The Psychodynamics of Poetry: Poetic Virtuality and Oedipal Sublimation in the Poetry of T.s. Eliot and Paul Valéry

This book explores the relations between narcissistic trauma and psychoanalytic symbolism in poetry. I focus on the analysis of the primal scene, the Oedipal conflict and its non-resolution symbolised in T. S. Eliot, Paul Valéry, and my poetry. To emphasise sublimation, I refer to the Kleinian case studies, suggesting the resemblances between poetry writing and children's therapeutic play. T. S. Eliot's combined personae as Tiresias-Narcissus, and my combined personae in "The Mirage" are related to Klein's combined parent figure as a defense against castration anxiety. I maintain that poets revert to multiple and to combined personae to resolve their intrapersonal conflicts and write about transgression with a neutral impersonal persona which makes up their "virtuality". My concept of the poet's "virtuality" is considered to be a defence against poetic ambivalence. Finally, I compare the processes of poetry writing and psychoanalysis and write about André Green's concepts of "negative narcissism" and "the neuter gender" to show how the sublimated death drive dominates the poets' life-crises.