Death-Drive : : Freudian Hauntings in Literature and Art / / Robert Rowland Smith.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2013-2000
• VerfasserIn: Rowland Smith, Robert,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: The Frontiers of Theory : FRTH
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.) :; 3 B/W illustrations

Robert Rowland Smith takes Freud's work on the death-drive and compares it with other philosophies of death - Pascal, Heidegger and Derrida in particular. He also applies it in a new way to literature and art - to Shakespeare, Rothko and Katharina Fritsch, among others. He asks whether artworks are dead or alive, if artistic creativity isn't actually a form of destruction, and whether our ability to be seduced by fine words means we don't put our selves at risk of death.In doing so, he proposes a new theory of aesthetics in which artworks and literary texts have a death-drive of their own, not least by their defining ability to turn away from all that is real, and where the effects of the death-drive mean that we are constantly living in imaginary, rhetorical or 'artistic' worlds. The book also provides a valuable introduction to the rich tradition of work on the death-drive since Freud.Key FeaturesIncludes a general introduction to the death-drivePresents an original theory of aestheticsAnalyses both theoretical and clinical psychoanalysisOffers in-depth treatment of FreudProvides an overview of philosophies of death

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Note on the Text -- Series Editor’s Preface -- Author’s Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Memento Mori -- 2. The Death-Drive Does Not Think -- 3. A Subject Is Being Beaten -- 4. White Over Red -- 5. Literature – Repeat Nothing -- 6. A Harmless Suggestion -- 7. The Rest of Radioactive Light -- Postscript: Approaching Death -- Index