Introduction

This book is the result of several long talks that we, its two authors, had several years ago about the place of psychoanalysis in contemporary literary studies, and about different ways that psychoanalysts bring their training and experience to bear on their thinking and writing about literature. One of us (Thomas Ogden) has practiced psychoanalysis for thirty years and written articles on literary works for the past fi fteen years, while the other (Benjamin Ogden) is a literary scholar who has published essays on the work of Samuel Beckett, J. M. Coetzee, Philip Roth, William Faulkner, and others.