Title: The Family Dynamics of the Reception of Art
Abstract: In our verbal accounts of how read literature, see a work of art, or hear music, usually first thing that happens is that we disappears and is replaced by an T: focus shifts to individual apprehending work of art in isolation. This shift occurs despite our increasing sense of language as a social act and postmodern critique of concept of autonomous self. Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia, for example, implies a polyphonic self, a dialogue with internalized others that complicates concept of single, unitary response traditionally ascribed to one who apprehends work of art. But Derrida's definition of as merely a position in language and Foucault's sense of as only an effect of discourse have obscured fact that is not only fictive; as Flax suggests, it is also social, located in particular relationships as well as textual conventions (232-33). Ironically, if even postmodernist arguments must assume some notion of an actual self, it tends to be, as in Foucault's case, a socially isolated and individualistic view of self that precludes possibility of enduring attachments or responsibilities to another, and is thus incompatible with the care of children or with participation in a political community (Flax 217, 231). This postmodernist blind spot about particular relationships pervades academic psychoanalysis because chief authorities, Freud and Lacan, usually assume a relatively isolated individual in conflict with frustrating Others. Because of this orientation to individual consciousness, Otto Rank conceded that in twentieth century psychology is individual ideology par excellence (389): social psychology, rarely integrated with literary study, remains preoccupied with society as a whole rather than families and small groups. In Freud's early theories, if individual could maintain his psychic equilibrium by himself, apparently he would have little need for other people; indeed Freud suggests that as civilization develops, family ties and emotions must be sacrificed (Civilization 50-51). Admittedly, Freud's theory of Oedipus complex does acknowledge importance of some familial interaction (though it minimizes that of preoedipal and of feminine generally), and his later theories do acknowledge lengthy period of children's dependence and a role for culture and relationships in superego and id (Ego 25, 19, 38). Inspired by Levi-Strauss, Lacan also concedes importance of elementary kinship structures. Within psychoanalysis, however, it is primarily object relations theorists who acknowledge importance of family and social relations. They acknowledge that, in first six months of human life, the unit is not individual[;] unit is an environmental-individual set-up. The center of gravity does not start off in individual, but in preoedipal relationship of mother and child (Winnicott 99). Moreover, with impact of general systems theory, quantum mechanics, and field and chaos theories, there has been a transition from drive model to relational-model theories in other versions of psychoanalysis as well. As Barbara Schapiro observed in Literature and Relational Self, basic unit of study is not individual as a separate entity . . . but an interactional field . . . [T]he psyche cannot be understood as a discrete, autonomous structure. . . . The person is comprehended only within tapestry of relationships, past and present . . . This relational model in social and natural sciences has implications for critical models and frameworks that bring to study of literature and arts. With its focus on dynamic, interactive patterns and relationships, relational paradigm can redirect our attention to interconnections, and not just disruptions, in our cultural and literary analysis. While dismissing essentialist structures and absolute categories or truths, relational model nevertheless highlights significant orders of connection and relationship; it expands possibilities for meaning in our understanding of human experience and in creative reconstruction of that experience in art and literature. …
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-06-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 4
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