Humanities, Volume 13, Issue 3 (June 2024) – 5 articles

This paper explores George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil (1859) as an early portrayal of traumatic neurosis, providing a fresh perspective to enhance the existing scholarly attention on trauma in Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. To illustrate potential contemporary diagnoses for Latimer, I examine other prevalent mid-nineteenth-century models of mental pathology, including phrenology, mesmerism, and hemispheric brain disunity. Drawing on Pierre Janet’s trauma theories from the late nineteenth century, I argue that Eliot presents an early portrayal of dissociative trauma through Latimer’s psychological experiences. Latimer’s visions, complex dream-like interactions, and involuntary consciousness splitting provide a framework for understanding dissociation in response to his emotionally traumatic loss of his mother. Eliot’s exploration of dissociation anticipates Pierre Janet’s theories, which underpin contemporary understandings of trauma, revealing a remarkable modernity in Eliot’s approach. Full article

The reciprocal relationship between cultural trauma studies and psychoanalytic discourse on the one hand, and trauma studies and fictional representations of trauma on the other, has been commented on by scholars within the field of literary studies. What connects the representation of trauma in cultural trauma theory, trauma fiction, and psychoanalysis is that it is regarded as something that overwhelms an individual’s capacities for processing and functioning. However, while cultural trauma theory has come under scrutiny for prioritizing too narrow a view of trauma and its representations, the considerable critiques of and revisions to Freud’s theories, developed in the 1980/90s, have been mostly ignored by cultural trauma theorists. In this interdisciplinary article, we draw on relational psychoanalytic perspectives to demonstrate how relational revisions to psychoanalytic theory and techniques, as well as views on dissociation, can offer new perspectives for approaching literary works of fiction, such as the realist novel, which engage with the subject of trauma outside of established trauma conventions. We demonstrate that trauma novels by Lisa Appignanesi and Aminatta Forna parallel these revisions to psychoanalytic theory and techniques, allowing for a more pluralistic and nuanced representation of responses to trauma and suffering. Full article

In this essay, Goethe’s early historical plays, Götz von Berlichingen, published in 1773, and Egmont, published only in 1787, are compared. So far, scholarly work has not recognized enough of the differences between both works. Goethe’s intellectual development from the young Storm and Stress writer of Götz to the publication of Egmont fourteen years later has not been considered sufficiently. Goethe’s development is clearly reflected in his protagonists’ deeds and intentions. Goethe’s Götz fights predominantly for his own rights and his family. Egmont aims higher; he is more concerned with the welfare state of society and reflects on political issues Götz is unable to consider. Moreover, Goethe takes, in both cases, poetic license to create a different picture of his protagonists’ failures than historical sources provide. This finally leads to the introduction of the term preclassic to differentiate between Götz and Egmont. Full article

This essay explores the notion of Mitsprechen or “with-speaking” in Paul Celan’s poetry. “With-speaking” supposes that voices in the poems actively participate and engage in a dialogue that goes beyond traditional hermeneutic frameworks. Celan’s notion of col-loquy, distinct from the conventional sense of dialogue, challenges the separation between author and interpreter, rendering the traditional concept of intertextuality inadequate. The poems, according to Celan, give voice to human destinies, making texts audible as the voices of others. This vocal dimension of Celan’s poetry has prompted extensive discussion among philosophers, particularly in France. Levinas, Blanchot, and Derrida, influenced by German phenomenology and hermeneutics, critically examine the ethical implications of speaking “about” the other. They challenge traditional hermeneutical practices, emphasizing the responsibility of interpreters to respect the unique and untranslatable character of individual voices. This critique extends to Protestant categories of interpretation, drawing on alternative Jewish perspectives on being-in-the-world and alterity. The text explores the tensions inherent in speaking “for” or “in the name of” others, especially in the context of interpreting Celan’s work, raising questions about maintaining the fundamental difference and distance that otherness implies. The discussion concludes by highlighting Werner Hamacher’s formulation of a new philology that disrupts hermeneutical violence, influenced by the critiques of Blanchot, Levinas, and Derrida, and offering an alternative way of addressing the particular challenges posed by Celan’s poetry. Full article