Ideas for dissertation

[WICKES]

I have to write a dissertation examining a literary work in psychoanalytic terms. I'm considering Shakespeare's Henry IV. I thought about something like Freud's death and life drive (Falstaff is pretty much the embodiment of Freud's pleasure principle, while Hal and Hotspur are all about duty and death). But I'd like to use Chaucer as well. Any ideas?

P.S I know the Freudian interpretation of Shakespeare has been done to death, but I'm not writing for publication. I look upon this as an opportunity to immerse myself in Shakespeare and Chaucer.

[kelby_lake]

At least Henry IV is an interesting choice for psychoanalytic. Are there any other psychoanalysts apart from Freud?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hi, this sounds fine to me in principle, but I have a few alarm bells ringing about including Chaucer in there as well though I've got to be honest. The danger is stretching yourself too thin of course. It might well be possible to include both but if I were you I'd run it by your tutor with all your plans and ideas, see what he says about it first.

Good luck with it.

[WICKES]

At least Henry IV is an interesting choice for psychoanalytic. Are there any other psychoanalysts apart from Freud?

I did think about Adler. He is the one who gave us the phrase "inferiority complex". He thought Freud placed too much emphasis on sex and that what really motivated people was a desire for power and status. I guess he'd be more relevant to the history plays than Freud. Problem is I haven't read a word of him!

[WICKES]

Hi, this sounds fine to me in principle, but I have a few alarm bells ringing about including Chaucer in there as well though I've got to be honest. The danger is stretching yourself too thin of course. It might well be possible to include both but if I were you I'd run it by your tutor with all your plans and ideas, see what he says about it first.

Good luck with it.

I think you are probably right Neely. Maybe I'll make the dissertation about Henry IV but use Chaucer here and there for contrast. Tbh I haven't read The Canterbury Tales all the way through- only the prologue. What I need to know is which tale is best suited to a comparison with Shakespeare's Henry IV?

[Charles Darnay]

I am personally against psychoanalyzing Chaucer. Unlike Shakespeare, Chaucer's characters leaned more towards archetype than "human" (albeit Chaucer's characters are a bit more developed than other Medieval texts). Attempts to psychoanalyze Chaucer usually turns out to be either a stretch or an exercise in obviousness.

Henry IV (both 1 and 2), however, is an good choice and I think that there is a lot you can do with it. Freud certainly works. Another other could be a Jungian examination of Hal/Falstaff - mostly how Falstaff influences Hal.

Just a throught.

[Henry Please]

At least Henry IV is an interesting choice for psychoanalytic. Are there any other psychoanalysts apart from Freud?

Carl Jung started out as a Freudian, but then went in a different, and in my opinion much more interesting direction.

In response to the original thread question. It's going to be difficult to come up with a Freudian argument about Shakespeare that hasn't already been made. My advice would be to search for dissertations on this very subject. You wouldn't want to get 100 pages in and then discover your dissertation has already been written. Any university library worth its salt would have a dissertation database.

[Henry Please]

Also, are you already in a PhD program or are you getting ready to apply?