Applied psychoanalysis in Slavic Studies

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

23 March 2006

Dear Svetlana Grenier:
To answer your question: my article finally appeared as: "Pushkin's 
Still Unravished Bride: A Psychoanalytic Study of Tat'jana's Dream," 
_Russian Literature_ XXV-II, 1989, pp. 215-258.  The Russian translation 
appears in my _Russkaia literatura i psikhoanaliz_ (Moscow: Ladomir, 
2004, 161-192).

A few years after the article first came out I heard an interesting 
paper on the subject at a conference.  The paper was about Onegin's 
place in Russia's nascent gay culture.  I forget who it was that was 
re-inventing my wheel, but I did lodge a complaint.  Then I lost 
interest in the subject.  But I am sure there are some people lurking 
out there on the SEELANGS list who could enlighten us further on 
Onegin's place in the Gay pantheon.

As for bisexuality generally from a psychoanalytic perspective, see the 
entry "Bisexuality," in: Burness E. Moore and Bernard Fine, 
_Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 
1990, p. 33).  By the way, this book also now exists in a pretty decent 
Russian translation.

Best regards,
Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

Svetlana Grenier wrote:

> Alina Israeli wrote:
>
>>
>> What I don't understand is this: if Onegin is gay (or exhibits latent
>> homosexual tendencies, whatever is the correct term), how come he 
>> fall in
>> love with a woman at the end of the novel?
>>
>> Bisexuality is a well known phenomenon.  There exist real people who 
>> are capable of falling in love with people of either sex.  If so, why 
>> not fictional people too (like the fictional males in _Brokeback 
>> Mountain_)?  In Onegin's case, though, explicit homosexuality is not 
>> shown, partly because it would have been forbidden, partly because 
>> Onegin is so in love with himself (in psychoanalytic terms: 
>> exaggerated narcissism, manifested by the culture of Dandyism, all 
>> those hours in front of a mirror, etc.).  The symbolic (Peirce would 
>> say iconic) clincher, however, is Onegin's plunging his dlinnyi nozh 
>> into the body of Lenskii.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>>
>
>
> Professor Rancour-Laferriere,
>
> Would you mind giving the reference to the specific article(s) in 
> which you (or others) explain all this from a psychoanalytic perspective?
> Thank you very much,
>
> Svetlana Grenier
> Georgetown University
>
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