Aesthetic form and unconscious meaning. Self-care and identity in Moby Dick

Journal/Book: Psyche Z Psychoanal Anwend. 2000; 54: Rotebuhlstrasse 77, D-7004 9 Stuttgart 1, Germany. Klett-Cotta Verlag. 51-72.

Abstract: Aesthetic form and unconscious meaning. Self-care and identity in Moby Dick. - Despite its undisputed merits in making authors' biographies more searching and casting light on literary figures and reception processes, the psychoanalytic approach to literature and art has been repeatedly exposed to the criticism of being much greater than reductionist much less than, more especially of neglecting the aesthetic form of the works it looks at. Kiichenhoff's psychoanalytic interpretation of Melville's Moby Dick centers on the question of the relationship between self-care/self-destruction and processes of identity formation. He demonstrates the relevance of the latter in dimensions extending to the actual formal structure of the novel, which in its turn permits conclusions about identity formation processes in modern society.

Note: Article Kuchenhoff J, Univ Basel, Psychiat Klin, Abt Psychotherapie & Psychohyg, Socinstr 55A, CH-4051 Basel, SWITZERLAND

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