Западная литература XX века (лекция - 08). — Transcript
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- 0:08Today we'll talk about modernism in
- 0:13general, but, of course, we'll be
- 0:15looking at the names and books written
- 0:18during this period. The first thing I'd
- 0:24like to begin with is that natural
- 0:26reading sensation that arises every
- 0:29time we pick up and begin reading a
- 0:32book written in the 20th century, well,
- 0:35especially in the first half, which
- 0:37we'll be discussing now. We'll take any
- 0:41text written during this time. And
- 0:44here's the interesting thing: yes, we
- 0:46might not even know the author's name.
- 0:48Imagine this experiment: you're given a
- 0:50few pages of a text, and you don't know
- 0:53the author's name, you don't know the
- 0:56title of the work. The text doesn't
- 0:58even contain any elements that directly
- 1:01point to the 20th century, like cars or
- 1:03anything like that. But you'll always
- 1:06unmistakably recognize that this is a
- 1:08text written in the 20th century.
- 1:12Simply because of how it's written,
- 1:13right? That's because of how it's
- 1:15written. You immediately sense that
- 1:17this isn't the 19th century in any way,
- 1:19but the 20th. Something was happening
- 1:24with literary writing, with the writing
- 1:27style, during that period, at the
- 1:29beginning of the 20th century, that
- 1:32truly leaves the sense of a sharp
- 1:34boundary between the 10th and 20th
- 1:37centuries. And this boundary truly
- 1:42resembles, well, a break, a certain
- 1:46discontinuity. That is, there's a
- 1:50sudden, abrupt transition from one set
- 1:54of ideas about how fiction should be
- 1:57written to a completely different set
- 2:00of ideas on the subject. We're
- 2:03examining all of these things here in
- 2:05some detail and, in general, we imagine
- 2:08that this break, this leap—well, not
- 2:10quite a blatant break, but rather these
- 2:12transitional moments. Yes, one quality
- 2:16gradually evolved into another, but
- 2:18this transition, this evolution,
- 2:20occurred quite quickly, in, I don't
- 2:22know, a couple of decades. And indeed,
- 2:27when you and I take a text—I don't
- 2:30know, Flabert, for example, or Mapasan
- 2:32—and next to it we read Virginia
- 2:35Woolf or, I don't know, anyone,
- 2:37Faulkner, Hemingway, yes, or Kavka, we
- 2:40immediately sense that something has
- 2:43happened. Indeed, some kind of leap has
- 2:46occurred, some kind of transition to an
- 2:48entirely new quality of literary
- 2:50writing. This phenomenon, associated
- 2:53with the advent of the modernist era,
- 2:55has long been noted by literary
- 2:57scholarship. And much has been written,
- 3:00and continues to be written, about the
- 3:06so-called formal revolution in
- 3:08modernism, that is, about a revolution
- 3:10in artistic form. What happens to the
- 3:14plot, what happens to the characters?
- 3:18What happens to the narrative, and what
- 3:21new literary techniques arise in
- 3:23modernism? So, what is happening to the
- 3:29old, how these old notions disappear,
- 3:32and how a truly entirely new literary
- 3:35quality begins to emerge. Well, you and
- 3:40I can easily assume that when such
- 3:42changes occur, it's always associated
- 3:45with some kind of shift in worldview,
- 3:47in one's perception of the world.
- 3:50Indeed, these new ideas about the world
- 3:54, about society, and about humanity
- 3:58emerge. And this changed picture of the
- 4:02world, of course, dictates the urgent
- 4:04need to change the arsenal of tools,
- 4:06the artistic means with which we can
- 4:09describe this new experience, can
- 4:11somehow reflect it, because it's
- 4:13perfectly clear that if we want, say,
- 4:16to study the newly discovered
- 4:17microworld, then a magnifying glass
- 4:20will no longer be enough—we need an
- 4:22electron microscope, for example. Yes,
- 4:26if we want to chop wood, then axes and
- 4:29saws are suitable for this. But if we
- 4:33want to open a tin can, then an axe is
- 4:35no longer suitable; we need a different
- 4:36tool. Yes. So, depending on what we
- 4:39want to write about, what experience we
- 4:41want to convey, we must, accordingly,
- 4:43select our arsenal of tools. And so a
- 4:46formal revolution is taking place, one
- 4:48that is inextricably linked to this
- 4:50changed worldview. We already started
- 4:53talking about how it gradually changed
- 4:55last time, didn't we? Remember, we
- 4:58talked about Hamsun, about how he tried
- 5:00to capture this unconscious, secret,
- 5:02hidden spiritual life, right? About
- 5:05Henry James, who destroys the
- 5:07omniscient author and hands the floor
- 5:09over to the characters, inviting us to
- 5:11see their point of view. We talked, of
- 5:15course, about Marcel Proust, who was
- 5:18deeply interested in that part of the
- 5:22human psyche—which, in general, is
- 5:27difficult to even find the words to
- 5:29discuss—because it's the instinctive,
- 5:32ancient, animal part of our psyche,
- 5:34connected to our sensory system: sight,
- 5:37hearing, smell, touch, taste—those
- 5:39primary perceptions and impressions.
- 5:43And they're usually nonverbal. Indeed,
- 5:46it's very difficult to put this into
- 5:48words. How do you explain, for example,
- 5:51to a blind person who can't see what
- 5:53green is? What is green, exactly? Or
- 5:57how do you explain to a deaf person
- 6:00what it's like to hear a sound, I don't
- 6:02know, loud or soft, or whether it's a
- 6:05soft or harsh sound? These are all the
- 6:10simplest sensations, which lie below
- 6:13the level of our verbal communication.
- 6:18Literature is beginning to take an
- 6:19interest in all of this. And in fact,
- 6:22this process was closely connected with
- 6:25the complex of new ideas about man that
- 6:29arose thanks, in part, to the
- 6:31development of the natural sciences,
- 6:34with the emergence of new sciences, for
- 6:38example, psychology, which emerged as a
- 6:41new scientific field sometime in the
- 6:44mid-1880s. First and foremost, of
- 6:47course, this is connected, as I believe
- 6:48we've already discussed, with Wunt's
- 6:50laboratory. And also with the
- 6:52discoveries of the American philosopher
- 6:54and psychologist William James, who was
- 6:56the older brother of Henry James, the
- 6:58writer. We talked about it last time.
- 7:01But the discovery of physiology, the
- 7:03creation of psychology, the advent of
- 7:05psychoanalysis—yes, and coupled with
- 7:08a new view of society, which is
- 7:09reflected, for example, in naturalism,
- 7:12right? And literary naturalism—we've
- 7:15discussed it at length. All of this
- 7:19leads to a truly ideological shift at
- 7:22the beginning of the 20th century and
- 7:24the emergence of a new worldview, an
- 7:27important part of which is a new
- 7:29literary anthropology, that is, a new
- 7:32set of ideas about man, expressed in
- 7:35literature. And in order to convey this
- 7:39experience, new techniques, new methods
- 7:41, are truly necessary. We'll talk first
- 7:45about two things related to the new
- 7:48literary anthropology, that is, the new
- 7:50set of ideas about man that was
- 7:53expressed in literature during the
- 7:55modernist era in the first third of the
- 7:5820th century. First, there's the
- 8:01discovery of the unconscious and the
- 8:04ways literature begins to work with
- 8:07this material. The second is new
- 8:11understandings of our consciousness, of
- 8:13thinking, of how it works, how it's
- 8:16structured, and again, how literature
- 8:18attempts to engage with these matters.
- 8:23This will be the first important block
- 8:25we need to discuss in connection with
- 8:27modernism. The second important
- 8:31question will touch on several other
- 8:34things, namely, the ideas of modernist
- 8:36writers about literature, its purpose,
- 8:39its meaning, and the place it occupies
- 8:42in modern civilization, in modern
- 8:44culture. But before we move on to
- 8:50discussing interesting questions about
- 8:52the unconscious and awareness, I'd like
- 8:55to say a few words about the word "
- 8:57modernism" itself, which we'll be using
- 8:59constantly now, right? Where did this
- 9:04word come from, and why do we use it to
- 9:07describe the literature, or rather,
- 9:09most of it, that emerged in the second
- 9:12third of the 20th century? That's an
- 9:15interesting question. And it must be
- 9:18said that, in fact, this word with a
- 9:22common root is, uh, common in many
- 9:25European languages, including Russian,
- 9:28at that time. And here we can talk
- 9:33about such a thing as modernism with a
- 9:35capital M, meaning the grand style of
- 9:38the era—yes, the era of modernism,
- 9:40yes, as we discussed, the era of
- 9:42decadence—yes, modernism as a grand
- 9:45style of the era, as an entire era in
- 9:47the history of literature. And we can
- 9:51talk about different modernisms, about
- 9:54different national interpretations of
- 9:56this word. And here, by the way, if we
- 10:00turn to these different modernisms in
- 10:02their national interpretations, we can
- 10:04encounter a wide variety of
- 10:06interpretations of this word in general
- 10:08. Well, for example, if we take our
- 10:12native Russian version, yes, the
- 10:15understanding of this word, then
- 10:18modernism is a term that is primarily
- 10:21used by historians of Russian
- 10:23literature to apply to the Silver Age,
- 10:27that is, primarily the 1990s, yes, even
- 10:30before the revolution of 1917.
- 10:33Modernism, symbolism, I don't know,
- 10:36decadence—all of this goes hand in
- 10:39hand, side by side, in the history of
- 10:41Russian literature. Well, in a more
- 10:43general sense, the emergence of these
- 10:45phenomena, associated with the turn of
- 10:47the century—yes, in Russia it begins
- 10:50a little later, closer to the 1990s,
- 10:52unlike, say, France or Britain. And
- 10:54this is also called modernism. In a
- 10:58more specialized sense, "modernists"
- 11:01are used to describe certain circles,
- 11:04and poets, writers, and artists of the
- 11:071990s. For example, the association
- 11:10that formed around the magazine "World
- 11:12of Art" in Russia during the Silver Age
- 11:14. They are often called modernists,
- 11:16right? Both artists and writers,
- 11:18modernists. So, you see, this rather
- 11:21narrowly specialized use of the word is
- 11:23associated with the circle movement,
- 11:25with the orientation of a particular
- 11:26magazine, for example, a literary and
- 11:28artistic one, and with the Silver Age
- 11:30in general. So, look, modernism in
- 11:32Russia is generally applied to
- 11:33turn-of-the-century culture. In the
- 11:36West, we apply this term primarily to
- 11:38the 20th century—that is, the culture
- 11:41that developed there from the late
- 11:431900s until the 1960s. But if we look
- 11:51at how this word appears, for example,
- 11:54in Spanish, we see that the term "
- 11:56modernismo" or "modernism" is primarily
- 11:59associated with the phenomenon of
- 12:01poetic modernism. This, too, is a
- 12:05phenomenon generally related to the
- 12:08turn of the century and, indeed, the
- 12:10very beginning of the 20th century.
