Formations of the Unconscious: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book V
- ISBN-10
- 0745660371
- ISBN-13
- 9780745660370
- Category
- Psychology
- Pages
- 400
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2017-06-26
- Publisher
- Polity
- Author
- Jacques Lacan
Description
When I decided to explore the question of Witz, or wit, with you this year, I undertook a small enquiry. It will come as no surprise at all that I began by questioning a poet. This is a poet who introduces the dimension of an especially playful wit that runs through his work, as much in his prose as in more poetic forms, and which he brings into play even when he happens to be talking about mathematics, for he is also a mathematician. I am referring to Raymond Queneau. While we were exchanging our first remarks on the matter he told me a joke. It’s a joke about exams, about the university entrance exams, if you like. We have a candidate and we have an examiner. – “Tell me”, says the examiner, “about the battle of Marengo.” The candidate pauses for a moment, with a dreamy air. “The battle of Marengo...? Bodies everywhere! It’s terrible... Wounded everywhere! It’s horrible...” “But”, says the examiner, “Can’t you tell me anything more precise about this battle?” The candidate thinks for a moment, then replies, “A horse rears up on its hind legs and whinnies.” The examiner, surprised, seeks to test him a little further and says, “In that case, can you tell me about the battle of Fontenoy?” “Oh!” says the candidate, “a horse rears up on its hind legs and whinnies.” The examiner, strategically, asked the candidate to talk about the battle of Trafalgar. The candidate replies, “Dead everywhere! A blood bath.... Wounded everywhere! Hundreds of them....” “But my good man, can’t you tell me anything more precise about this battle?” “A horse...” “Excuse me, I would have you note that the battle of Trafalgar is a naval battle.” “Whoah! Whoah!” says the candidate. “Back up, Neddy!” The value of this joke is, to my mind, that it enables us to decompose, I believe, what is at stake in a witticism. (Extract from Chapter VI)
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2020-08-31
- 400 pages
- Paperback
- Polity
Similar books
-
The Object Relation: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book IV
By Jacques Lacan"The unfulfilled and unsatisfied mother around whom the child ascends the upward slope of his narcissism is someone real.
-
Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a Language
By Joel DorAbout this Book.
-
The Formations of the Unconscious
By Oscar ZentnerThe Formations of the Unconscious
-
Unconscious Fantasies and the Relational World
By Danielle Knafo, Kenneth FeinerIn Unconscious Fantasies and the Relational World, Danielle Knafo and Kenneth Feiner return to these interlinked questions with a specific goal in mind: a contemporary appreciation of fantasy in its multiform relational contexts.
-
The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture
By Mark BouldIt asks: what happens when we stop assuming that the text is not about the anthropogenic biosphere crises engulfing us? What if all the stories we tell are stories about the Anthropocene? About climate change?
-
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis
By Jacques LacanThis volume is based on a year's seminar, which is of particular importance because he was addressing a larger, less specialist audience than ever before, amongst whom he could not assume familiarity with his work.
-
Psychology After the Unconscious: From Freud to Lacan
By Ian ParkerThe Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker and presents a newly written introduction and focused overview of a key topic area.
-
The Capitalist Unconscious: Marx and Lacan
By Samo TomsicA major systematic study of the connection between Marx and Lacan’s work Finalist for the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize Despite a resurgence of interest in Lacanian psychoanalysis, particularly in terms of the ...
-
Studying Lacan's Seminars IV and V: From Lack to Desire
By Carol Owens, Nadezhda AlmqvistThis is the first collection of essays to offer a comprehensive analysis of, and reflection on, the major themes emergent in Jacques Lacan’s seminars of 1955-56 and 1956-57: Seminar IV – the object relation, and Seminar V – formations ...
-
Desire and its Interpretation: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan
By Jacques LacanWhat does Lacan show us?