The Dynamics of Literary Response

ISBN: 0393007901

Author: Holland, Norman N.

Condition: New

The definitive work in psychoanalytic criticism, combining what went before with brilliant new insights and theoretical postulations. -Psychiatry and Social Science Review Reading a poem or a novel, seeing a play or a film, is a special kind of experience. Yet the essential nature of that experience has remained a mystery. Philosophers have discussed the writers role, and critics the writers craft, but there has been little disciplined inquiry into the relation of literature to peoples minds-the way in which people re-create within themselves the literary experience. Norman Holland approaches the problem armed with a thorough understanding of psychoanalytic concepts, and develops a comprehensive theory of the psychology of literature that deals with poetry, theater, and film, as well as with fiction, myth, pornography, and humor.