- 12:14Poetic modernism is a revolution that
- 12:16occurred in the history of Spanish
- 12:19poetry, which had been rather
- 12:21retrograde by the end of the 20th
- 12:23century and was, after all, very
- 12:25outdated. And so, the renewal of poetic
- 12:29styles and poetic schools began,
- 12:32incidentally, not in Spain itself, but
- 12:34in its former colonies, in Latin
- 12:37America. And from there, these veins
- 12:40reach the former metropolitanate, that
- 12:42is, Spain itself. And, in particular,
- 12:46Latin American poets, uh, they come to
- 12:53Spain, give poetry readings, meet
- 12:55Spanish poets, and bring back this new
- 12:57style, which begins to be adopted in
- 13:00Spain and develops rapidly. And Spain
- 13:03thereby introduces into its poetry the
- 13:06discoveries made, well, first and
- 13:07foremost, of course, by the French
- 13:09during the era of Parnassus and
- 13:11Symbolism. Look, yes, for France, this
- 13:14was already so yesterday, but for Spain
- 13:16, modernism—that is, some new
- 13:18currents, new trends in poetry. You see
- 13:21, this is also quite a narrow
- 13:23specialization, conditioned by some
- 13:25national peculiarities of the use of
- 13:27this term. There were various
- 13:29modernisms. I won't even mention the
- 13:32others, otherwise it would take up too
- 13:34much time, right? But there is
- 13:37Modernism with a capital M. And this
- 13:39very modernism, as the name of an
- 13:41entire era, modernism as the name of a
- 13:43grand style defining the appearance of
- 13:46Western literature—the first, third,
- 13:48and even more so, the first half—one
- 13:51might safely say of the 20th century.
- 13:55This term, uh, came to us in literary
- 13:58history from the Anglo-American context
- 14:09. And first and foremost, of course,
- 14:13this is associated with the name of
- 14:16Virginia Woolf, the famous writer,
- 14:18literary critic, and generally someone
- 14:21who was very active in literary terms
- 14:24and greatly enlivened and, uh, somehow
- 14:30contributed to the development of
- 14:33literary life, not only in Britain but
- 14:36also in America. It was Virginia Woolf
- 14:42who first used the word modernism, well
- 14:45, in a sense very close to how we use
- 14:48it today. Virginia Woolf certainly
- 14:51didn't mean to—she was a highly
- 14:54educated, cultured, refined, and
- 14:56sophisticated woman—to introduce some
- 14:58new scientific term, because that would
- 15:01have been, in fact, a rather absurd
- 15:03idea, to introduce a scientific term
- 15:05that comes from a word, from a root
- 15:07meaning simply "new" or "modern." Yes,
- 15:10call something new or modern today, and
- 15:12in 10, 20, 30 years it will be
- 15:13hopelessly outdated. Therefore,
- 15:16Virginia Woolf, of course, simply used
- 15:20the word in a working manner and with
- 15:23her main, and essentially her only,
- 15:26purpose—to separate, yes, the
- 15:29literature being written now,
- 15:32contemporary literature, these new
- 15:35writers writing in a new way, in the
- 15:39spirit of the new 20th century, from
- 15:43the literature of the past, from the
- 15:45literature of the 19th century, from
- 15:47the writers of the past and from the
- 15:49way it was customary to write then.
- 15:52Well, it would seem the 19th century is
- 15:55over. Why talk about it so much, argue
- 15:57with it, or try so hard to distance
- 15:59ourselves from it? However, Virginia
- 16:02Woolf had a practical goal in this
- 16:04pursuit, in this quest to, yes, draw a
- 16:07line between the 20th and 19th
- 16:09centuries. She, her Bloomsbury circle,
- 16:13whose soul she was in London, yes, they
- 16:15, uh, actually polemicized, feuded with
- 16:18a whole series of writers whom they
- 16:20considered retrograde and pedantic,
- 16:22writers who now live and write
- 16:24alongside us, simultaneously in the
- 16:2720th century, and, in general, are not
- 16:29all that different in age from us. If
- 16:33they're older, it's not by much, but
- 16:36they cling tenaciously to the standards
- 16:39and even the cliches of a bygone era,
- 16:41trying to continue the tradition of the
- 16:44great Victorians, Dickinson, Thackeray,
- 16:47and so on, even though the 19th century
- 16:50is over, the time of the great
- 16:52Victorians is past, it's become classic
- 16:55, and now it's a new century, said
- 16:58Virginie Wolooof. Yes, and writing
- 17:01needs to be completely new, different.
- 17:03No, they cling to the old. And what's
- 17:06the result? No originality, no
- 17:08imitation, no epigonism, they produce
- 17:12nothing interesting. It's something
- 17:15completely derivative, already dead.
- 17:17There's no internal development. What's
- 17:20the point of writing like that? With
- 17:22authors like these, uh, among whom were
- 17:24some well-known figures. For example,
- 17:27the notorious Jongle Sworthy, author of
- 17:29the famous Forsyte saga, a multi-volume
- 17:32work, quite respectable, yes, or
- 17:35perhaps that was the writer Arnold
- 17:37Bennot. The science fiction writer
- 17:40Herbrit Wells was also greatly disliked
- 17:42in this circle. These were all writers,
- 17:45as they were called in the Bloomsbury
- 17:47circle, in the circle of Virginia Woolf
- 17:50, Edwardian writers, named after King
- 17:52Edward, right? And under whom their
- 17:55literary work unfolded. Edwardians
- 17:58imitating the great Victorians,
- 18:00epigones of the great Victorians who
- 18:02simply froze, froze there, remained in
- 18:05the nineteenth century and did not want
- 18:07to move on into the new century. They
- 18:10are even trying to impose these
- 18:12outdated standards on us. And then
- 18:14there are modern writers, writers of
- 18:16the new century, who have realized that
- 18:19writing in the old way is no longer
- 18:21possible; yes, life has changed,
- 18:23changed all ideas about it. The main
- 18:25thing is that our understanding of man,
- 18:27his experience, his inner world has
- 18:28changed. And we need to write in a new,
- 18:31contemporary way. And it was precisely
- 18:34this feeling that she conveyed with the
- 18:37words "modern,""contemporary,""new."
- 18:41Modern literature. Modernists,
- 18:44modernists, writers writing in a new,
- 18:46contemporary way. I repeat, I don't
- 18:49mean to create a term, but this little
- 18:52word of hers, in which she captured,
- 18:55yes, the emergence of a new modern
- 18:58literature and a new modern generation,
- 19:01a generation of writers—it was later
- 19:03picked up by literary critics and
- 19:06literary historians, and somehow took
- 19:09hold, and was imbued with a broader
- 19:11meaning, and turned into such a dubious
- 19:14term, in general, as modernism. Now, of
- 19:18course, this modernism is already a
- 19:20classic for us, and there is nothing
- 19:22new or modern in it. Only classicism.
- 19:25All this was a century ago. That's it.
- 19:28And it was precisely in that sense, in
- 19:31a sense close to that in which Vijini
- 19:33Woof used the word, that we began to
- 19:36understand and apply this capital-M
- 19:38modernism to the history of literature.
- 19:42Thus, in this Anglo-American sense, the
- 19:45term became firmly established in our
- 19:47culture. And this is no accident,
- 19:51because it was precisely the modernist
- 19:54project, precisely the emergence of
- 19:57this experiment, which was carried out
- 20:00by English, British, and American
- 20:02writers and poets, that was, in fact,
- 20:05the turning point, beyond which, again,
- 20:08the new realities of the new 20th
- 20:11century began, namely: cultural
- 20:14dominance—Anglo-American and, first
- 20:17and foremost, of course, American—
- 20:20under which the entire 20th century
- 20:23passed. If 19 th-century America was,
- 20:28in general, a backwater of the Old
- 20:30World, and Europe was convinced that
- 20:32nothing particularly interesting was
- 20:34happening there (well, there were a
- 20:36couple of good writers there, some
- 20:38known, some read), but overall, of
- 20:40course, they were, so to speak, in
- 20:42their apprenticeship compared to us.
- 20:46British literature was, of course,
- 20:48powerful and influential, but it
- 20:51existed alongside Germany and France.
- 20:54And, in general, perhaps even France
- 20:56could be called a cultural leader of
- 20:58the 19th century. And, of course,
- 21:01Britain seriously challenged it for
- 21:04this right. But, in general, the
- 21:06question here is who was, so to speak,
- 21:08more influential, who was more
- 21:15interesting in terms of literary
- 21:16experimentation in the 19th century,
- 21:18then with the 20th century, it is truly
- 21:20indisputable. This is, of course, a
- 21:22kind of Anglo-American, and
- 21:23predominantly American, dominance. And
- 21:25it all begins with the modernist
- 21:27experiment, the modernist project, the
- 21:30Anglo-American version of modernism.
- 21:35Now that we've covered modernism and
- 21:38modernisms a bit, we'll move on to a
- 21:41description of this experiment, this
- 21:43modernist project, successfully
- 21:46implemented, impressive, and, in
- 21:48general, securing Britain, and even
- 21:51more so the United States, cultural
- 21:53leadership in the 20th century. And
- 21:57we'll begin with a discussion of the
- 22:00unconscious, yes, this new concept,
- 22:02this new range of phenomena, which made
- 22:05such a powerful impression on the
- 22:07writing community, on the literary
- 22:09establishment, and contributed to a
- 22:12rather radical change in the face of
- 22:14literature in the 20th century, already
- 22:17in the era of modernism. Ah, well, yes,
- 22:22it's known, yes, I can simply state
- 22:24this fact, without going into it
- 22:26further, yes, that Freud's discovery,
- 22:29his psychoanalysis—it was a crucial
- 22:32factor that exerted, well, a very
- 22:34significant, perhaps decisive,
- 22:36influence on English-language
- 22:38literature, especially on American
- 22:40literature in the 1920s-1930s. Well,
- 22:44the most influential decade in this
- 22:46regard, when Freud's ideas were
- 22:48especially important, was, of course,
- 22:50the 1920s. And, ah, in fact, many
- 22:55British and American writers were
- 22:58interested in Freud's ideas and read
- 23:02psychoanalytic works and, moreover,
- 23:07underwent psychoanalytic therapy and
- 23:11visited psychoanalysts. And almost
- 23:15every great or significant English or
- 23:18American writer had, to one degree or
- 23:21another, such direct contact with
- 23:24psychoanalysis. I can name anyone, say,
- 23:28Faulkner or, say, the American
- 23:31avant-garde poet Edward Islyn Cummings.
