Lit Theory - Psychoanalytic Criticism - 19th - 20th Century

Psychoanalytic Criticism

A literary theory of derived from psychoanalysis.  The theory focuses on human drives, the conscious and the unconscious.  The theory looks to dream analysis, symbolic slips and neurotic behaviors as clues to the unconsciousness’s desires.  The idea is that conscious represses the unconscious, but that the unconscious reveals itself through tells.  The indirect expressions and coded symbols are evaluated for clues to derive underlying meaning of the literary text.

Works Cited

Baldick, Chris. The Oxford Diction of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2008. Print.