論凝視與昇華：以羅伯•布朗寧詩作為例

Abstract

This thesis adopts Lacan’s theory of psychoanalysis to analyze Robert Browning’s poetic aestheticism. In “Essay on Shelley,” Browning contends that a poet should acquire qualities of both the “objective” poet and the “subjective” poet. The “objective” poet writes about human desire, which is disclosed by the speakers’ speech. On the other hand, the “subjective” poet composes mainly to express his personal concern, which, in Browning’s case, is the spiritual truth not unlike Lacan’s idea of sublimation. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis to read Browning’s poetical art, I argue that both the “objective” and the “subjective” poems of Browning shatter the illusion of a self-sufficient symbolic order and reveal the Lacanian real. Chapter One explains two key concepts of Lacan: gaze and sublimation. The first section explores how Lacan develops his idea of gaze and how his structure of gaze functions to indicate that the subject is not a subject of certainty but a split one. The second section expounds the concept of sublimation. As a process of elevating the object to the position of the Thing, sublimation enables the subject to learn that the nature of the object is void. Chapter two argues that Browning’s “objective” characters futilely refuse to identify the impact of gaze as some sort of lack. I demonstrate this point by three poems: “My Last Duchess,” “Porphyria’s Lover,” and “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church.” Gaze in these poems manifest the lack in the speakers. The speakers refuse to acknowledge the sense of lack, so they intend to negate it by villainous actions or words. However, their attempts are futile. The objet a in the poems relentlessly points toward the speakers’ lack and implies the existence of the real. Chapter Three analyzes Browning’s spiritual truth in the “subjective” poetry by Lacanian sublimation. “Fra Lippo Lippi” and the Book I of The Ring and the Book advocate a view which regards the object as the Thing. “How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix” is a poem that demonstrates satisfaction from drive in sublimation. “A Grammarian’s Funeral” and “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” indicate that death cannot stop the characters from pursuing the object in sublimation. Contrary to the “objective” characters, these “subjective” characters of Browning place the object in the position of the irretrievable Thing and thus recognize the existence of the real.