- 23:36The entire circle of these poets, the
- 23:37modernists, Stevens, Hill Dolittle, and
- 23:43others. Indeed, in general, practically
- 23:46everyone went through the ordeal of
- 23:48psychoanalysis and Fredianism. And in
- 23:53literary history books devoted to the
- 23:55decade of the twenties, this decade,
- 23:57the decade of the twenties,
- 23:59psychoanalysis is always mentioned as
- 24:01the most important factor that shaped
- 24:04this literature. Well, I think you've
- 24:09heard quite a bit about Freud's
- 24:11teachings and you know, yes, that Freud
- 24:14, at least early Freud and in his
- 24:17classical period, discovered that he
- 24:20declared, yes, that the structure of
- 24:22the human personality can be divided
- 24:25into three levels. This is the
- 24:29unconscious, which Fred called the id,
- 24:33it, and the superego. And everything
- 24:37connected with our sociality and
- 24:38culture, yes, a set of cultural
- 24:40prescriptions, prohibitions, taboos of
- 24:42all kinds, yes, that is, what regulates
- 24:44our behavior, as it were, from above,
- 24:46from society and culture. And the
- 24:49superego is also, generally speaking, a
- 24:51realm of the unconscious, but a higher
- 24:53unconscious, yes, because cultural
- 24:55prescriptions and prohibitions are also
- 24:57learned by us, generally speaking, in
- 24:59very early childhood, mainly through
- 25:01parental upbringing, yes, and we
- 25:03reproduce them, generally speaking,
- 25:05without thinking about it too much. We
- 25:07usually don't reflect; yes, we know
- 25:09that we should eat with a spoon, yes,
- 25:12and so on, give up our place to elders,
- 25:14and so on. We learned all this in early
- 25:16childhood, also, generally speaking,
- 25:18unconsciously. And between these two
- 25:20realms of the unconscious, the
- 25:22instincts of our physiology, biology—
- 25:25the it and, yes? The it—these are our
- 25:27instincts. And this cultural,
- 25:29unconscious, there is a mediator, yes,
- 25:32that sphere of the psyche that Fred
- 25:35called the it or the ego, forgive me,
- 25:37and the function of this mediator, that
- 25:40is, our consciousness, is to try to
- 25:43reconcile the irreconcilable demands
- 25:45that the it and the superego make of us
- 25:48. Because the demands of instinct and
- 25:52the demands of culture are truly always
- 25:54directly opposed, Freud said. Our lower
- 25:57unconscious, our instinct, our biology
- 26:00demands, you're hungry, go take this
- 26:02pie from him and eat it yourself. You
- 26:05like this woman, go and take her. It
- 26:08doesn't matter that she's your sister
- 26:10or your mother, let's say, and he
- 26:12stepped on your foot and hurt you, kill
- 26:14him. Yes, these aggressive, sexual
- 26:17instincts, instincts associated with
- 26:20hunger and so on. But culture will say
- 26:22the opposite: "No, don't take someone
- 26:24else's pie, go and earn money for your
- 26:25own." Don't dare touch this woman.
- 26:28She's your mother or your sister. Find
- 26:30yourself another suitable, let's say,
- 26:32passion. And he offended you or hurt
- 26:35you. Don't touch him, don't dare use
- 26:37violence against him. Step aside. And
- 26:39so on. Yes. And so these two powerful
- 26:41enemies, the self and the superego,
- 26:44endlessly war within us. And our
- 26:50conscious part, the one we usually talk
- 26:52about, the ego, must act as a mediator,
- 26:55constantly trying to find a compromise.
- 26:58Sometimes it succeeds, but more often
- 26:59than not, it doesn't. And in general,
- 27:03our ego is so exhausted by this work of
- 27:05finding a compromise between these two
- 27:08powerful opponents that it constantly
- 27:11succumbs to this two-way pressure, and
- 27:13various breakdowns occur within our ego
- 27:16—neuroses, and in very severe cases,
- 27:19psychoses—yes, which need to be
- 27:21treated somehow, somehow corrected,
- 27:24mended, patched, yes, so that these
- 27:26holes in our ego, in our consciousness,
- 27:30can somehow be repaired a little, so
- 27:32that we can once again function in our
- 27:35cruel and merciless world. This is how
- 27:38Freud saw his task. At the same time,
- 27:41he viewed this situation
- 27:43pessimistically, generally speaking,
- 27:45and said that this controversy, this
- 27:48fierce dispute between the id and the
- 27:50superego, was inexorable and
- 27:52insurmountable. It was impossible to
- 27:54reconcile these two adversaries. They
- 27:56would forever war within our psyche,
- 27:59within our soul. And so, a person would
- 28:02inevitably suffer as long as they lived
- 28:05, and be continually traumatized. Fred
- 28:07wrote, yes, that in order to stop
- 28:09suffering, one must become a stone in
- 28:11the road, that is, cease to be human.
- 28:14And Freud saw the task of his therapy,
- 28:16in principle, very modestly. A person
- 28:18would be treated a little, adjusted,
- 28:20their condition slightly improved, and
- 28:22then, so to speak, they would be sent
- 28:23back into the world, where they would
- 28:25suffer new traumas, and then they would
- 28:27return to the psychoanalyst. So they
- 28:29lay there on his couch, well, for years
- 28:31, decades, returning again and again.
- 28:34And this is inevitable. Such is the
- 28:36fate of man, an unnatural animal who
- 28:38lives not only in the realm of nature,
- 28:41like harmonious little animals, yes,
- 28:44but also in the realm of sociality and
- 28:46culture, which has adopted a manner of
- 28:49warring with our nature. And because of
- 28:51this, we are such divided creatures,
- 28:54constantly sitting between two stools
- 28:56and constantly receiving trauma because
- 28:58of this. This is, in fact, a rather
- 29:01bleak picture. Firstly, it has
- 29:08reinforced radically new ideas about
- 29:11man, characteristic specifically of 20
- 29:14th-century literature, because now we
- 29:18have "m" in place of the former
- 29:21individual, and "individual" in Latin
- 29:24means indivisible, as if whole, right?
- 29:28So instead of the former individual, a,
- 29:31which appears in literature, say, of
- 29:34the 10th century, we have a divit, that
- 29:38is, our psyche is hopelessly divided,
- 29:41torn. And this division, this internal
- 29:44dispute, uh, internal controversy, is
- 29:46insurmountable. It cannot be resolved,
- 29:50it cannot be fixed. A human being, by
- 29:54definition, is ontologically, so to
- 29:57speak, yes, a torn, split,
- 30:00contradictory creature. Ah, and nothing
- 30:04can be done about it. Such are the
- 30:06conditions of our existence in this
- 30:08world. This is all quite radically
- 30:11different from, uh, those ideas about
- 30:13the complexity and contradictions of
- 30:16human nature that we find in 19
- 30:17th-century characters. Well, let's
- 30:21recall, for example, yes, the books of,
- 30:23I don't know, Tolstoy or Balzac, if we
- 30:26take Western literature. There, of
- 30:28course, we find very complex characters
- 30:31, very internally contradictory,
- 30:33afflicted by opposing impulses, yes,
- 30:35and we see that, in general, these
- 30:37characters are complex, complex natures
- 30:39. Ah, but this complexity is of a
- 30:42completely different order than the
- 30:44complexity of 20 th-century characters.
- 30:46What is the difference? The difference
- 30:49is, first of all, that we can always
- 30:51separate in these characters, yes, good
- 30:53from evil, as we discussed. And these
- 30:56struggles inherent in them, for example
- 30:59, in the soul of Rastenac, Balzac's
- 31:01hero—yes, the desire for power,
- 31:03prosperity, wealth, and social
- 31:05influence constantly contends. And then
- 31:08there's the best impulse, love for his
- 31:10sisters, for his mother, a certain
- 31:12conscientiousness, sensitivity, yes,
- 31:14the ability to sympathize with the
- 31:16misfortunes of others. And so, all this
- 31:18is constantly in a state of struggle
- 31:20within him, yes. But at the same time,
- 31:23this struggle, this contradiction,
- 31:25these counter-intuitive impulses, they
- 31:28are perceived by Balzac as a kind of
- 31:30temporary state. This is a Hegelian
- 31:34scheme. Thesis and antithesis are
- 31:37present in the soul of, say, Rastenac,
- 31:39or in the soul of Pierre Bezukhov or
- 31:41Andrei Balkonsky, any of these heroes
- 31:43of 10 th-century literature. But
- 31:46according to Hegel, after the struggle
- 31:48between thesis and antithesis, we must
- 31:51achieve a synthesis and rise to a
- 31:53higher, new level in our personal
- 31:55development. Having reached this stage,
- 31:58we again begin, so to speak, to split
- 32:00internally. The struggle begins again,
- 32:02but on a different level. Again, thesis
- 32:04, antithesis, new synthesis. Yes, this
- 32:06rather harmonious pattern gives rise to
- 32:09the phenomenon in the psychological
- 32:11novel, for example, in 19 th-century
- 32:14psychological fiction, described by the
- 32:16concept of the dialectic of the soul or
- 32:18the inner evolution of heroes. That is,
- 32:21this struggle, controversy, dispute—
- 32:23it's temporary. It's necessary for the
- 32:25hero to take a step forward in their
- 32:27development, upward, or, conversely, to
- 32:30begin to slide downwards if they
- 32:31implement the synthesis incorrectly,
- 32:34where, yes, they begin to degrade, yes.
- 32:36That's it. But nevertheless, this is a
- 32:38certain constructed trajectory of
- 32:40development, where synthesis, the
- 32:42desired result, is entirely achievable.
- 32:45And theses and antitheses are struggles
- 32:47, a temporary state that will
- 32:48inevitably be overcome. In the 20th
- 32:50century, the picture is completely
- 32:51different. This struggle cannot be
- 32:54overcome. Man is eternally doomed to it
- 32:57. The struggle, I don't know, between
- 32:59his physiology and his culture and
- 33:04sociality, which he has introjected, so
- 33:06to speak, absorbed, and all these
- 33:08cultural prohibitions and prescriptions
- 33:10live within us. Yes, this is
- 33:12inescapable, it will always be present.
