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Jacques Lacan Jonathan Scott Lee The University of Massachusetts Press Amherst Copyright © 1990 by G. K. Hall & Co. All rights reserved First paperback edition published in 1991 by the University of Massachusetts Press, by arrangement with G. K. Hall & Co. Printed and bound in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lee, Jonathan Scott. Jacques Lacan / Jonathan Scott Lee. — 1st pbk. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87023-737-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Lacan, Jacques, 1901- —Contributions in criticism. 2. Psychoanalysis and literature. 3. Criticism—History—20th century. I. Title. [PN98.p751.38 1991] 801'.95*092—dc20 90-21076 CIP For Maryann, with all my love. Contents About the Author Preface Guide to Abbreviations List of Figures Chapter One Jacques Lacan: Psychoanalyst and Teacher Chapter Two The Family and the Individual 12 Chapter Three From the Imaginary to the Symbolic Chapter Four From the Symbolic to the Real Chapter Five The Psychoanalyst as Textual Analyst Chapter Six The Impossible Real 133 Chapter Seven Sexuality and Science 171 Notes and References Selected Bibliography Index 238 1 31 72 100 201 230 vii About the Author Jonathan Scott Lee is associate professor of philosophy at Knox Col lege in Galesburg, Illinois. His doctoral dissertation (1978) was on the metaphysics of the Greek neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. His more recent work on contemporary French philosophy can be found in essays on Lacan and Derrida in PsychCritique. At the same time, his interests in experimental literature and music have led to essays on Antonin Artaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, and John Cage for such journals as bound ary 2 and the Revue d'esthétique. He is married to the painter Maryann Golden Lee. viii Preface The work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan poses special problems of interpretation. In part, these problems stem from his baroque style, a high form of préciosité that has left its indelible mark on a generation of French thinkers. In one of his most influential essays Lacan characterizes his own preferred approach to writing: "Writing is distinguished by a prevalence of the text in the sense that this factor of discourse will assume in this essay a factor that makes possible the kind of tightening up that I like in order to leave the reader no other way out than the way in, which I prefer to be difficult."1 To his taste for difficulty must be added the special bibliographic fact that virtually all of Lacan's texts originated as at least partially extemporaneous oral presentations. Those published during his lifetime tend to reflect a rather large amount of revision meant to increase the "prevalence of the text," while those published since his death—primarily the ongoing series of volumes edited by Jacques-Alain Miller and devoted to his weekly or biweekly seminar conducted between 1953 and 1980—raise different problems because of the unique complexities of transcribing Lacan's polyvalent speech. Another major source of difficulty lies in Lacan's extensive use of sources from a wide variety of intellectual disciplines. While the texts of Freud provide the fundamental context for his work, Lacan does not hesitate to address issues and allude to texts flung far from the bound aries of psychoanalytic theory. The interpreter of Lacan must not only deal with Lacan's own challenging texts but sort out thematic refer ences to the work of such notoriously obscure thinkers as Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, and be prepared as well for the occasional excursion into the textual details of such literary giants as Sophocles, Racine, and Shakespeare. This study aims to provide gen