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Book synopsis

Robert Rowland Smith takes Freud's work on the death-drive and compares it with other philosophies of death - Pascal, Heidegger and Derrida in particular. He also applies it in a new way to literature and art - to Shakespeare, Rothko and Katharina Fritsch, among others. He asks whether artworks are dead or alive, if artistic creativity isn't actually a form of destruction, and whether our ability to be seduced by fine words means we don't put our selves at risk of death. In doing so, he proposes a new theory of aesthetics in which artworks and literary texts have a death-drive of their own, not least by their defining ability to turn away from all that is real, and where the effects of the death-drive mean that we are constantly living in imaginary, rhetorical or 'artistic' worlds. The book also provides a valuable introduction to the rich tradition of work on the death-drive since Freud. Key Features * Includes a general introduction to the death-drive * Presents an original theory of aesthetics * Analyses both theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis * Offers in-depth treatment of Freud * Provides an overview of philosophies of death

Book details

Book category Books in English The arts The arts: general issues Theory of art

• Full title: Death-drive
• Subtitle: Freudian Hauntings in Literature and Art
• Author: Robert Rowland Smith
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardback
• Number of pages: 256
• EAN: 9780748640393
• ISBN: 0748640398
• ID: 04674574
• Publisher: EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
• Weight: 496 g
• Dimensions: 240 × 157 × 20 mm
• Date of publishing: 30. April 2010

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