The King & the Adulteress: A Psychoanalytical and Literary Reinterpretation of Madame Bovary and King LearDuke University Press, 1998 - 162 pages The King and the Adulteress brings together two essays that propose radically revisionary readings of two of the most important literary works in the Western canon, Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Shakespeare's King Lear. In offering a new understanding of a deeply sadomasochistic relationship and of an authoritarian pathology, renowned psychoanalyst Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca combines psychoanalysis with literary studies to challenge the conventional judgments of readers and the stereotyped interpretations of literary critics to these masterpieces. Approaching the characters in Bovary and Lear from both an analytic and a critical viewpoint, Speziale-Bagliacca reinterprets many issues and events that involve archetypal figures of modern literary mythology. In fact, he reverses much of the received opinion about them. Charles Bovary, for example, far from being a victim of his wife's neurotic restlessness or the epitome of a passive imbecile, is a masochist of the highest order who makes a decisive contribution to Emma's miserable end. Lear, rather than a tragedy involving the sweet Cordelia, noble Kent, and the Fool as good and loyal supporters of an old king driven to madness by his overbearing evil daughters, is precisely the opposite. The sympathetic understanding of the reader should go, Speziale-Bagliacca suggests, also to Regan, Goneril, and Edmund, while the king, whose crisis is interpreted in the light of psychoanalytic findings on depression, finally becomes the true unbeloved "bastard" of the play. Roberto Speziale-Bagliacca is a psychoanalyst and Professor of Psychotherapy at the Medical School of the University of Genoa. He is the author of On the Shoulders of Freud and many other works. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 19
Page 19
... Léon ! . . . How is he going to get on in Paris ? ' [ ' Ce pauvre Léon ! . . . comment va - t - il vivre à Paris ? ' ] " ( 97/155 ) . Homais , the apothecary , imagines him having great fun but then consoles himself with the thought ...
... Léon ! . . . How is he going to get on in Paris ? ' [ ' Ce pauvre Léon ! . . . comment va - t - il vivre à Paris ? ' ] " ( 97/155 ) . Homais , the apothecary , imagines him having great fun but then consoles himself with the thought ...
Page 39
... Léon begins to think that those who had wanted him to leave her might not have been wrong after all.30 On her way back home after one of her meetings with Léon , the adulteress reaches the top of a hill and hears a blind tramp singing ...
... Léon begins to think that those who had wanted him to leave her might not have been wrong after all.30 On her way back home after one of her meetings with Léon , the adulteress reaches the top of a hill and hears a blind tramp singing ...
Page 41
... Léon , just as he had known about Rodolphe . The episode concerning Mademoiselle Lempereur , the piano teacher , provides further evidence that Charles knows about Emma's affair with Léon ( after all , on the evening when his wife does ...
... Léon , just as he had known about Rodolphe . The episode concerning Mademoiselle Lempereur , the piano teacher , provides further evidence that Charles knows about Emma's affair with Léon ( after all , on the evening when his wife does ...
Contents
A Wholly Fictitious Story | 54 |
An Essay on King Lear | 81 |
The Barbarous Scythian | 106 |
Copyright | |
3 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
able accept According affection already appears attempt become beginning behavior believe blind caused characters Charles Charles's child comes consider continue Cordelia Correspondance critics dans daughters deny describes edition elle Emma Emma's essay everything expression eyes face fact father feel figure Flaubert Fool further give given Goneril guilt Gustave husband idea imagination interest interpretation keep Kent King Lear Lear's least leaves Léon letter look Madame Bovary means mind mother nature never novel offer once Paris perhaps personality play poor possible Press probably quoted reason reference Regan relationship Rodolphe scene seems seen sense Shakespeare shows sisters sort speak suffer suggested tells term Theodor Reik things thou thought tion tragedy true turns unconscious understand wants wife wish woman writes