- 33:16And man, by definition, is a torn,
- 33:18unhappy, deeply traumatized being,
- 33:20whose complexity and tornness cannot be
- 33:23eliminated in any way. This is a very
- 33:27important consequence, yes, of these
- 33:30Freudian ideas, which fully emerge and
- 33:34embrace modernism, creating such heroes
- 33:37—neither evil nor good, neither bad
- 33:40nor ugly, simply complex, whose inner
- 33:43complexity is inescapable, irreducible,
- 33:46and leads us to no result. It simply
- 33:49exists as a given. And in the case of
- 33:53modernist characters, we can hardly
- 33:56speak of any kind of spiritual progress
- 33:58or regression, inner growth or
- 34:01degradation. We can only speak of an
- 34:04endless process of change within their
- 34:06souls, because man also exists as
- 34:08something changeable, something
- 34:10chimerical, yes, and that this
- 34:12complexity is constantly present, yes,
- 34:15but with them it never disappears and
- 34:17never, generally speaking, transforms
- 34:19into any new quality. This is precisely
- 34:23the nature of the heroes of James Joyce
- 34:26or Virginia Woolf, ah, and to a large
- 34:29extent Faulkner, yes, those great
- 34:31modernist authors. A completely
- 34:34different conception, yes, of man as a
- 34:37dividual and of this complexity, which
- 34:40is not at all the complexity of Hegel
- 34:42with his neat, logical triad. This is
- 34:45the first point, a very important one,
- 34:47connected with my perception of the
- 34:49idea of psychoanalysis. The next point
- 34:52is connected, in fact, with the
- 34:54unconscious, with the lower unconscious
- 34:56, first and foremost, with our
- 34:58instincts, of course, with our
- 34:59physiological, animal part, which
- 35:01Proust, who paid close attention to our
- 35:03sensory system, was already interested
- 35:05in. This is its unconscious core
- 35:09content, as you well know. Yes, in
- 35:16Freud's classical period, it's libida,
- 35:19yes, the erotic drive, which Fred makes
- 35:22the center of our unconscious psyche.
- 35:27But in his later period, Freud added to
- 35:29this erotic treatment of libida, also a
- 35:32complementary, oppositely directed
- 35:35impulse, which he called Mortido or
- 35:37Thanatos. This drive toward death and
- 35:40destruction, on the contrary, he said
- 35:42that these two drives, these two
- 35:44instinctive impulses, are two sides of
- 35:46the same coin. Just as a coin
- 35:48necessarily has an eagle and a jack, so
- 35:50in our unconscious psyche these two
- 35:52drives actually form a single whole,
- 35:53only sometimes turning one side,
- 35:55sometimes the other. But this is indeed
- 35:57, generally speaking, true. If we were
- 35:59not mortal, we would not need to
- 36:00reproduce, and, accordingly, conversely
- 36:02, these two things are, as it were,
- 36:04truly inseparably connected. And in the
- 36:07treatment of death, in the treatment of
- 36:10prolonging life, a legitimate question
- 36:12arises: why did Fred, in fact, make the
- 36:14principle of libidinous attraction, the
- 36:16principle of erotic attraction, the
- 36:18core content of our psychic unconscious
- 36:20, our psychic underground? Why, let's
- 36:23say, didn't he think of basing it all
- 36:25on, say, the principle of pie? Hunger
- 36:29is also a very strong instinct, a very
- 36:31powerful driving force. Why did Freud
- 36:34decide not to take it, but rather this
- 36:36very Eros, which he later supplemented
- 36:39with Thanatos, or Libidin, under the
- 36:41auspices of Smartid? What's the matter?
- 36:45In fact, there was much debate about
- 36:49this, even among Freud's students, and
- 36:53his followers and even his debunkers.
- 36:59Because a whole cohort of his students,
- 37:01for example, Carl Gustav Jung, who is
- 37:04probably well known to you, or, say,
- 37:07Gostofadler. They reproached their
- 37:11teacher for placing excessive emphasis
- 37:14on sexuality, which is quite
- 37:16understandable. What's even more
- 37:19surprising is that among Freud's
- 37:20followers, there were those who
- 37:22criticized him for not paying enough
- 37:23attention to sexuality. This included,
- 37:26for example, Wilhelm Reich, the
- 37:27renowned psychotherapist and
- 37:29psychologist who created character
- 37:31analysis and body-oriented therapy.
- 37:34Reich said that Freud had somehow
- 37:36overly diluted, expanded, and stretched
- 37:39the concepts of libido and eros to
- 37:41inconceivable limits. So much so that
- 37:44it's completely impossible to work with
- 37:46, and we need to be more specific and
- 37:48truly talk about the erotic impulse as
- 37:51something physiologically very concrete
- 37:53and work with it. But these debates are
- 37:58quite revealing, because before us,
- 38:00Freud actually emerges as a classic
- 38:03scholar of the positivist era, one who
- 38:05created a new discipline and offered a
- 38:08very broad and far-reaching initial
- 38:10terminology. The meaning of each term
- 38:15Freud introduces is truly multifaceted,
- 38:18sometimes even closer to metaphor than
- 38:21to strictly scientific terminology.
- 38:24Such a term for him is ilibis or eros.
- 38:29Freud, a materialist and atheist, a
- 38:32positivist scientist, believes that,
- 38:35well, what he really does is study life
- 38:38in the only form known to him, as a
- 38:41positivist scientist, in the form of
- 38:44organic life, right? Here's our body,
- 38:49the primary source and ultimate cause
- 38:52of all our mental impulses. According
- 38:55to Freud, all these impulses arise, are
- 38:58born, develop, and fade away in our
- 39:00body, right? And the body is our life.
- 39:06And we can speak of life only in the
- 39:08language of life itself. And what is
- 39:10the apotheosis of the life cycle, the
- 39:13life process? The moment when life
- 39:16continues itself, when it prolongs its
- 39:19existence. This, of course, is the act
- 39:22of reproduction, the emergence of new
- 39:24life. And Freud made this the
- 39:27cornerstone of his theory, which is
- 39:28also completely understandable, yes.
- 39:32And so, in fact, the body as the
- 39:35primary source and ultimate cause of
- 39:38our entire mental life—this is a very
- 39:41important idea of Freud's, which was
- 39:44also adopted in literature. And note
- 39:48that the body as a source of energy, as
- 39:52the ultimate explanation for all mental
- 39:55phenomena, as, uh, not just a
- 39:58receptacle for the soul, but as a
- 40:01generator, actually generating this
- 40:04soul—this is precisely the image that
- 40:07permeates the literature of modernism.
- 40:11And in fact, modernists are very
- 40:20attentive to the bodily aspect of human
- 40:23life, human existence. They will always
- 40:30pay very close attention to gesture, to
- 40:34posture, to certain manifestations of
- 40:37our bodily life, there, I don't know,
- 40:41blush, pallor, trembling, something
- 40:45else, right? This is the very physical
- 40:48and at the same time material writing
- 40:50of modernism. One of the striking signs
- 40:53of the revolution taking place compared
- 40:56to the 19th century. Nearby, we
- 40:58encounter a situation where, in trying
- 41:01to convey to us some inner drives, the
- 41:03inner experiences of a hero, what will
- 41:06the 19th century do? It will recount
- 41:09thoughts and feelings, while 20
- 41:12th-century literature will describe
- 41:14bodily reactions by which we must judge
- 41:17what is happening to the soul, to the
- 41:20inner life. That's it. But in fact,
- 41:25I'll simply give you two examples, yes,
- 41:28from two completely different writers
- 41:31who have nothing in common except the
- 41:35fact that they belong to the era of
- 41:38modernism, to a new period in literary
- 41:41history. These are Ernest Hemingway and
- 41:45Franzkavka. Hemingway's unique,
- 41:51recognizable writing is a striking
- 41:53example of the new psychologism that
- 41:55arises precisely from these ideas about
- 41:57the corporeality of all our experiences
- 41:59and the fact that the body is not only
- 42:02the vessel of the soul, but also its
- 42:04generator. And, ah, Hemingway always
- 42:08conveys the hidden inner life through,
- 42:12ah, the body, through the visible part
- 42:15of the iceberg that is man. The soul
- 42:19looks at us, as if from a fortress,
- 42:21through the loopholes of the eyes. Yes,
- 42:24and only by physical reactions can we
- 42:27adequately judge what is happening to a
- 42:30person. Body language is much more
- 42:33eloquent, expressive, and at the same
- 42:35time more laconic than words, than
- 42:38attempts at verbal communication.
- 42:40You've undoubtedly noticed, while
- 42:42reading Hemingway, that his dialogues
- 42:45are usually, firstly, very brief, and
- 42:47secondly, very uninformative. And they
- 42:49provide minimal information about the
- 42:51characters 'inner experiences. They are
- 42:54so provocatively anti-psychological, if
- 42:57we recall 19 th-century psychologism,
- 42:59and, in general, Hummingway's
- 43:01characters never expatiate on their
- 43:03feelings, thoughts, and experiences. On
- 43:07the contrary, I always get the
- 43:08impression, when reading Hemingway's
- 43:10dialogues, that they're talking about
- 43:12anything but what's most important.
- 43:15It's as if they're deliberately
- 43:16avoiding the most important and vital
- 43:17things, and instead talking about some
- 43:19trivial, some trivial matter. Yes,
- 43:22Hemingway, like most writers of the
- 43:25modernist generation, is convinced that
- 43:27words are a very imperfect
- 43:28communication tool, usually failing to
- 43:31convey the most important things, and,
- 43:33on the contrary, tending to confuse us
- 43:35and distract us from them. And we can
- 43:38learn the most important things if we
- 43:41pay more attention to the most frank,
- 43:44the most eloquent, the most honest, and
- 43:46expressive language. Nonverbal language
- 43:49, the language of the body. Hemingway's
- 43:51texts are therefore very physical and
- 43:53tangible. Gestures, poses, and the body
- 43:55movements of his characters—he will
- 43:57always meticulously record and
- 43:58expressively describe them. Here's a
- 44:01short quote from his first novel, "The
- 44:04Sun Also Rises: Fiesta." The novel has
- 44:06a double title, right? The novel was
- 44:08published in 1926. It was Hemingway's
- 44:10first novel. And a group of these, well
- 44:14, heroes, friends, travel to Spain, to
- 44:17Pamplona, to take part in the Fiesta
- 44:20celebration that will be taking place
- 44:22there. And so they are there, endlessly
- 44:25, as is typical of Hringoy's heroes,
- 44:27visiting various taverns. And so, at
- 44:30one point, they find themselves in the
- 44:33company of some ordinary Spaniards in
- 44:37one of the establishments, where they
- 44:40are offered a drink with the entire
- 44:43assembled company. Basque waved his
- 44:46index finger under Bill's nose and
- 44:48returned the bottle to him, snapping
- 44:50the cork. He threw off the wineskin, a
- 44:52young man snatched it from him, and,
- 44:54holding it in his outstretched arms, he
- 44:56raised it high and squeezed it tightly.
- 44:58So that the wine, upon igniting, gushed
- 45:00into his mouth. He held the wineskin
- 45:02far away from himself, and the stream
- 45:04of wine, describing a gentle trajectory
- 45:06, flowed into his mouth, and he
- 45:08swallowed calmly and measuredly. Notice
- 45:10how carefully and expressively
- 45:13Haminguey describes these gestures, yes
- 45:16, and this behavior, these postures,
- 45:19these manifestations, yes, of
- 45:21physicality. So, for the Russian
- 45:24translator, problems arise, because it
- 45:26is often difficult to find adequate
- 45:28means in our native language to convey
- 45:30Haminguey Haminguey's amazingly
- 45:32detailed descriptions of the characters
- 45:34' behavior, postures, and gestures.
