Since Freud's ventures into literary aesthetics in the early 1900s, psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical criticism has provided, often quite controversially, plenty of food for thought in the study of literature. Over the years, theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Melanie Klein, Julia Kristeva, and Shoshana Felman have applied different approaches to shed light on the unpredictable workings of the human psyche and its effects on behaviour. On this course, we will study important texts written in this tradition to gauge their relevance in the reading of authors such as William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry James.

Methods of study include some lecturing, but mostly we will proceed in the form of a reading circle and team/pair work. An active role is therefore encouraged to get the full gain of the course. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process writing assignment.