Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
[Poetic language provides a powerful tool for opening the self to new possibilities. Lacanian psychoanalysis offers us an understanding of how this renewal can occur through language. “In poetry, as in psychoanalysis,” Bice Benvenuto and Roger Kennedy explain in their book on Lacan, “language is pushed to its limits, and becomes a struggle with the inexpressible” (199). Poetry functions much like the speech of the analytic process, in which speech is loosened so that desire may make itself manifest. Desire manifested in language subverts the rigid, imaginary ego with all of its defenses that limit truth and subjectivity. Through poetry, we can escape the code of normal speech and discover a new definition of being for ourselves. “There is poetry,” according to Lacan, “whenever writing introduces us to a world other than our own and also makes it become our own” (Seminar III 78). In essence, poetry imposes upon us the otherness of language—what Lacan calls the symbolic order—but also allows us to find our unique place within that otherness. The systems of language that our culture uses predate our birth, but also provide us with the potential to explore, realize, and create our identities and our world. Lacan places poetry in the dual roles of both the analyst—introducing the true nature of our subjectivity by effecting desire—and the fully realized analysand—realizing our own capacity for creative subjectivity.]
Published: Nov 2, 2015
Keywords: External Reality; Mature Defense; Symbolic Order; Creative Writing; Poetic Language
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.