The father complex in literature: a meta-psychological investigation

The course aims to address motifs and passages from ancient and modern literature, reading them from a psychoanalytic perspective.

A few key texts will be analysed adopting the tools of psychoanalytic investigation in order to understand the motives rooted in the authors’ depth psychology, that prompted them to write their poems.

At the same time, following a path within the history of literatures, we will try to dissect some representations of the unconscious and symbols that are often overlooked.

The aim of this module is to highlight and analyse how and when the father complex influences, inspires or determines the creative potential of authors, as well as to examine its dissimulations, images or representations.

These lectures focus on the father complex: we will explore every nuance of the conflict with the father in the Oedipus complex, and find examples of such conflict in literature.

The module consists of 6 lectures and has a duration of approximately 3 months.

Starting from the analysis of a verse from the “Lord’s Prayer” (Pater Noster), we will investigate the evangelical meanings of the words “temptation”, “good and evil” using the processes of depth psychology.

We will then consider Sophocles’ “Edipo Re” (Oedipus Rex). Giving for granted its Freudian reading, the text will be analyzed through Pasolini’s representation in his 1967 film.

An analysis will be carried out concerning the inconsistencies and some Freudian slips (parapraxis) made by the film director himself when writing the screenplay.

The role of the gaze is crucial and Pasolini confers a particular meaning to it: we will find out how right he is.

The Italic god Giano Bifronte (Janus Bifrons) and his symbolic meaning in psychic processes will be discussed.

Philip Roth’s novel Nemesis will also be discussed.

The theme of the gaze will be resumed at the beginning of the second lesson.

The second lecture resumes the theme of the gaze introduced during the first lecture.

First of all, the significance of the son’s gaze and the different nuances portrayed in Sophocles’ “Edipo Re” (Oedipus Rex) and in Pasolini’s interpretation will be analysed.

In a more general manner, this topic will intertwine with the theme of the gaze in the Oedipal triangle. Apuleius’ fable of Cupido and Psiche (Cupid and Psyche) will also be discussed.

Then, we will examine in depth the same subject, reviewing different works, although not strictly literary, such as Stravinskij‘s Opera-oratorio with a libretto by Cocteau, as well as some paintings from art history. Moreover, a critique of the philosopher René Girard’s interpretation of Oedipus will be given.

The theme of the gaze in the love triangle will be completed by analysing some works of early Italian literature written by Guinizzelli, Dante and Petrarca.

The lecture will conclude by returning to the Father’s gaze with a psychoanalytic interpretation of Catullus’ Carme V (Poem V).

The purpose of the first part of this lecture is to identify the Father’s gaze within Catullus’ work.

Some of his poems will be analysed in order to understand the complex impulses of emotional ambivalence that characterise the height of Catullus’ poetry.

We will then move on to Aulularia by Plautus, giving an interpretation to the Pot of Gold, which the main character hides for fear that someone might steal it.

Terence’s “Il punitore di se stesso” (The self-tormentor) and the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son will also be discussed, in order to find common elements of the son’s revolt against his father.

A comparison will be made between examples, taken from literary texts and from the psychoanalytic clinic, of the son’s opposition to the gaze,  the so-called Law of the Father.

A quotation from contemporary literature – namely from a short story by Tiziano Sclavi – will close the lecture.

The lecture will start with an analysis of the father figure as proposed by Dante in the Divine Comedy. The ambivalence, already present in  Catullus, can now be found in Dante; the relationship with Virgil is marked by unconditional and redeeming love and trust, destined to dissolve before the maternal Oedipal object.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni (“libretto” by Lorenzo Da Ponte) opens a series of examples from the world of literature and art in general: the son surrenders to guilt.

Comparison between the “Convitato di pietra” (Stone guest) and Giorgio De Chirico’s painting “Il figliol prodigo” (The Prodigal Son), exhibited in Milan at the Museo del Novecento.

An interpretative reading of some poems from Saba’s Canzoniere will be given.

Svevo’s “La Coscienza di Zeno”, some passages from Joyce’s “Ulysses” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” will be discussed.

The lecture will end with a reading, adopting the same approach, of “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace.

Kafka and Beckett. We will deal in detail with the works: “Lettera al padre” (Letter to the father), “Davanti alla legge” (Before the law), “Un messaggio dell’imperatore”  (A Message from the Emperor) by Kafka and try to account for the author’s inability to free himself from the castrating influence of his father. “Il processo” (The trial) will also be discussed adopting the same approach.

We will then move on to the reading of “Aspettando Godot” (Waiting for Godot) by Beckett, framing the work from the point of view of existential emptiness resulting from the symbolic murder of the father, which phylogenetically retraces the mass murder of the primitive horde.

Finally, we will compare Beckett’s existential emptiness with the nihilism that permeates the novels of the contemporary writer Sclavi, in particular “Non è successo niente” (Nothing happened).