Taking at least two roles in Mozart's opera Cost fan tutte, in addition to my borrowing of its subtitle and some of its form, I will argue that works of art do not lie down on any couch of wild analysis. Rather, I will say, it is the viewer of a work who submits to an analysis in the encounter. A 'psychoanalysis of art' has become rather commonplace, and in this method of interpretation the intentionality of the artist, linked to individual psychic formations, are of paramount importance, understood as evidenced in the work of art. While works of art may indeed reveal truths about the artist, they may also - and more interestingly - show something about the psychic structure of the viewer. This is suggested by Jacques Lacan, as he links the presence of the analyst with the presence of the work of art in the elaboration of his theory of objet a and the gaze in The Seminar. Book XI. He outlines a theory of art in which it is the work that brings the viewer to speech, through the structure of the relationship between them. In this relationship, the work of art is a paradoxical object, for it is both the thing and effect that cannot be represented, and the thing and effect that indicates its absence by its presence. I will take up the proposition that the work of art may occupy the place of the analyst in a number of ways, in order to examine its effects upon the relationship between work of art and its viewer. The effects are at the level of structure and I continue to take the opera as my model, as both work of art and the discursive means by which the effects of a work of art may be explored. I am tuneful, if at times repetitive, malicious, or capricious, throughout, and there will be an ensured encounter, good, bad, or quite simply, missed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:272643 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Kivland, Sharon |
| Publisher | University of Reading |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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