- 45:38Body language is much more expressive,
- 45:39more frank, and more honest than words.
- 45:44In the same novel, Haminguey simulates
- 45:46a situation, yes, the meeting of two
- 45:48lovers, Jake Barnes, the protagonist,
- 45:50and Brad Ashley. They were in love
- 45:54before the war, then separated. And as
- 45:57a result of the injury Jake Barnes
- 46:00received at the front, he is incapable
- 46:02of married life. And now he cannot
- 46:07unite with Brad, cannot marry, cannot
- 46:10have children, and a future together is
- 46:13denied them; it is impossible. But they
- 46:17continue to love each other. And so,
- 46:21after a long interval, they meet again
- 46:23for the first time in Paris. And it's
- 46:28clear, we can, so to speak, guess what
- 46:30feelings they're experiencing:
- 46:32excitement, fear, anxiety, perhaps some
- 46:35kind of hope against all odds, and
- 46:37somewhere, melancholy, despair, and, at
- 46:39the same time, joy, and so on. We could
- 46:44discuss this at length in bad prose or,
- 46:46say, in the spirit of the 19th century.
- 46:48But Hamingoy does things differently.
- 46:50He tells us almost nothing about the
- 46:53feelings, the experiences that
- 46:55undoubtedly overwhelm these two
- 46:57characters with such force. We see how
- 47:00succinctly and at the same time very
- 47:02expressively Hamingoy describes their
- 47:04first meeting. Here they are, talking,
- 47:08riding together in a taxi, arriving at
- 47:11the barracks where the rest of their
- 47:13friends are waiting, and a little while
- 47:16longer, and they should be in company.
- 47:19Their tête-à-tête is destroyed. When
- 47:23the taxi stopped, I got out and paid.
- 47:25Breda walked out, putting on her hat.
- 47:28She leaned on my arm as she stepped out
- 47:29from under the footstool. Her hand was
- 47:32shaking. I looked very indecent. She
- 47:35pulled her man's felt hat down over her
- 47:38eyes and entered the café. These few
- 47:41gestures contain everything: Bret's
- 47:44love, her confusion and despair,
- 47:45concealed by an awkward frown, her
- 47:48composure that is about to fail her,
- 47:50and her habit of hiding her feelings at
- 47:52any cost, and so on, and so on, and so
- 47:54on. Well, what I'm explaining to you
- 47:57here is the language of the 19th
- 47:59century, this is the toolkit of the
- 48:0119th century. Hammingham walks around
- 48:04without all that. He conveys all this
- 48:07to us through the recording of body
- 48:10language. And only through the body can
- 48:16one try to guess what it is like, the
- 48:18hidden life of the soul. Another
- 48:22example is from Franz Kavka, from his
- 48:24novel The Trial, where body language
- 48:26can also be used to interpret the
- 48:28changes occurring in the hero's inner
- 48:30world. Josef K is a decent man, a
- 48:34respectable citizen, a bank procurator.
- 48:38He finds himself in a strange, indecent
- 48:40, absurd, and bizarre situation. Out of
- 48:42the blue, on his birthday—his 33rd
- 48:45birthday—two men in black uniforms
- 48:47appear, announce they are guards, and
- 48:49that he's under arrest, with some kind
- 48:51of legal process being launched against
- 48:54him. His home is his recess. They tell
- 48:56him he can now go to work and generally
- 48:58live as usual, but the process is
- 48:59ongoing. From now on, he'll have to
- 49:01appear in court from time to time.
- 49:04Josef Kap initially dismisses this as a
- 49:06misunderstanding, then becomes enraged,
- 49:08believing it's absurd, a mistake, or
- 49:10simply not fitting. At first, he tries
- 49:13to dismiss it as something completely
- 49:16unrelated to him, but gradually he
- 49:18becomes more and more drawn into this
- 49:21process. And so Kavka describes a scene
- 49:23somewhere near the beginning of the
- 49:25novel. She's drawn to Iosefuk, who,
- 49:28having heard about his troubles, has an
- 49:31uncle arrive from another city, all
- 49:34agitated and agitated, trying to do
- 49:36something to help his nephew. And so it
- 49:40is in the brilliantly written scene of
- 49:42Iosefuk's conversation with his uncle.
- 49:44And at first, we see K, yes, taking in
- 49:46everything that's happening, but not
- 49:48taking in everything that's happening
- 49:50to him. He's seriously trying to
- 49:52distance himself from it. And his
- 49:54attitude toward the trial, toward the
- 49:58process, is, for now, ironically
- 50:01detached. And his uncle delivers a long
- 50:03monologue about how K's life must now
- 50:05change. And K gradually begins to be
- 50:07drawn into the discussion. A sense of
- 50:10involvement gradually arises within him
- 50:12. He begins to listen attentively to
- 50:15his uncle's words, and then, in the end
- 50:17, it turns out that he's already more
- 50:19involved in this process than even his
- 50:21uncle, who seems so agitated and
- 50:23preoccupied. Here I am again, telling
- 50:26you all this at length, as writers—
- 50:28well, admittedly, bad writers, of
- 50:30course, they are classics—would have
- 50:32done in the 19th century. How does
- 50:35Kavka do it? A few phrases, lines of
- 50:38dialogue, and a few brief comments that
- 50:41allow us to visualize, at the level of
- 50:44physical manifestations, the process of
- 50:46drawing her ZFK into the discussion of
- 50:49this issue, into the trial, into the
- 50:52court, and into this new way of life
- 50:54with which he must now come to terms.
- 50:57Look. Maybe you should go somewhere?—
- 51:00his uncle suggests. "For now, but they
- 51:03might ban me from leaving," said K.,
- 51:05succumbing to his uncle's train of
- 51:07thought. This is Kavka's only remark as
- 51:10an author, commenting on the train of
- 51:13thought, that is, something related to
- 51:15the characters 'inner lives. Well, for
- 51:18the reader, to make things easier, yes,
- 51:20such a beacon is given. From then on,
- 51:22everything happens only in the plane of
- 51:25physical manifestations. "I don't think
- 51:27they would go for that," said the uncle
- 51:29thoughtfully. Even if you leave, they
- 51:31still don't lose their power over you.
- 51:34And here I was thinking, "said K,
- 51:36grabbing his uncle's arm to keep him
- 51:38from stopping." I thought you attached
- 51:41even less importance to all this than I
- 51:42did. But look how much you took all
- 51:46this to heart. Josef! "his uncle
- 51:48shouted, trying to pull his hand away
- 51:50and stop. But Kai didn't let go. So,
- 51:53look, at first they walk side by side,
- 51:56not holding hands, like respectable
- 51:59burghers. Then the conversation begins
- 52:02to captivate them, and Josefka grabs
- 52:04her uncle's arm and begins to drag him
- 52:06along. And finally, her uncle stops and
- 52:09tries to pull his hand away from the
- 52:10knot, but he already holds it tightly
- 52:12and won't let go. That's it, the
- 52:14process of being drawn into the
- 52:16situation is complete. Her call even
- 52:18overtook her uncle's. We notice this
- 52:21from Kavka's comments regarding the
- 52:24physical gesture. There. Ah, the
- 52:28ability to work with this material, to
- 52:32show the reader what's happening in the
- 52:35characters' inner worlds without
- 52:38lengthy discussions and descriptions of
- 52:41thoughts or feelings, but through the
- 52:44medium of a physical or some other
- 52:47material sign—this is an important
- 52:50discovery of modernism, closely linked
- 52:53to a new understanding of, ah, the
- 52:57relationships between body and soul,
- 53:01body and psyche. It would be more
- 53:05accurate to say: in relation to the
- 53:07anthropology that exists in modernism.
- 53:12However, this is not the only discovery
- 53:15associated with the spread of
- 53:17psychoanalysis and its assimilation in
- 53:21literature. In general, the
- 53:27assimilation of psychoanalysis in
- 53:30modernist literature follows two such
- 53:32lines. The first line is the external
- 53:36assimilation of Freudian metaphors of
- 53:38sexuality, libidinousness, and eros,
- 53:40which is connected with the process of
- 53:43liberating literature and lifting the
- 53:45taboo of sexuality. This is the first
- 53:47path. It is the most direct, generally
- 53:50quite clear. And here, in general, this
- 53:54plot as such is not very interesting.
- 53:58We'll say a few words about it now,
- 54:00though, so we can move on to the second
- 54:02path to assimilating Freudian metaphors
- 54:04, a more complex, indirect, and far
- 54:05more intriguing one for us. Well, first
- 54:08, about the first path, the head-on
- 54:11assimilation of Freud's metaphors of
- 54:13libida, sexuality, and Eros. First, the
- 54:18reception of these Freudian terms,
- 54:21metaphors, and all these ideas fell on
- 54:25well-prepared ground in Western
- 54:27literature. The process of liberating
- 54:31literature, the lifting of taboos on
- 54:33the sexual and erotic spheres, had been
- 54:36going on for some time in Western
- 54:37culture at the turn of the century.
- 54:41You'll recall that the women's question
- 54:42was actively discussed. We talked about
- 54:45it, the war of the sexes was discussed,
- 54:47yes, by Strindberg, for example, or
- 54:49Ipson, and by many others. Naturalism
- 54:52did a great deal to prepare the way for
- 54:54psychoanalysis, because naturalism
- 54:57already spoke of instincts, yes, which
- 54:59drive people from deep within, so that
- 55:02people don't even realize it, right? In
- 55:06general, the physiological, biological,
- 55:08and natural components of man occupy an
- 55:11important place in naturalism. It's no
- 55:14coincidence that naturalism calls
- 55:16itself" naturalism, "from the word"
- 55:17nature of nature. "And there were
- 55:19discoveries made by 19 th-century
- 55:22French psychiatrists, like Claude
- 55:25Bernard, a physiologist, and Charcot, a
- 55:27psychiatrist with whom, among others,
- 55:30Freud trained. Fred studied, among
- 55:33other things, at a salpeterrier clinic,
- 55:35a famous French one, right? And at one
- 55:38time, these discoveries were news. And
- 55:41so, uh, in the Goncourt circle, for
- 55:43example, at their famous Thursdays, all
- 55:46sorts of clinical and medical cases
- 55:48were discussed, like hysteria, which
- 55:50was considered a sexual disorder back
- 55:52then, and nymphomania, and all sorts of
- 55:54other interesting topics. So, the
- 55:57process of liberation was underway.
