ENGL 4800-Introduction to Literary Theory: Psychoanalytic

Sigmund Freud

Jacques Lacan

Psychoanalytic criticism focuses on literature as an expression of the inner workings of the human mind.  Freud is viewed as the first psychoanalytic critic and used the same techniques for interpreting dreams to interpret literature.  Jacques Lacan argued that the essential alienating experience of the human psyche is the acquisition of language.