Was Paul M's Eagleton tidbit on THE UNCONSCIOUS

[Paul Mackin]

On 10/17/2012 4:09 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Can't find the email but if I remember, Paul said that Terry Eagleton
> has written that it may be THE UNCONSCIOUS that is the creativeness
> that unites writers. Been thinkin' on that.

Actually I kind of misrepresented the great Terry E and left out his 
final point.

The unconscious was a first stab at tying things together. It works well 
for psychoanalytic theory of course, also political theory (meaning 
Marxist), structuralism, post structuralism, and semiotics.

However he next goes on to develop sort of a theory of everything and 
comes to the conclusion that in ALL literary work, in a certain sense, 
the text doesn't merely represent proper action, but also that action is 
perfectly realized because the reality to which it is faithful is no 
other than the one it creates itself.

The above depends on the idea of textuality--writers don't go to work on 
raw reality but rather on the always already textualized. Very French 
although the authors he relies on are Kenneth Burke and Frederic Jameson.

The route to his conclusion involves a style of thinking some people 
might not find persuasive.  But it's all very interesting.

P


> While I read a good esssay on Kenneth Burke since he was mentioned
> (by Monte and Wayne Booth, I believe). Burke seemed to believe that
> all great writers (in recent centuries anyway) can be seen as 
> articulating
> values somehow---almost by definition---different from the prevailing, 
> largely tacit, structural
>  values of a society. That is their necessary tension (or else they 
> are just PR-like journalists).
> this summary is obviously mine, fyi.
> Anyway, Burke's pattern-finding leads one--me--to thoughts of the 
> countervailing
> symbols in TRP, from W.A.S.T.E/Trystero to CounterForce, etc...
> and how with a tight but wide understanding of 'the prevailing ideas 
> of a society'
> almost any tension and insight might have to come from an 
> Unconsciousness outside of
> it. And, to loop TRP back in, we know he has some Freudian-Jungian 
> notions about history
> and the societies that make that history.


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