Norman N. Holland : The Dean of American Psychoanalytic Literary Critics

Norman Holland was unquestionably the leading 20th-century American psychoanalytic literary critic. Long known as the Dean of American psychoanalytic literary critics, Holland produced an enormous body of scholarship that appeals to both neophytes in the field and advanced researchers, many of whom have been influenced by his writings. Holland was one of the first proponents of reader-response criticism, the theorist of readers’ identity themes, and the author of fifteen books that have become classics in the field. Jeffrey Berman analyzes all of Holland’s books, and many of his 250 scholarly articles, highlighting continuities and discontinuities in the critic’s thinking over time. A controversial if not polarizing figure, Holland is discussed in relation to his closest colleagues, including Murray Schwartz, Bernard Paris, and Leslie Fiedler, as well as his fiercest critics, among them Frederick Crews, David Bleich, and Jonathan Culler, creating a dynamic and personal portrait. Insofar as this text illuminates the evolving mind of a premier literary critic, it produces a parallel profile of the American reader, the primary object of Holland’s extensive work. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction “Norman Holland’s Importance to Me” A Paradoxical Figure The Plan of This Book Surprises Chapter 1: Writing Non-Psychoanalytically: The First Modern Comedies and The Shakespearean Imagination “Jude the Obscure: Hardy’s Symbolic Indictment of Christianity” The First Modern Comedies Early Comments on Freud The Shakespearean Imagination Historical Critics and New Critics A Warning The Wrong Question about Hamlet Psychoanalysts Not Welcome A Sentimentalist? Chapter 2: Becoming a Freudian: Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare Vulgärfreudismus Freudolatry Bloom Brontosaurus Bardolater Opening with a Joke A Sketch of Shakespeare And of Holland Himself? “Out of Their Depth” Erik Erikson’s Influence Returning to Hamlet Mind the Gap Always a Shakespearean Chapter 3: Theorizing Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: The Dynamics of Literary Response Elizabeth Zetzel Analyzability American Ego Psychology “The Unity of the Human Self” “A Monastic Ritual” “The Next New Criticism” Intellectualization Developing and Applying a New Model of Reading Torn between Critical Relativism and Monism “Dover Beach” Truth versus Ideology Another Contentious Subject Precarious Autobiography “Something of a Puritan” Returning to an Old Question Reviews: Frederick Crews Other Reviews Looking for Another Model Chapter 4: Developing a New Model of Reader-Response Criticism: Poems in Persons and 5 Readers Reading Heinz Lichtenstein Monumental Research Poems in Persons: Differences between the Two Editions Stung by an Unnamed Critic H.D.’s Analysis—and Perhaps Holland’s H.D.’s Identity Theme Spearless Athene Sandra Saul Transference and Countertransference in Reading Holland’s Identity Theme 5 Readers Reading Another Early Reader-Response Critic: Walter Slatoff “Literary Suicide: A Question of Style” “The Good Hysteric” Returning, Obsessively, to His Own Identity Theme The Anal Character Shep Sam’s Homophobia An Early Glimpse of Delphi Teaching DEFT Reviews: David Bleich Another Crews Missile Other Reviews Holland’s Cheerfulness Chapter 5: Extending Identity Theory in the 1980s: “Re-Covering ‘The Purloined Letter,’” Laughing, The I and Being Human, and The Brain of Robert Frost “Re-Covering ‘The Purloined Letter’” Absence and Presence A Bitter Adversary Laughing Fathers and Sons No Longer a Schematic Freudian The I and Being Human Then-I and Now-I Parsimony Veiled Self-Disclosures Jacques Lacan William Kerrigan and Andrew Gordon In Thrall to Lacan Revising Psychoanalytic Theory A Muse for Theorists I DEFTly ARC “The Promising Writer” Ambivalence in Fitzgerald’s Identity Theme And Ambivalence in My Own Identity Theme “Two Hollands” The Brain of Robert Frost “The Miller’s Wife and the Six Professors” Murray Schwartz: Holland’s Feedback System Pedagogical Insights Chapter 6: Speaking in a Lone Voice among the New Cryptics: Holland’s Guide and The Critical I The Science of Human Subjectivity The Dodo Bird Effect Mistrustful of Philosophy Bernard J. Paris A Synthetic Study Seeking Holland’s Approval The Critical I The Kuleshov Effect “Thirty Days Hath September” War on the I Holland’s Counterattack A Thorn in His Side: Lacan Hope for the Future “A Must” Chapter 7: Penning Fiction: “A Cyberreader Defends” and Death in a Delphi Seminar A Severed Lifeline Seeing a Merlin The Narcissism of Minor Differences? Self-Analysis in Literary Study Theory as Unconscious Autobiography Death in a Delphi Seminar The Delphi Seminar A Unique Collaboration Teaching Psychoanalytically: Fact and Fiction “There’s Nothing outside the Text” Holland’s Wordplay Twinning Raymond Federman Deconstruction and Psychopathology The Double “About Me” Traumatic Repression Dangerous Empathy Pedagogical Questions Envenomation The New Cryptics’ Response A More Positive Review Chapter 8: Exposing the Film Critic’s Free Associations: Meeting Movies The Film Critic “Report: Focus Group on Revisionism” Holland and Holland Know Thyself Family Secrets “The Sparrow” Fear of Closeness Empowering the Reader Chapter 9: Venturing into a New Field: Literature and the Brain Late Style Tunneling Eric Kandel The Freud Wars Folk Beliefs The Binding Problem SEEKING Mirror Neurons A Poetic Ear Returning to Old Questions Colleagues and Students Madness and Creativity The Compulsion to Write and Teach The Pleasure Principle Three Reviews A Sharper Focus Endings And Gratitude Chapter 10: Contemplating Endings Jane Holland’s Death The Rest Is Silence Conclusion: Norman Holland’s Legacy Creating a Psychoanalytic Community Importance in One’s Domain Affecting Eternity Norman Holland’s Children John Holland Kelley Holland Writing on Holland Works Cited Index