- 55:59Works on this topic had already
- 56:00appeared there. For example, the famous
- 56:03, sensational book by Ott Weinger, a
- 56:05brilliant young man who died very young
- 56:08, but left behind several works,
- 56:11including" Sex and Character, "which
- 56:13was very famous in Russia, among other
- 56:16places. Rozenov, for example, and
- 56:18Vasily wrote a lot about it. So, this
- 56:21process of liberation, the lifting of
- 56:24this taboo, was ongoing, and its peak
- 56:27came, of course, in the twenties, in
- 56:30the post-war period. And the war, of
- 56:33course, played a huge role in this
- 56:35turbulent liberation. The proximity of
- 56:41death, the danger that confronted
- 56:43soldiers on the battlefields of the
- 56:45First World War, of course, catalyzed a
- 56:47thirst for life, a thirst for pleasure,
- 56:50and a sense of the brevity of such
- 56:52passing times, the fragility of all
- 56:54these joys, pleasures, and delights.
- 56:58And this thirst for life was even more
- 57:00acute. Freud documented the unity of
- 57:03Martid and Libid, Thanatos and Eros, in
- 57:06his later works. This is further
- 57:09confirmed by the fact that the first,
- 57:11so to speak, sexual revolution, the
- 57:14first powerful wave of liberation,
- 57:16occurred in Europe in the years
- 57:18immediately following the First World
- 57:20War. Short skirts, new dances, shake,
- 57:25cake, factrot, jazz, emancipation, the
- 57:27sporting life. This phrase was used in
- 57:31America to describe the entertainment
- 57:33industry, yes, like nightclubs and
- 57:35mountain clubs. And all of this is a
- 57:37manifestation of this acute thirst for
- 57:39life. And at the same time, these
- 57:43pleasures, these delights, this pursuit
- 57:47of, well, briefly temporary moments of
- 57:50joy and bliss—all of this bore the
- 57:53imprint of a kind of tragic doom, along
- 57:56with a sense of the fragility and
- 57:59transience of all these joys of life.
- 58:05And here's evidence of this process,
- 58:07yes, of liberation, which truly bore
- 58:10the character of, well, a real
- 58:12revolution, in the twenties. This
- 58:16evidence is scattered everywhere in
- 58:18modernist texts. For example,
- 58:20Hammingway's woman, the boy Brad Ashley
- 58:23, wears short hair and men's hats. And
- 58:27when she's infatuated with the
- 58:29motorcyclist Pedro Romero, and he tells
- 58:30her that a woman should be feminine,
- 58:32that you need to grow your hair, she
- 58:34laughs and says:" Well, what nonsense,
- 58:36how can you imagine me with long hair?
- 58:39It's completely impossible. "And Molly
- 58:41Bloom's Penelope, yes, from a modern
- 58:45Odyssey, and the heroine of James
- 58:48Joyce's great modernist novel Ulysses,
- 58:54indulges in frank recollections of her
- 58:56many lovers. And in fact, the
- 58:59eighteenth and final episode of Ulysses
- 59:01, where we hear Molly's speech, or
- 59:03rather, a stream of her consciousness,
- 59:05is how Joyce himself spoke about this
- 59:07part of his novel. It's the body that
- 59:11speaks. In a woman, it speaks, only
- 59:14nature. There's no culture here, no
- 59:17sociality. Woman is in her essence.
- 59:20This is nature in its naked, completely
- 59:23artless form. Well, it's a Joycean
- 59:27concept, but nevertheless, it's very
- 59:30characteristic, yes, of this era, this
- 59:32era of liberation and the lifting of
- 59:35the taboo on sexuality. And at this
- 59:39time, books like the famous biological
- 59:42utopia, biologically social, or rather,
- 59:45utopia, appear, and David Herbert
- 59:48Lawrence, the English writer, whose
- 59:51creative flourishing also occurred in
- 59:55the twenties. In his novel, for example
- 1:00:00, Lady Chatterley's Lover, we discover
- 1:00:02that Lawrence is deeply interested in
- 1:00:05the influence of the unconscious, the
- 1:00:08instinctive, on social life. And
- 1:00:12Lawrence, unlike Freud, tries to offer
- 1:00:15us a less hopeless view of the
- 1:00:17controversy between nature and culture,
- 1:00:20and the instinctive and the social.
- 1:00:24Lawrence is deeply dissatisfied with
- 1:00:26the state of modern civilization. He
- 1:00:28believes our society, our civilization,
- 1:00:31is deeply repressive. It mercilessly
- 1:00:34trains, scourges, so to speak, maims,
- 1:00:37cripples, and disfigures our nature.
- 1:00:41And in fact, this isn't necessarily the
- 1:00:44case, Lawrence is convinced. Society
- 1:00:46can be more harmoniously structured.
- 1:00:50And the urgency of this dispute, this
- 1:00:53irreconcilable clash of hostility
- 1:00:55between the natural and the cultural,
- 1:00:58can be alleviated if society is
- 1:01:00structured somewhat differently, if it
- 1:01:03learns to treat the natural element in
- 1:01:06man more carefully and delicately. Law
- 1:01:12expresses some of these hints and ideas
- 1:01:14on this subject in his novels,
- 1:01:15particularly in the sensational,
- 1:01:17scandalous novel" Lady Chatterley's
- 1:01:19Lover "from the 1920s. Mm, here we see,
- 1:01:23ah, three worlds, yes. The first world
- 1:01:27is the world of, uh, the Manor House,
- 1:01:30yes, uh, this Clifford Chatterley, uh,
- 1:01:34the legal husband of the main character
- 1:01:37, Connie. And this is a completely
- 1:01:41artificial world, where a mechanical
- 1:01:43order reigns. And the main person, so
- 1:01:47to speak, in this world, the master of
- 1:01:49this world, is a, which means
- 1:01:52Lord Chatterley, and the husband of the
- 1:01:54main character, who, uh, after the
- 1:01:57First World War became disabled, a
- 1:01:59colleague. He sits in a wheelchair.
- 1:02:02Therefore, he is incapable of being a
- 1:02:04full-fledged man. And for Lawrence,
- 1:02:07this is very important. This is his
- 1:02:11inferiority, yes, in terms of his
- 1:02:14masculine nature, yes, and at the same
- 1:02:17time, the commanding position he
- 1:02:19occupies in the social hierarchy.
- 1:02:23Everything is the opposite. This
- 1:02:25creature, who in the natural, yes,
- 1:02:27world would be, so to speak, at the
- 1:02:29very bottom of the hierarchy, yes, like
- 1:02:32a crippled wheelchair user, uh, unable
- 1:02:34to produce offspring in our, so to
- 1:02:36speak, world of a repressive
- 1:02:38civilization that suppresses and
- 1:02:40banishes nature, yes, here he occupies,
- 1:02:42on the contrary, the very top position.
- 1:02:44He is one of those who determine policy
- 1:02:47, who decides the fate of the modern
- 1:02:49world. He is a mine owner, he is a
- 1:02:52magnate, an aristocrat; yes, he belongs
- 1:02:55to those who, in general, constitute
- 1:02:57the elite, determining the fate not
- 1:03:00only of England, but of the entire
- 1:03:02modern world. And yet here he is,
- 1:03:05impotent and wheelchair-bound. This is
- 1:03:07a very fundamental move for Lawrence,
- 1:03:10emphasizing the unnaturalness, uh, of
- 1:03:12the civilization that has developed in
- 1:03:14the West. The first world is the world
- 1:03:18of the Chatterley estate. And the house
- 1:03:22and the adjacent courtyard are like
- 1:03:24this. The second world, completely
- 1:03:29different but no less frightening, is
- 1:03:32the world of mining towns, which
- 1:03:36represent, well, a kind of
- 1:03:38regurgitation of civilization, its, um,
- 1:03:42crippled, sick, perverted product. And
- 1:03:47this world is ugly and monstrous. Here
- 1:03:53are streets covered in black coal dust,
- 1:03:55disgusting, hideous buildings, workers
- 1:03:58in whose appearance we see signs of
- 1:04:01degeneration. Here is disease and
- 1:04:03poverty. And so it is in this town that
- 1:04:07a horse sometimes comes out when he
- 1:04:09goes for a walk, passes a park, and the
- 1:04:12park ends and then begins—this is the
- 1:04:15part where the workers live, the
- 1:04:17workers 'settlement. These are two
- 1:04:20opposites. The manor house, yes, and
- 1:04:23these workers' settlements, ah,
- 1:04:25represent two images of an ugly,
- 1:04:27crippled, and at the same time cruel,
- 1:04:30repressive civilization. And between
- 1:04:33these two worlds, which are equally
- 1:04:36disgusting to Lawrence, lies a good
- 1:04:39world. This is a park, or, in fact, a
- 1:04:43forest, which belongs to Chaterley. And
- 1:04:47here, of course, we see that the forest
- 1:04:50is used as a symbol, a symbol of
- 1:04:53nature's origins, harmony, naturalness,
- 1:04:56and beauty. This forest has magnificent
- 1:04:59trees, beautiful vegetation. Various
- 1:05:01animals and birds live here. And Connie
- 1:05:04goes there for walks when she needs to
- 1:05:06restore her spiritual balance, to be
- 1:05:08alone. And there she comes into contact
- 1:05:12with this beautiful, harmonious life of
- 1:05:15nature. And there she meets her beloved
- 1:05:18, who serves as a gamekeeper, a
- 1:05:20forester for her husband, Mellers. And
- 1:05:24their love affair begins at the moment
- 1:05:27when the two of them observe, ah,
- 1:05:29little pheasants, the offspring of
- 1:05:32pheasants, yes, these little chicks, ah
- 1:05:35, such golden-fluffy, fragile, charming
- 1:05:38, but so brave, courageous and full of,
- 1:05:41ah, life, its living trembling. And so
- 1:05:46this world of the forest, this park
- 1:05:48forest, yes, it stands in contrast to
- 1:05:51these two worlds, which symbolize
- 1:05:54civilization and truly represent a
- 1:05:56utopian beginning, harmonious and
- 1:05:59beautiful. And this union that the
- 1:06:03horse enters into, this love union with
- 1:06:06the gamekeeper Mellers, of course, from
- 1:06:09a social point of view, from the point
- 1:06:12of view of society, is a blatant,
- 1:06:15monstrous misalliance. Not only because
- 1:06:18it is connected with adultery, with
- 1:06:20marital infidelity, but because Lady
- 1:06:22Chatterley, who belongs to high society
- 1:06:24—and let's not forget that Britain in
- 1:06:26those years was still a completely
- 1:06:28caste-based, class-based, highly
- 1:06:30hierarchical society, where castes and
- 1:06:32different strata were separated from
- 1:06:34one another. And to fall from one class
- 1:06:37to another is, in general, a rare
- 1:06:40occurrence. So, she belongs to the
- 1:06:42social elite. She is Lady Chatterley.
