Erotic literature -- History and criticism; Psychoanalysis and literature; Sex in literature
Literature records many fully developed cases of neuroses. A story
like the _Fall of the House of Usher_ presents a complete case of a
neurosis. Characters in literature who commit suicide, like Werther and
Hedda Gabler, are victims of neurosis; sex is usually at the bottom of
their difficulties. Every sufferer then in literature is a partly or
fully developed case of neurosis; at least an emotional disturbance due
to sex causes, akin to the neurosis, is always present. This fact is
sufficient for the laymen to know without their making a deep inquiry
into the nature of these neuroses and attempting to classify them. Here
the work of the physician begins and a penetrating insight into the
species of neuroses described in literature can be made only by the
psychoanalyst.
Nevertheless, there are some cases that even the layman may recognise
as soon as he has familiarised himself with the Freudian views of the
neuroses. In English the best technical books on the subject are the
translation of Hitschman's _Freud's Theories of Neuroses_, Brill's
_Psychoanalysis_ and Brink's _Morbid Fears and Compulsions_. Some of
Freud's own essays have been translated by Dr. Brill in _Selected
Papers on Hysteria_.
Freud divides the neuroses into two classes, the true or actual
neuroses, and the psychoneuroses.
The true neuroses are neurasthenia and anxiety neurosis, which formerly
was included under neurasthenia, but which Freud set off as a separate
class. He calls these true neuroses because there are present abnormal
disturbances of the sexual function, not necessarily due to heredity.
Neurasthenia is due to excessive physical abuse, and the anxiety
neurosis results from abstinence or unsatisfactory gratification.
All agencies which prevent the psychic utilisation of the physical
excitement lead to anxiety neurosis. Literature gives us cases of
true neuroses, but they are not as frequent as the other class, the
psychoneuroses.
The psychoneuroses are due to repressions but date back to infancy; the
influence of heredity is important; unconscious factors are at work.
The child's relation to his parents and his infantile sex life have
great influence on his future. The crisis comes when a love repression
in later life breaks out. The psychoneuroses are hysteria, compulsion
neurosis, and mixed cases, especially anxiety hysteria.
In hysteria the patient suffers from reminiscences, and his recent
experiences are unconsciously attached to infantile sexual impressions.
Instead of solving his love difficulties he builds fantasies. Certain
mental impressions remain fixed. The early painful effects struggle to
consciousness, but instead are transformed into uncommon inhibitions,
by a process known as conversion.
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