How Are Freud's Theories Useful in Illuminating Texts of Romanticism?.
Have you ever sat down and thought about how you could relate Freud's concepts about the development of the mind to central texts of Romanticism? Well in the following paragraphs, I will discuss some of the ideas Freud came up with such as penis envy, castration anxiety, Oedipus complex, among others and how they relate to different texts about Romanticism.
First off, Freud was a very twisted man who came up with many different ideas about the conscious and unconscious mind. Let me start by describing some of the concepts Freud came up with. Penis envy is the desire of a girl to posses a penis. Castration anxiety is the fear of a young boy that his father will punish his sexual desire for his mother by removing his genitals. Oedipus complex is the unconscious wish of all male children to kill their fathers and sexually possess their mothers. The Electra complex is the transfer of a young girl's sexual desires from her mother to her father after she discovers she has no penis. Not only were these some of the ideas he came up with, but he also assigned stages in which children would pass through in development. The first stage was the oral stage, in which id, the inborn part of the unconscious mind that uses the primary process to satisfy its needs and that acts according to the pleasure principle, gratification is focused on the mouth. The second stage is the anal stage, in which gratification is focused on the anus. The third stage is the phallic stage, in which gratification is focused on the genitals. Also in this stage is the genital stage where sexual and romantic interest is directed towards one's peers. The last stage is the oedipal stage, in which sexual energy is sublimated and converted into socially valued activities.
How do all of those concepts relate to Romanticism? Well, in short, all writing of Romanticism in one way or another used Freudian terms to explain what is happening to each of the characters.