- 1:06:44And who is this? This is a man from the
- 1:06:47lower classes, who is completely out of
- 1:06:50her league. A groom, a gamekeeper, I
- 1:06:53don't know who the workers are. They're
- 1:06:56people of a completely different circle
- 1:06:57. And yet, what is a blatant alliance,
- 1:07:03absurd from the point of view of
- 1:07:06society, yes, and its norms, in
- 1:07:09Lawrence emerges as a beautiful union,
- 1:07:12harmonious, and, uh, very blissful. And
- 1:07:17it's not just physical harmony, which
- 1:07:20makes their intimacy especially
- 1:07:22delightful and poetically beautiful,
- 1:07:25but also a complete harmony that
- 1:07:27touches the heart and mind. These are
- 1:07:30people who see the world in the same
- 1:07:32way, understand life in the same way,
- 1:07:34and have similar opinions. And, of
- 1:07:36course, to achieve this, Lawrence needs
- 1:07:39to make his Mellers an educated and
- 1:07:41sophisticated man, able to speak
- 1:07:43literary language, the correct language
- 1:07:45. And only when he wants to emphasize
- 1:07:48the difference in social status does
- 1:07:50Lawrence suddenly begin to switch to
- 1:07:52some kind of vernacular dialect, using
- 1:07:55certain words. But, in fact, we mostly
- 1:07:58hear beautiful literary culture from
- 1:08:01Whistlers. In contrast, the socially
- 1:08:06approved and correct marriage of
- 1:08:09Clifford and Connie, Lord Lady
- 1:08:11Chaterley, is, from the standpoint of
- 1:08:14nature, of its laws, a crude and ugly
- 1:08:17misalliance. Connie, a young, beautiful
- 1:08:22, healthy woman, destined to be a
- 1:08:24mother and lover, lives, so to speak,
- 1:08:27like a shadow, like a hanger-on, with
- 1:08:30this, so to speak, arrogant, uh,
- 1:08:33subhuman, no longer a man as a result
- 1:08:36of this injury, yes, who terrorizes her
- 1:08:39in every way, forcing her to listen to
- 1:08:42the hateful Racine. It's very
- 1:08:45characteristic that Clifford's favorite
- 1:08:47poet is Racine, for whom everything is
- 1:08:49correct: geometric precision, such
- 1:08:51rigid rhythm and metrics, rhetoric, and
- 1:08:53generally nothing living in this poetry
- 1:08:55, from Lawrence's point of view.
- 1:08:58Clifford torments Connie, constantly
- 1:09:00reciting to her something from Racine's
- 1:09:02tragedy. And his favorite game is chess
- 1:09:05—pure intellect, yes, without any
- 1:09:09warmth, without anything sensual,
- 1:09:12living, animal, emotional, or vital.
- 1:09:16And why does Lawrence achieve utopia?
- 1:09:20Because, in the end, Connie Glifford's
- 1:09:22marriage, the Chatterleys 'marriage,
- 1:09:25falls apart. And Connie doesn't
- 1:09:28announce her lover to him and starts an
- 1:09:31eco-divorce. The couple separates.
- 1:09:34Connie and Mellers must also
- 1:09:36temporarily separate. Mellers also
- 1:09:38begins divorce proceedings against his
- 1:09:41wife, who is a terrible woman. She
- 1:09:47literally devours men alive. And
- 1:09:48Mellers has been separated from her for
- 1:09:50a long time. Now he's starting the
- 1:09:51divorce process. And the heroes are
- 1:09:53temporarily separated, but they write
- 1:09:54letters to each other. And they're
- 1:09:56firmly convinced that once their
- 1:09:58divorce proceedings are finalized,
- 1:10:00they'll be able to reunite, get married
- 1:10:02, and start a happy, wonderful family.
- 1:10:04And they'll have wonderful offspring.
- 1:10:06Something, in fact, in the caste-ridden
- 1:10:08, class-ridden Britain of that time,
- 1:10:09well, almost unimaginable. And yet,
- 1:10:13Lawrence paints for us a probable happy
- 1:10:16ending to this whole story, letting us
- 1:10:19know that perhaps society, civilization
- 1:10:22, should reconsider its laws and rules
- 1:10:26a little in order to somehow, uh, bring
- 1:10:29people closer to their natural state,
- 1:10:32not mutilate their essence as much as
- 1:10:35is done in today's society. So. And
- 1:10:40this adoption of all these Freudian
- 1:10:44metaphors—yes, uh, Libid, Eros, ID—
- 1:10:47we observe, for example, in the era of
- 1:10:50modernism. This isn't all that
- 1:10:54complicated and lies on the surface,
- 1:10:57but it truly defines the face of this
- 1:10:59literature, for which, generally
- 1:11:01speaking, everything connected with
- 1:11:03human sexuality is no longer taboo.
- 1:11:06This prohibition is rapidly beginning
- 1:11:08to disappear, as it were. Although
- 1:11:12relapses into old norms make themselves
- 1:11:15felt, and sometimes quite forcefully.
- 1:11:17Yes, you may know that James Joyce's
- 1:11:20novel" Ulysses "began publication in
- 1:11:22the modernist magazine The Little
- 1:11:24Review. And when 14 episodes had been
- 1:11:29published there, the New York Society
- 1:11:32for the Suppression of Vice brought a
- 1:11:35lawsuit against the heads, well,
- 1:11:38against this magazine, Revw, against
- 1:11:41its editor, for publishing such an
- 1:11:47obscene pornographic book as Joyce
- 1:11:49Ulysses' novel. And the New York
- 1:11:51Society for the Suppression of Vice won
- 1:11:53the case. Publication was stopped, and
- 1:11:56the magazines were fined. And for a
- 1:12:00long time, censorship in the US and
- 1:12:02Britain prohibited the publication of
- 1:12:04Ulysses, which was lifted only in the
- 1:12:06mid-1930s, giving worthy individuals an
- 1:12:08opportunity to distinguish themselves
- 1:12:10through heroic smuggling. They smuggled
- 1:12:14Ulysses published in France into the
- 1:12:16United States. Hmingo, in particular,
- 1:12:20smuggled copies for his acquaintances
- 1:12:22there, risking being discovered at
- 1:12:24customs and punished as a smuggler. So,
- 1:12:27in short, this is truly the reality of
- 1:12:30the lifting of all these taboos in
- 1:12:32modernist literature. And this
- 1:12:34sometimes provoked a front among
- 1:12:36supporters of the previous classical
- 1:12:38norms, dating back to the 19th century.
- 1:12:42So, in general, it was a battle that
- 1:12:44modernism ultimately won. Another thing
- 1:12:47is that the lifting of this taboo, the
- 1:12:50lifting of the taboo on sexuality, ah,
- 1:12:52was followed by the emergence of new
- 1:12:54taboo areas in literature and culture.
- 1:12:57And, in particular, according to a law
- 1:13:00once again established by Freud, a
- 1:13:02taboo on topics related to death arose
- 1:13:05in culture. Well, you've probably
- 1:13:07noticed, yes, that in our modern
- 1:13:09society, talking about death is
- 1:13:10inappropriate. It is indecent to ask a
- 1:13:13person the question:" What kind of
- 1:13:14death would you like to die? What do
- 1:13:16you think about your death? Whatever
- 1:13:19death you would like, whatever you
- 1:13:20would like. We immediately have a
- 1:13:21reaction, you know, such an internal
- 1:13:23rapture. What an indecent topic. How
- 1:13:25can you even ask about this? We
- 1:13:27experience such terrible tension and
- 1:13:29embarrassment when we find out that
- 1:13:31someone, let's say, a loved one has
- 1:13:33died. And so we need to call and
- 1:13:36somehow react, but we don’t really
- 1:13:39know how. And either say some vulgar
- 1:13:41words, well, the so-called condolences,
- 1:13:43or remain silent altogether. And
- 1:13:45silence is also somehow indecent, not
- 1:13:46good. In general, the topic of death is
- 1:13:49associated with such obvious tension
- 1:13:51for us, yes, some kind of awkwardness,
- 1:13:53and discomfort, and even a feeling of
- 1:13:55some kind of internal shame, yes, which
- 1:13:58clearly signals the presence of a taboo
- 1:14:00zone in our modern culture. Yes, the
- 1:14:02taboo of libido has been removed. About
- 1:14:06this side of our We can pontificate
- 1:14:08about life everywhere here, and draw,
- 1:14:10print, and write whatever we want. But
- 1:14:13Martida was banned. Incidentally,
- 1:14:16Hemingway complained about this,
- 1:14:19writing in his diary while working on
- 1:14:22his first novel, "The Sun Also Rises,"
- 1:14:25that the modern artist is completely
- 1:14:27unable to depict death. He is afraid of
- 1:14:31this topic and avoids it in every
- 1:14:32possible way. And in general, the
- 1:14:35behavior of a modern artist who must
- 1:14:37write something on a topic related to
- 1:14:38death, observes, resembles the behavior
- 1:14:40of a person who is walking down the
- 1:14:42street and suddenly sees a little girl
- 1:14:44crossing the road, and a huge truck
- 1:14:46comes flying out of the corner at her.
- 1:14:48And at the very moment when this truck
- 1:14:50is about to hit the girl and leave a
- 1:14:52dark wet spot, this observer is so
- 1:14:54scared that he closes his eyes. This is
- 1:14:56how a modern artist behaves when he
- 1:14:58needs to write something related to
- 1:15:00death. It’s just that a zone of
- 1:15:03silence arises, these blank spots in
- 1:15:05the text. But Hemingway doesn’t
- 1:15:07intend to do that. He writes that I am
- 1:15:10going to write honestly. About the
- 1:15:12simplest things, yes, The simplest
- 1:15:15things, love, death, hunger, and so on.
- 1:15:19Oh, and he even defined the theme of
- 1:15:21his novel, "Thiesta," at some point: an
- 1:15:24artist in the death zone. Well, there,
- 1:15:26you know, the main image is caridas. So
- 1:15:29, in general, these are all dynamic
- 1:15:31processes in a polyculture, where, so
- 1:15:34to speak, all these moments are
- 1:15:36interconnected. The removal of one
- 1:15:38thing entails the emergence of another,
- 1:15:40and vice versa. Well, nevertheless,
- 1:15:43this literal assimilation of Freud's
- 1:15:45metaphor of sexuality is only part of
- 1:15:47the story. As I already said, not the
- 1:15:49most interesting part. Much more
- 1:15:51interesting is another path of
- 1:15:53assimilating the ideas of
- 1:15:55psychoanalysis. This is the path that
- 1:15:59led to the development of a radically
- 1:16:02new psychologism in the literature of
- 1:16:05the modernist era. And a very important
- 1:16:11part of Freud's teaching, he already
- 1:16:13expounded this part even in his famous
- 1:16:16lectures on introductory psychoanalysis
- 1:16:19, which were given in Vienna for
- 1:16:21doctors, and in the mid-1910s, from
- 1:16:241915 to 1917, Freud these I was giving
- 1:16:27lectures. Specifically, he talked about
- 1:16:32the doctrine of artifacts, artificially
- 1:16:35created, non-random phenomena that had
- 1:16:37previously been considered either some
- 1:16:40kind of misunderstanding, or absurdity,
- 1:16:43or something so enigmatic and
- 1:16:45mysterious that it wasn't sent from
- 1:16:48above. But Freud gave this artifact,
- 1:16:51this artificially created phenomenon, a
- 1:16:54new meaning and provided a
- 1:16:55psychological interpretation. Freud
- 1:16:58initially identified three classes of
- 1:17:00artifacts. The first are the so-called
- 1:17:03errors of everyday life, some kind of
- 1:17:06slips of the tongue, yes, when a person
- 1:17:08wanted to say one thing, but for some
- 1:17:10reason ended up saying something else.
