Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

One of the claims one might make about the relationship between psychoanalysis and modernism is that each is a beast of the other. That is, psychoanalysis, at least in its pre-World War II form, is an emblematic modernist discipline; conversely, modernist perceptions of subjectivity, individuality, memory and sociality are all deeply entwined with a psychoanalytic sensitivity. This two-way traffic seems not to have been perceived as such by many psychoanalytic practitioners of the time. Freud himself had virtually nothing to say about the modernist credentials of his creation, only wishing to subsume it under the banner of “science” (e.g., Freud 1933 ). That this is a classic modernist move is part of the point. From the other side, debate about the relevance and believability of psychoanalytic claims, particularly concerning the existence and nature of the unconscious, are significant points of concern for modernist philosophers and literary intellectuals; in this chapter, some of the intersections between psychoanalysis and “Bloomsbury” will be highlighted as exemplary in this respect. What I will suggest, focusing on the internal dynamics of psychoanalysis in Britain between the wars, is that the extraordinary tumult produced in the modernist consciousness by the devastating destructiveness enacted in World War I, and by the storm-clouds of fascism as they cohered throughout ... log in or subscribe to read full text