Rhetoric and Culture in Lacan

This is the first book to explore the full range and import of Lacan’s theory of poetry and its relationship to his understanding of the subject and historicity. Gilbert Chaitin’s lucid and accessible study of this famously complex thinker shows how Lacan moves beyond the traditionally hostile polarities of mythos and logos, poetics and philosophy, to conceive of the subject as a complex interplay between psychoanalysis, rationality and history. Lacan’s incorporation of historical necessity into the formation of subjectivity enables him to illuminate the role literature plays in the creation of selfhood. Lacan’s metaphor of the subject, Chaitin argues, draws not only on Saussure, Jakobson, Freud, Heidegger and Hegel but on hitherto unacknowledged sources such as Bertrand Russell and I.A. Richards. Chaitin explores the ambiguities, contradictions and singularities of Lacan’s immensely influential work to provide a definitive account of the theoretical development across his entire career.

• First attempt to explain Lacan’s theory of metaphor and metonymy • Covers all of Lacan’s career - will be seen as a definitive study • Offers lucid accessible introduction but moves beyond this to be a critical interevention in its own right

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Treeing Lacan, or the meaning of metaphor; 3. A being of significance; 4. From logic to ethics: transference and the letter; 5. Desire and culture: transference and the other; 6. The subject and the symbolic order: Historicity, mathematics, poetry; 7. Conclusion: Lacan and contemporary criticism; Bibliography; Index.