Literature Network » Henrik Ibsen

Psychological models for drama: Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt' and the relational self. (Henrik Ibsen)

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From: Mosaic (Winnipeg)
Date: 19960601
Author:Gerland, Oliver

A new reading of Henrik Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt' within the framework of relational psychologist Heinz Kohut's 'theory of the narcissistically defective self' people reveals that the protagonist looks at other people as 'extensions of the self' or self-objects. The poem, which was published in 1867, chronicles Peer Gynt's 40-year travel around the world to find 'a sense of identity' and his return to his love, the blind Solveig.

Freud often speaks of the psyche as a closed system designed to absorb, circulate and discharge instinctual energy. Theoretically tidy as it sounds, this economic ...

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