James Joyce and the Problem of Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalytic readings of Joyce abound, despite Joyce's deliberate attempts to resist them. Luke Thurston argues that this very antagonism determines how psychoanalytic thinking can influence Joycean criticism and literary theory. Thus, Jacques Lacan attempts to understand how Joyce's writing presents an unreadable signature that defies translation into discourse. Thurston imaginatively develops Lacan's work to illuminate Joyce's position in a literary hierarchy that includes Shakespeare, Hogg, Stevenson and Wilde.