Farhat Ben Amor
University of Kairouan, Tunisia
Abstract
My readings of John Keats’ s verse epistle To John Hamilton Reynolds
(1819) have allowed me to gather the poet’s underlying wonder at the
vertiginous number of visions his imagination induces whenever he succumbs to
rest. The noticeable surfeit of these visions is suggested not simply to hinder
the poet from enjoying the bodily and spiritual relaxation he needs. More
importantly, the poet seems to be much perplexed and even is led to deplore the
sheer remoteness of these visions from the world of reality. While enumerating
these visions, the poet stresses the way they keep not abiding by the terms of
logic, whether temporal or spatial. Therefore, the epistle documents, as well,
the vain wrestles within the poet to subject these innumerable visions
deterring his equanimity to the precepts of reason and to orchestrate them to
order.
This paper seeks to apply Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalysis in reading
Keats’s epistle. Much concentration is going to be put on the relevance of Kristeva’s
psychoanalytical views in the text of the epistle. Thus, this study requires
going through the theoretical elucidations of Kristeva’s notions of the
‘semiotic’ versus ‘symbolic’ orders, where the former is pre-linguistic and,
therefore, maps out the child’s early life and the latter coincides with the
development of language. The clash between both orders is manifested in the
frequent disruption of the ‘semiotic’ (which is regulated by fluidity and
absence of prohibitions whatsoever) to the seamy fabrics of the ‘symbolic’
(which is governed by the law of ‘binarism’ that requires the subject to be
enlisted to a whole set of do’s and don’ts).
Keywords: chora, écriture, imagination, material sublime, organic whole,
semiotic vs. symbolic orders
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