TY  - BOOK
AU  - Niclas Johansson
PY  - 2017
CY  - Berlin, Germany
PB  - Peter Lang Verlag
SN  - 2196-9760
SN  - 9783653060430
TI  - The Narcissus Theme from «Fin de Siècle» to Psychoanalysis
T2  - Crisis of the Modern Self
DO  - 10.3726/b10744
UR  - https://www.peterlang.com/document/1049601
N2  - The story of Narcissus, who falls in love with his own image in a spring, has fascinated writers and thinkers ever since Ovid first gave poetical form to the myth in his Metamorphoses. This study systematically investigates the elaborations of the theme at the turn of the century around 1900. It argues that a sense of crisis in the modern foundation of selfhood explains the heightened interest in Narcissus during this period. The book investigates three different aspects of the theme: as a symbol of a poetic apotheosis of the self in French Symbolism; as a narrative of a dissolving self in English, Austrian and French decadent literature; and as the concept of narcissism in sexology and psychoanalysis, where self-love provides an instinctual foundation of the self.
KW  - Wilde, Oscar, Gide, André, Valéry, Paul, Freud, Sigmund, Narcissism, Selfhood, Subjectivity, Decadence, Symbolism, Reflection
LA  - English
ER  -