoanalysis of Carl Jung the refers to one of the three parts of human psyche, a person's waking state.

Parapraxes

A term coined by Sigmund Freud for slips of tongue, failures of memeory, acts of misplacing an object, and other so-called mistakes we makes, all of which can be directly traced to our unconscious desires, wishes, or intentions.

Semiotique

A term coined by the psychoanalytic feminist critic Juli Kristeva to refer to an emotional force that is tied to ur instincts and exists in the prosody language rather than symbols.

Anima

A term used by Carl Jung in mythic criticism to describe the archetyope of the feminine in the male

Animus

A term used by Carl Jung in mythic criticism to describe the archetype of the masculine in the female.

Anti-cathexes

A term used by Freud in his economic model of the unconscious.

Objet Petit A

A term used by Jacques Lacan to refer to those images that we discover in our mirror stage of psychic development.

Displacement

A term used by Sigmund Feud in psychoanalysis to designate the process whereby we suppress wishes and desires that are too difficult for our psyches to hanle by concealing them in symbols that take the place of the orignal desire.

Preconscious

A term used by Sigmund Freud in his typographical model of the human psyche to refer to the part of the psyche that is the storehouse of memories and which the conscious part of the mind allows to be brought to consciousness without disguise in some other form.

Latent Content

A term used by Sigmund Freud in psychanalytic dream of interpretation. It is Freud's view that the ego hides the true wish of latent content of our dreams, thereby allowing the dreamer to remember a somewhat changed and often radically different dream than that one that actually occured.

Condensation

A term used by Sigmund Freud in psychoanalysis and dream interpretation to designate the process whereby one compacts a feeling or emotion toward a person or groupand objectifies it into a simple sentence, phrase, or symbol.

Libido

A term used by Sigmund Freud in psychoanalysis that has become synonymous with sexual drive.

Manifest Content

A term used by Sigmund Freud in psychoanalytic dream interpretation. Freud argues that the ego or the rational part of the psyche hides the true wish or latent content of our dreams and allows the dreamer to remember a somewhat changed and often radically different dream than what actually occured.

Superego

A term used by Sigmund Freud to designate that part of the psyche that act like an internal consor, causing is to make moral judgments in light of social pressures, as differentiated from the id and the ego.

Id

A term used by Sigmund Freud to designate the irrational, instictual, unknown, and unconscious part of the psyche as differentiated from the ego and superego.

Ego

A term used by Sigmund Freud to designate the rational, logical, waking part of the psyche as differentiated from the id and superego.

Jouissance

A term used by the psychanalytic critic Jacques Lacan to refer to a breif moment of joy, terror, or desire that somehow arises from deep within the unconscious psyche ahd reminds us of a time of perfect wholeness when we were incapable of differentiating among images from the real order.

Unconscious

A term used in Freudian psychanalysis to refer to the part of the human psyche the receives and stores our hidden desires, ambitions, fears, passions, and irrational thoughts.

Phallic Symbol

A term used in psychanalytic criticism to describe the male's symbol of power as represented by any penislike image whose length exceeds its diameter. such as a tower, a sword, a knife, or a pen.

Personal Conscious

A term used in psychanalytic criticism to refer to the part of the human psyche that directly perceives and interacts with the external world.

Freudian Slips

A term used in psychoanalysis to describe accidental slips of the tongue.

Yonic Symbol

A term used in psychoanalytic criticism for any female symbol, such as a flower, a cup, or a vase.

Monomyth

A term used in the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye, who states that all literature comprises one complete and whole story called the monomyth.

Phallocentric

A term used to describe any form of criticism, philosophy, or theory dominated by men and, thus, governed by the male way of thinking.

Castration Complex

Acciording to Sigmund Freud, if a child's sexual development is to proceed normally, each must pass through the castration complex.

Aggressive Instinct

According to Freud, one of two instincts housed in the unconscious, the other being the sexual instinct, or libido.

Symbolic Order

According to Jacquec Lacan, the symbolic order is the second phase of our psychic development, during which we learn language. In this stage we learn the differentiate between genders, master genders differences, and learn cultural norms and laws.

Oedipus Complex

According to Sigmund Freud's theory of child development, all children between the ages of three and six develope sexual or libidinal feelings toward the parentof the opposite sex and hostile feelings toward the parent of the same sex.

Penis Envy

According to Sigmund Freud, the unfulfilled desire all women have for a penis; this desire causes them to possess a sense of lack throughout their lives.

Imaginary Order

According to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, one of three parts of the human psyche; it contains our wishes, fantasies, and images.

Fall Phase

According to the mythic critic Northrop Frye, all literature comprises one complete story called the monomyth, which is composed of four phases.

Spring Phase

According to the mythic critic Northrop Frye, all literature tells one story, the monomyth, which consists of four phases. The spring phase relates the story of humanity's release from frustration and anxiety to freedom and happiness.

Destructive Instinct

Also known as the aggressive instinct, this term was coined by Freud to describe the two basic instincts housed in a human's unconscious.

Archetypal Criticism

An approach to literary analysis that applies the theories of Carl Jung, Northrop Frye, and other critics to literary analysis.

Eros

Another name for the sexual instinct, one of two basic human instincts that, according to Freud, are housed in the unconscious.

Structural Model

Another name for tripartite model of Freud's model of the human psyche consisting of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

Sexual Instinct

Another names for eros, one of two basic instincts that Freud asserts are part of everyone's unconscious.

Sadistic-anal Phase

Another term for Freud's anal stage in a child's development.

Cathexes

Coined by Freud to describe an individual's instinctual and psychic energy, its chief aim being to maximize the pleasure sensed amnd desired by the pleasure principle in the human psyche.

Mythic Criticism

Criticism that examines archetypes and archetypal patterns to explain the structure and significanceof texts.

Analytical Psychology

Founded and developed by Carl Gustav jung, this system of psychology is akin to psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on the functions that the conscious and the unconscious play in influencing human behavior.

Reality Principle

Introduce by Sigmund Freud in his economic model of the human psyche. Freud defines the reality priciple as that part of the human psyche that holds the pleasure principle in check.

Pleasure Principle

Introduced by Sigmund Freud in his economic midel of the human psyche and defined as part of the human pysche that craves only pleasures and desires instataneous satisfication of instinctual drives.

Antiromance Phase

One of four phases that comprise Northrop Frye's concept of the monomyth, or the complete story of literature.

Romance Phase

One of four phases used by Northrop Frye, a mythic critic, to explain the one complete or whole story of literature, the monomyth. In the monomyth, the romance phase is the "summer" story when all our wishes are fulfilled and we achieve total happiness.

Economic Model

Sigmund Freud's later or revised model of the huma psyche, which he developed after the dynamic model.

Tripartite Model

Sigmund Freud's most famous model of the human psyche. In this model Freud divides the psyche into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego.

Anal Stage

Sigmund Freud's second stage of child developement in which the anus become the object of pleasure when the child learn the delights of education.

Psychoanalytic Criticism

The application of the methods od Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis to interpreting work of literature.

Dynamic Model

The earliest of Sigmund Freud's models of the human psyche; with it, Freud declared that our minds are based in a dichotomy consisting of the conscious and the unconscious.

Electra Complex

The female version of the Oedipus complex as defined by Sigmund Freud.

Oral Phase

The first stage of child development as postulated by Sigmund Freud.

Phallic Stage

The last stage of child development as theorized by Sigmund Freud.