[PDF] Aspects of the Late-Modern Subject in the Narcissus Theme 1890

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1

Niclas Johansson

Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen

Uppsala universitet

In Memory of Narcissus: Aspects of the

Late-Modern Subject in the Narcissus

Theme 1890Ȃ1930

Licentiatavhandling i litteraturvetenskap

Opponent: Prof. Carin Franzén

Lokal: Uppsala universitet, Engelska parken, 6Ȃ0031 2

Abbreviations

The following works will be referred to through page numbers within brackets: AG André Gide, Le Traité du Narcisse, in the version published by Librairie de

Réjean Robidoux, Le Traité du

Narcisse , Ottawa: Éditions

AGE Mangravite (ed. and trans.), Masks: An Anthology of French Symbolist & Decadent Writing based upon The Book of Masks by Remy de Gourmont,

London: Atlas, 1994, p. 4550.

20012005. References state volume and page numbers.

HHE Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund, London: Owen, 1993, trans. Leila

Vennewitz.

SF Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke: Chronologisch Geordnet. Bd. IXVIII, London: Imago, 19401987. References state volume and page numbers. SFE Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works: Vol. IXXIV, London: Hogarth, 19531974, trans. James Strachey. References state volume and page numbers. 3

Contents

Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... 2

Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 3

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4

The Context ......................................................................................................................................... 8

The Narcissus Tradition ................................................................................................................... 8

The Narcissus Theme 1890-1930 .................................................................................................. 20

Previous Research ............................................................................................................................. 27

Theoretical Considerations................................................................................................................ 33

Text and Code ................................................................................................................................ 35

Culture and the Semiosphere ........................................................................................................ 37

Cultural Memory and Intertextuality ............................................................................................ 41

Situating the Object ....................................................................................................................... 49

The Problem of Subjectivity .............................................................................................................. 54

2. André Gide, Le Traité du Narcisse ..................................................................................................... 63

The Hierarchy of Codes ..................................................................................................................... 66

Mythic Narcisse ................................................................................................................................. 72

The Theoretical-Allegorical Code ...................................................................................................... 83

The Symbol: Narcissus poeticus ........................................................................................................ 90

Individual Subjectivity in Le Traité ..................................................................................................... 96

3. Psychoanalysis 1898-1916 ................................................................................................................ 99

From Narcissus to Narcissism .......................................................................................................... 102

Sexological Beginnings ................................................................................................................ 104

Introduction into Psychoanalysis ................................................................................................ 110

Rank's contribution ..................................................................................................................... 116

Metapsychological Formulation .................................................................................................. 118

Confirmation of the Double ........................................................................................................ 123

Narcissism, Narcissus and Subjectivity in the Metapsychological Papers....................................... 125

4. Hermann Hesse, Narziß und Goldmund .......................................................................................... 134

The Narcissus theme ....................................................................................................................... 136

Psychoanalysis ................................................................................................................................. 141

The Protagonists as Instinctual Opposition ..................................................................................... 148

Narziß .............................................................................................................................................. 151

Goldmund ........................................................................................................................................ 157

Narcissistic Composition and the Healing of the Subject ................................................................ 164

Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 166

4

1. Introduction

The aim of the present study is to analyze adaptations of the Narcissus theme in Western European culture between 1890 and 1930 in texts by a number of authors, reaching from Oscar Wilde and Paul Valéry, over Sigmund Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke to Hermann Hesse and Joachim Gasquet. This is a period which sees a continued elaboration of the equation of Narcissus and artist, which digs deeper into the psychological and existential condition of Narcissus, and which witnesses the groundbreaking transformation of the Narcissus figure into the meta-psychological notion of narcissism. Furthermore, and this will be the main contention of this study, one important way in which the Narcissus theme is put to use during this period is as a figuration of an increasingly problematic understanding of the modern subject. Two series of questions, coupled with two general theses, will guide the investigation. The first series of questions concerns how mythic material is incorporated into alien discourse. What elements of the story are emphasized in its modern reactivations? Which historical periods and individual texts in the Narcissus tradition do the modern adaptations draw on? How do different versions of the story clash with each other? What other stories, ideas, notions and settings is the myth confronted with? How do narrative, pictorial and conceptual renderings of the theme relate to each other? This line of questioning rests on the conviction that in any culture, thinking and writing does not begin from scratch. When we wish to express something new, we nevertheless return to old sources to reactivate meanings and reformulate problems in the novel context. Significant cultural material is recycled in a process where meanings shift, disappear and resurface and signifying structures break down, merge and reappear. The impetus for this side of the investigation is gained from the phenomenon of intertexuality, which has highlighted the insight that texts are made from texts, that they produce meaning in their relation to other texts. The primary concern for this part of the investigation is descriptive: it aims at elucidating how structures and elements of the individual texts relate to other structures and elements in the intra- as well as the intertextual context. It will try to lay bare the substructures of the manifest texts and clarify their interrelations as well as the relations to the context of the Narcissus tradition. If the first range of questions confronts the Narcissus theme with a how, the second concerns its what. What meaning is attributed to the theme? What complex of ideas comes into play in its reactivation? What philosophical, aesthetic, moral, existential and psychological questions are raised through the evocation of Narcissus and in what way does 5 the theme aid in answering them? In short, what does Narcissus mean for the authors of the turn of the century? This side of the investigation is interpretive in its practice and hermeneutical reference, both at the level of the individual text and at level of the corpus of texts constituted by the intertextual reference to the Narcissus theme. It will be argued that the main concerns for innovative renderings of the theme during this period are the issues of subjectivity and selfhood. This does not mean that traditional motifs for the Narcissus tradition such as beauty, arrogance, pride, erotic abstinence, confusion of identities or ontological strata, metamorphosis, homosexual love, just punishment, mortality, self-love etc. have become obsolete. But what is specifically brought to t Narcissus-treatments are the renewed modern concerns of subjectivity: What does it mean to be a self? What am I, as a subject, over and against the object? How am I separated from the world and the Other? Whence did I emerge and whither will I go after this existence? What is the ontological foundation for my existence? The Narcissus theme is utilized to ask these questions in a novel frame. At the turn of the century, the possibility of a de-centering of the subject, the questionability of transcendent perspectives and the relativity of epistemology encourage a rephrasing of the questions related to the first person-perspective. A rephrasing for which Narcissus, , offers a suitable paradigm.1 In this rephrasing, the Romantic notion of Narcissus as a symbol of the modern subject is revived. To some extent Romantic ideas are taken up again, but the view of the subject is also made more problematic and less harmonious by the adding perspectives of individuality, identity- formation and the questionability of transcendence. Romanticism could very well have been included in this project, but for the sake of focus and concentration, it has appeared justified to me to begin my inquiries at the year 1890 rather than 1790. The two lines of inquiry, into the semiotics and the semantics of modern Narcissus, are of course intimately intertwined. Semiotic analysis and semantic interpretation will necessarily proceed hand in hand, and any discussion of an individual text will contain both elements. The investigation will be loosely based on the interrelated theories of cultural semiotics and intertextuality, primarily as they have been developed by Juri Lotman and Renate Lachmann, respectively. To be able to cope with a phenomenon which transgresses JHVquotesdbs_dbs35.pdfusesText_40

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