The Aesthetics of Loss and Lessness

This text probes the psychic and social roots of artistic scenarios of loss. Demonstrating that artistic activity is inextricably bonded to imaginary scripts of bereavement and these in turn to patterns of social dominance, the author argues in favor of an aesthetics of lessness that is, postmodern resistance to imaginary inscriptions of grief and their misogynist sequels. The book draws on psychoaesthetics, discourse theory and feminist social critiques to analyse literary visual figurations of loss. Included in its analysis of the romantic and post-romantic imaginary are readings of Merimee, Nerval, Hoffmann, H.D., Anne Hebert, Proust and Beckett, and essays, among others, on Kollwitz, Glacometti, Bellmer, Klee, Gidal and Oulton. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Psychoaesthetics of Mourning: Pygmalion and the Venus Motif....Pages 3-26 Cryptanalysis The Fetish-Bride: Hoffmann’s ‘Der Sandmann’....Pages 27-40 Front Matter....Pages 41-43 The Fragmented Body Motif: Dix, Masson, Giacometti, Picasso....Pages 45-61 Anagrams of Self: Hans Bellmer....Pages 62-74 Exile, Fracture and the Dance of Death: Paul Klee and Walter Benjamin....Pages 75-102 Front Matter....Pages 103-105 Sacrifice, Mourning, and Reparation: Käthe Kollwitz....Pages 107-122 Beyond the Imaginary Mother-Father: H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)....Pages 123-135 Misogyny and Dissolution: Anne Hébert’s Les Fous de Bassan....Pages 136-144 Dislocating the Maternal Metaphor: Thérèse Oulton....Pages 145-153 Front Matter....Pages 155-155 Proustian Cryptanalysis....Pages 157-174 Beckett’s Unnamable....Pages 175-195 Beckett, Gidal and Lessness....Pages 196-208 Back Matter....Pages 209-241 A text which probes the psychic and social roots of artistic scenarios of loss. The book argues in favour of an "aesthetics of lessness", that is, a postmodern resistance to imaginary inscriptions of grief and their misogynist sequels. This book probes the psychic and social roots of artistic scenarios of loss.