Death-drive : Freudian hauntings in literature and art / Robert Rowland Smith.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Memento Mori -- 2. The death-drive does not think -- 3. A subject is being beaten -- 4. White over red -- 5. Literature-repeat nothing -- 6. A harmless suggestion -- 7. The rest of radioactive light -- Postscript: Approaching death.

Print version record.

Robert Rowland Smith takes Freud's work on the death-drive and compares it with other philosophies of death - Pascal, Heidegger and Derrida in particular. He also applies it in a new way to literature and art - to Shakespeare, Rothko and Katharina Fritsch, among others. He asks whether artworks are dead or alive, if artistic creativity isn't actually a form of destruction, and whether our ability to be seduced by fine words means we don't put our selves at risk of death. In doing so, he proposes a new theory of aesthetics in which artworks and literary texts have a death-drive of their own, not least by their defining ability to turn away from all that is real, and where the effects of the death-drive mean that we are constantly living in imaginary, rhetorical or 'artistic' worlds. The book also provides a valuable introduction to the rich tradition of work on the death-drive since Freud. Key Features Includes a general introduction to the death-drive Presents an original theory of aesthetics Analyses both theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis Offers in-depth treatment of Freud Provides an overview of philosophies of death

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