- 1:17:13Some kind of incorrect actions. People
- 1:17:16used to think it was absurd when a
- 1:17:18person wanted to say, "My mother-in-law
- 1:17:20," but said, I don't know, my dog. What
- 1:17:24a load of crap. Fred says, "No, it's
- 1:17:25not accidental." The second type of
- 1:17:28artifact is dreams, of course, yes,
- 1:17:30which could be considered something
- 1:17:33mystical, mysterious, not sent from
- 1:17:35above or, conversely, from some lower
- 1:17:37realms, Yes, dreams come to us from God
- 1:17:40or from the evil one. Freud also gave
- 1:17:43this physiological and psychological
- 1:17:45interpretation, and considered it a
- 1:17:48phenomenon of mental life. And finally,
- 1:17:51the third type is a disorder of mental
- 1:17:53life, neuroses and psychoses. Later,
- 1:17:58Frey added a fourth artifact to this
- 1:18:00list of three artifacts, which he
- 1:18:03called creativity, and declared
- 1:18:05creativity a type of neurosis, and the
- 1:18:07artist a special kind of neurotic who,
- 1:18:10like any neurotic, suffers from a
- 1:18:12tendency toward escoping, that is, an
- 1:18:14escape from unpleasant problems, an
- 1:18:17escape from the principle of reality
- 1:18:19and a desire to create his own world
- 1:18:21where the pleasure principle will reign
- 1:18:24. Also a kind of neurosis. There. But
- 1:18:29in fact, all these random slips of the
- 1:18:32tongue, or dreams, or neuroses are
- 1:18:34symptoms for Freud, external
- 1:18:37manifestations. And the causes of these
- 1:18:41phenomena, however, are hidden in the
- 1:18:44unconscious. Somewhere, so to speak,
- 1:18:46they lie beyond our understanding,
- 1:18:48somewhere deep, in the darkness. So, it
- 1:18:50is. And all these artifacts represent a
- 1:18:55fantastical fulfillment of suppressed,
- 1:18:59repressed, forbidden desires and
- 1:19:03impulses. And so Freud seeks to
- 1:19:07reconstruct the path from symptom to
- 1:19:10cause, to see, yes, the source of these
- 1:19:13disturbing, unpleasant, simply very
- 1:19:17painful and dangerous phenomena. And,
- 1:19:22uh, Freud says that the cause of all
- 1:19:24these symptoms, all these
- 1:19:26manifestations, of which the mildest
- 1:19:28are all sorts of slips of the tongue
- 1:19:30and mistakes, and the most severe type,
- 1:19:33yes, of such a symptom, is psychosis,
- 1:19:35for example, yes, a disorder of our
- 1:19:37normal, uh, mental activity. The cause
- 1:19:41of all these phenomena is always, uh,
- 1:19:43the prohibition we impose on this or
- 1:19:46that affect. What is affect? It is a
- 1:19:50strong reaction, yes, of our nervous
- 1:19:53system, an immediate emotion that
- 1:19:55arises from something, for example,
- 1:19:58intense anger or some kind of unbridled
- 1:20:01delight, yes, and which we impose a
- 1:20:04prohibition on. In general, it is known
- 1:20:07, yes, that emotional control is the
- 1:20:09main condition of existence in a
- 1:20:11civilized society. Because if we don't
- 1:20:14control our emotions, civilization will
- 1:20:16perish. As we said at the beginning of
- 1:20:18today's meeting, yes, he stepped on my
- 1:20:20foot, and I killed him. And what a lack
- 1:20:23of emotional control is, we can clearly
- 1:20:25see in animal experiments. Take the
- 1:20:28famous Ladygina Kots, of course, a
- 1:20:30researcher. She raised her children
- 1:20:33together with chimpanzee babies to see
- 1:20:35at what point a human baby moves
- 1:20:37forward, while a chimpanzee's
- 1:20:39development stops, yes. And so she says
- 1:20:42, writes in her notes, yes, that if,
- 1:20:43for example, a champagne bottle is
- 1:20:44taken away, it is completely unable to
- 1:20:45control its emotions. It squeals, rolls
- 1:20:50on the floor, bites its hands in
- 1:20:51impotent rage. Man, a civilized
- 1:20:57creature, imposes blinders and
- 1:20:58prohibitions on its emotions. And this
- 1:21:02is a condition for the existence of
- 1:21:02civilization. Exactly. Yes. And, but
- 1:21:04this gives rise to painful phenomena in
- 1:21:07our psyche, when we forbid ourselves to
- 1:21:11express our feelings. Detained, so The
- 1:21:14so-called affect, as Freud calls it, an
- 1:21:17affect that was not allowed to manifest
- 1:21:19itself, it gives rise to these painful
- 1:21:22phenomena, especially if there are too
- 1:21:24many such delays of affect, or the
- 1:21:27affect was very strong, and we imposed
- 1:21:29a ban on it. Well, I'll tell you the
- 1:21:34first case from Freud's practice, and
- 1:21:36then there will be examples from
- 1:21:38literature that are comparable to these
- 1:21:40cases of Freud. Here is a well-known
- 1:21:44case that Fred cites as an example of
- 1:21:46such a neurosis that arose from the
- 1:21:48delay of affect. This is the case of a
- 1:21:50girl from a decent family, a very
- 1:21:53prosperous social class, from a
- 1:21:55well-bred family, yes, who could not
- 1:21:58drink water from any utensils, so she
- 1:22:00quenched her thirst only with fruit and
- 1:22:03therefore was on the verge of
- 1:22:05exhaustion. Freud began therapy with
- 1:22:09this girl and quite soon discovered the
- 1:22:11cause of this phenomenon, the cause of
- 1:22:13this symptom. The symptom appeared a
- 1:22:16couple of weeks after the death of the
- 1:22:18girl's beloved father, who had been ill
- 1:22:21for a long time. And it was clear that,
- 1:22:23in In short, things were coming to an
- 1:22:24end. And the girl was very worried and
- 1:22:26suffered about this, because she really
- 1:22:28loved her father very much. So one
- 1:22:30morning she was going to visit him, to
- 1:22:32wish him good morning, and on the way
- 1:22:34she decided to look into the
- 1:22:35housekeeper's room. She knocked several
- 1:22:37times, but no one answered. Then she
- 1:22:39pushed the door, and the door opened.
- 1:22:42The girl saw a scene. The housekeeper
- 1:22:45was sitting with her back to the door
- 1:22:47on a chair, yes, some kind of an
- 1:22:49armchair, and was giving her little dog
- 1:22:51a drink from her father's cup. But we
- 1:22:56can only imagine what feelings raged,
- 1:22:59so to speak, in the daughter, yes, at
- 1:23:01the sight of this spectacle of breasts,
- 1:23:04yes, rage, malice, anger, disgust.
- 1:23:07Maybe she wanted to push the
- 1:23:08housekeeper there, kick that dog,
- 1:23:10snatch the cup from them, but she was a
- 1:23:13well-bred Victorian girl. She silently
- 1:23:16closed the door and went on her way.
- 1:23:18Her father died. Some time passed, this
- 1:23:21symptom appeared. defiled Father's cup,
- 1:23:25right? Uh, a delayed affect, right?
- 1:23:29That delayed affect, gritfreud, it
- 1:23:31marks everything around it. Affect is
- 1:23:33like water, right? Put an obstacle in
- 1:23:35its way, it will find a way to manifest
- 1:23:37itself in some other way, yes, a method
- 1:23:39, yes, it will leak out somewhere,
- 1:23:41penetrate somewhere. All the same, that
- 1:23:44delayed affect, yes, it marks the
- 1:23:45entire situation with itself. This
- 1:23:47affect could have clinged to anything,
- 1:23:49for example, to the housekeeper's dress
- 1:23:50, to the breed of the dog. The girl,
- 1:23:52the young woman could have begun to
- 1:23:54fear all dogs of that breed, yes, or,
- 1:23:56for example, to hate them. But it
- 1:23:58clinged to Father's desecrated cup and,
- 1:24:00spreading to the dishes, produced this
- 1:24:03effect. Well, the therapy yielded its
- 1:24:07favorable, yes, that means, uh, outcome
- 1:24:11. The nephrosis was cured, the girl was
- 1:24:15healed safely. And Freudian therapy,
- 1:24:17according to the principle, where it
- 1:24:19was, I should become. Freud's approach
- 1:24:21to psychotherapy was very rationalistic
- 1:24:24and positivistic. He believed there was
- 1:24:26no turning back to nature. We must
- 1:24:29continue to move toward greater
- 1:24:30civilization, but at the same time
- 1:24:32expand our capacities for knowledge,
- 1:24:33for self-understanding, where it has
- 1:24:35been, the article should be. We must
- 1:24:38understand what is happening to us, and
- 1:24:40then our condition will improve. This
- 1:24:43principle, by the way, was completely
- 1:24:44unclaimed in the 20th century. But
- 1:24:47everything Freud wrote about the
- 1:24:49unconscious, all this became very
- 1:24:50interesting and generally served as an
- 1:24:53apology for the irrational. That is,
- 1:24:55Freud probably would not have been very
- 1:24:56pleased with how his teachings began to
- 1:24:58be interpreted already in the 10th
- 1:24:59century. He, in principle, wanted
- 1:25:01something completely different. That's
- 1:25:03exactly the case, right? Here we see
- 1:25:04how Freud reconstructs the cause from
- 1:25:07the symptom. Next, we will turn to
- 1:25:09literary texts. And again, we will take
- 1:25:12these two examples—Kavka and
- 1:25:15Homingway—to see how Modernist
- 1:25:18authors work with these matters,
- 1:25:21completely inaccessible to our
- 1:25:23consciousness and words, with the
- 1:25:26trapped affects we've forbidden
- 1:25:29ourselves to feel, with the complexes
- 1:25:32that grow out of them, with the
- 1:25:34symptoms, yes, that develop. This is
- 1:25:38how modernist authors begin to work
- 1:25:40with this material. So, we'll begin our
- 1:25:42next meeting with a brief analysis of
- 1:25:45two examples from Hammingham's story "
- 1:25:47White Elephants" and from the trial of
- 1:25:49Franz Kavka, and then we'll move on to
- 1:25:51the era of modernism. Thank you for
- 1:25:53your attention. See you next week.
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