Banville and Lacan: The Matter of Emotions in The Infinities

Authors

  • Hedwig Schwall

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v22i1.3854

Keywords:

Banville e Lacan, Emotions, The Infinities, Object a, Scopic drive, The Libidinal Real

Abstract

Both Banville and Lacan are Freudian interpreters of the postmodern world. Both replace the classic physical-metaphysical dichotomy with a focus on the materiality of communication in an emophysical world. Both chart the ways in which libidinal streams combine parts of the self and link the self with other people and objects. These interactions take place in three bandwidths of perception, which are re-arranged by the uncanny object a. This ‘object’ reawakens the affects of the unconscious which infuse the identity formations with new energy. In this article we look briefly at how the object a is realised in The Book of Evidence, Ghosts and Eclipse to focus on how it works in The Infinities, especially in the relations between Adam Godley junior and senior, Helen and Hermes.

Author Biography

  • Hedwig Schwall

    Hedwig Schwall is director of the Leuven Centre for Irish Studies (LCIS). She is co-editor of the series Irish Studies in Europe (ISE) of which she edited Volume 8 (Boundaries, Passages, Transitions); she was special editor of the issue 2:1 of RISE, the Review of Irish Studies in Europe, on “Irish Textiles: (t)issues in communities and their representation in art and literature” (2018) and edited The Danger and the Glory (2019), a volume of 60 contributions from Irish fiction writers about the art of writing. She is on the board of several Irish studies journals such as the Irish University Review, Studi irlandesi, the Nordic Journal for Irish Studies and the Brazilian Journal for Irish Studies and is Project Director of the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies (EFACIS, www.efacis.eu). After having headed literary translation projects (Yeats Reborn & John Banville) she now leads the Kaleidoscope projects (https://kaleidoscope.efacis.eu/. In her research she focuses on contemporary Irish fiction and poetry as well as on European art, often using psychoanalytic theory. She is now preparing a book on Parent-Child Relations in Contemporary Irish Fiction.

References

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---. Ghosts. London: Minerva, 1993.

---.. Eclipse. London: Picador, 2000.

--- The Infinities. London: Picador, 2009.

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Published

2021-02-20

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 1 (2020): ABEI Journal 22.1 — Word Upon World: Half a Century of John Banville's Universes

Section

Critical Dialogues

License

Copyright (c) 2020 Hedwig Schwall

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Schwall, H. (2021). Banville and Lacan: The Matter of Emotions in The Infinities. ABEI Journal, 22(1), 147-158. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v22i1.3854