THE FRENCH PSYCHOANALYTIC CULTURE: FRENCH PSYCHOANALYSTS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE LITERARY TEXT

The objective of this dissertation is to explore aspects of the close relationship between psychoanalysis and literature in France from the viewpoint of those with practical experience in psychoanalysis and to determine the influence of literature on contemporary French psychoanalysts. My hypothesis is that the relationship of the psychoanalyst's ear to the analysand's discourse determines a specific "ecoute" and understanding of the signifier which conditions unique readings and analyses of literary texts. French psychoanalytic writings on literary texts reflect French culture and the contemporary literary scene.; Chapter 1 explores the influence of Freud and his disciples' style and approaches to artistic creativity on contemporary French psychoanalysts intellectual frame of reference. They evoke Freud's works to justify analyses of literary texts as illustrations of psychoanalytic theories.; Chapter 2 examines contemporary French psychoanalysts reactions to Freud's application of psychoanalysis to Wilhelm Jensen's Gradiva, resulting in fictitious characters being considered as clinical evidence. French psychoanalysts confuse subjectivity and scientific reality.; Chapter 3 analyzes Marie Bonaparte's psychoanalytic study of Edgar Allan Poe. Bonaparte uses Poe's life and work as clinical evidence. She ignores the specificity of the literary text.; Chapter 4 is devoted to several French psychoanalytic approaches to Poe's work. In Ecrits Jacques Lacan emphasizes the importance of Poe's The Purloined Letter as an illustration of his theory of the signifier.; Chapter 5 investigates the Lacanian conceptualization of psychoanalysis, the specificity of the French psychoanalytic movement and Lacan's literary contributions.; Contemporary French psychoanalyst-critic-interpreters question their relationship to language, creativity and publishing. Chapter 6 contributes to an understanding of literature's role in French psychoanalysis, the reasons French psychoanalysts apply psychoanalytic concepts to literary texts and the place of psychoanalytic works in the French publishing world.; French psychoanalysts use the same "ecoute flottante" when listening to an analysand's discourse and reading literature. Chapter 7 examines specific approaches to Henry James' works where psychoanalysis is used as a method for reading and analyzing literary texts. The originality of Lacan's assertion that psychoanalysis is a linguistic enterprise favored innovations in critical approaches to literature.; Chapter 8 and the Tables explore a recent phenomenon in French psychoanalytic/literary circles: the creation of "psychoanaliterature" ("psychanalitterature"). This neologism describes a form of writing consisting of analytic "recits", fiction, letters, novels, fantasies and poems combining characteristics of psychoanalysis and fiction. French psychoanalyst-creative-writers communicate psychoanalytic theories in letters, novels, tales, poems, etc. This reflects French concern with creativity, textuality and constitutes a "retour aux sources" (Freud and Groddeck) linked to Lacan's mythical "retour a Freud." Works of "psychoanaliterature" are based on the analyst's or analysand's "family romance." Contemporary French psychoanalysts express unconscious desires in writing and produce "auto-fictions" which resemble the novels produced by analysands.