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 24
Page 54
... eyes . Hatred , because those desires comprise long - standing resentment toward the charming assis- tant army surgeon who had abandoned his paternal role : " there was even a moment when Charles , brimming with a sombre fury , fixed his ...
... eyes . Hatred , because those desires comprise long - standing resentment toward the charming assis- tant army surgeon who had abandoned his paternal role : " there was even a moment when Charles , brimming with a sombre fury , fixed his ...
Page 95
... eyes see him not as mine do , but he appears to me of a light , delicate frame , every feature expressive of sensitivity , even to pain , with eyes lustrously intelligent , a mouth blandly beautiful , and withal a hectic flush upon his ...
... eyes see him not as mine do , but he appears to me of a light , delicate frame , every feature expressive of sensitivity , even to pain , with eyes lustrously intelligent , a mouth blandly beautiful , and withal a hectic flush upon his ...
Page 122
... eyes , which brings us back to Kent's words : " let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye " ( 1.1.158-59 ) . One further , rather fascinating etymo- logical hypothesis might be suggested : the primary meaning of " blank " is ...
... eyes , which brings us back to Kent's words : " let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye " ( 1.1.158-59 ) . One further , rather fascinating etymo- logical hypothesis might be suggested : the primary meaning of " blank " is ...
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