Bernard J. Paris - Böcker

Karen Horney (1885-1952) is regarded by many as one of the most important psychoanalytic thinkers of the twentieth century. Her early work, in which she quarreled with Freud's views on female psychology, established her as the first great psychoanalytic feminist. In her later years, she developed a sophisticated theory of her own which provided powerful explanations of human behavior that have proved to be widely applicable. Yet through these years of intellectual achievement, Horney struggled with emotional problems. This engrossing study of Horney's life and work draws on newly discovered materials to explore the relation between her personal history and the evolution of her ideas.Bernard J. Paris argues that Horney's inner struggles—in particular her compulsive need for men—induced her to embark on a search for self-understanding, which she recorded first in her diaries and then in her covertly autobiographical psychoanalytic writings. Although this search brought Horney only partial relief from her problems, it led her to profound and original insights into the human psyche. Paris describes Horney's life—her childhood and adolescence in Germany, marriage to Oskar Horney, motherhood, analysis and self-analysis, emigration to the United States, founding of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, ostracism by the psychoanalytic establishment, and her many romantic liaisons. At the same time he examines the various stages of Horney's thought, showing how her experiences influenced her ideas. Focusing particularly on Horney's later work, Paris shows her mature theory to be an important contribution to the study of literature, biography, gender and culture, as well as to psychoanalysis and psychology.

Renowned for her contributions as a psychoanalytic theorist, Karen Horney was also a gifted clinician and teacher of analysts. She included chapters on therapy in several of her books, wrote essays on clinical issues throughout her career, and was preparing to write a book on analytic technique at the time of her death. The lectures collected here constitute a version of that book. This volume provides the most complete record to date of Karen Horney's ideas about the therapeutic process. It offers valuable insight into a little-known aspect of her work and fresh understanding of issues that continue to be of concern to clinicians.Well ahead of her time, Karen Horney viewed therapy as a collaborative enterprise in which the open, frank, and supportive therapist grows along with the patient. She discusses countertransference phenomena and the ways in which a therapist's personality can influence the healing process. She offers much wisdom and practical advice based on her own rich experience.

A noted Eliot scholar explores how we become different interpreters of literature as we undergo psychological change.In a probing analysis that has broad implications for theories of reading, Bernard J. Paris explores how personal needs and changes in his own psychology have affected his responses to George Eliot over the years. Having lost his earlier enthusiasm for her "Religion of Humanity," he now appreciates the psychological intuitions that are embodied in her brilliant portraits of characters and relationships. Concentrating on Eliot's most impressive psychological novels, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, Paris focuses on her detailed portrayals of major characters in an effort to recover her intuitions and appreciate her mimetic achievement. He argues that although she intended for her characters to provide confirmation of her views, she was instead led to deeper, more enduring truths, although she did not consciously comprehend the discoveries she had made. Like her characters, Paris argues, these truths must be disengaged from her rhetoric in order to be perceived.

This motivational analysis of the protagonists in Thomas Hardy's three most widely read novels--Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Jude the Obscure--highlights an often-overlooked aspect of his art. Bernard J. Paris shows Hardy's genius in creating imagined human beings. He demonstrates that while Hardy tends to blame external conditions for his characters' painful fates, their downfalls are due to a very complex combination of cosmic, social, and psychological factors. Hardy's characters are usually discussed primarily in thematic terms. The characters are are so richly portrayed, Paris argues, that they can be better understood independent of Hardy's interpretations, in motivational terms and he utilizes the psychologist Karen Horney's theories to recover Hardy's intuitions. The characters are full of inner conflicts that make them difficult to fathom, but the approach Paris employs explains their contradictions and illuminates their troubled relationships--shedding light on these expertly crafted imagined human beings. This psychological approach to Hardy's characters enables us to understand his characters and gain insight into the implied authors of the works. In addition, the approach shows Hardy's authorial personality. We can see that Hardy treats some defensive strategies more sympathetically than others. Given his view of life as "a general drama of pain," resignation, like that of Hardy's character Elizabeth-Jane, is the strategy he prefers.

Many critics agree with C. S. Lewis that ""Satan is the best drawn of Milton's characters"". Satan is certainly a wonderful creation, but Adam and Eve are also complex and well-drawn, and God may be the most complicated character of all. Paradise Lost is above all God's story; it is his discontent, first with Lucifer and then with human beings, that drives the action from the beginning until his anger subsides at the world's end.God and Satan have similarities not only in their pursuit of revenge, but also in their craving for power and glory. The ambitious Satan wants more than he already has, but what accounts for the voracity of God's appetite? Does the fact that each threatens the status of the other help to explain the intensity of their hatred and rage? Is their vindictiveness a response to being threatened, an effort to repair the injury they feel they've sustained? This seems to be the case for Satan, but must not God also have felt deeply hurt to have such a powerful need for vengeance? If so, why is the Almighty so vulnerable? And why is he so hard on Adam and Eve and the rest of humankind? These are the kinds of questions Bernard Paris tries to answer in this book.Paris's purpose is not to focus on Milton's illustrative intentions but to try to understand God, Satan, Adam, and Eve as psychologically motivated characters who are torn by inner conflicts.Most critics treat Milton's characters as coded messages from the author, but their mimetic features interfere with the process of decoding. Instead of looking through the characters to the author, Paris looks at Milton's characters as objects of interest in themselves, as creations inside a creation who escape their thematic roles and are embodiments of his psychological intuitions. This book heightens our appreciation of an ignored aspect of Milton's art and offers new insights into the critical controversies that have surrounded Paradise Lost.

"Psychology helps us to talk about what the novelist knows, but fiction helps us to know what the psychologist is talking about." So writes the author of this brilliant study. The chief impulse of realistic fiction is mimetic; novels of psychological realism call by their very nature for psychological analysis. This study uses psychology to analyze important characters and to explore the consciousness of the author and the work as a whole. What is needed for the interpretation of realistic fiction is a psychological theory congruent with the experience portrayed. Emerging from Paris' approach are wholly new and illuminating interpretations of Becky Sharp, William Dobbin, Amelia Sedley, Julien Sorel, Madame de Renal, Mathilde de la Mole, Maggie Tulliver, the underground man, Charley Marlow, and Lord Jim. The psychological approach employed by Paris helps the reader not only to grasp the intricacies of mimetic characterization, but also to make sense of thematic inconsistencies which occur in some of the books under consideration. For students of human behavior as well as students of literature, the great figures of realistic fiction provide a rich source of empathic understanding and psychological insight.

The enduring appeal of Shakespeare's works derives largely from the fact that they contain brilliantly drawn characters. Interpretations of these characters are products of changing modes of thought, and thus past explanations of their behavior, including Shakespeare's, no longer satisfy us. In this work, Bernard J. Paris, an eminent Shakespearean scholar, shows how Shakespeare endowed his tragic heroes with enduring human qualities that have made them relevant to people of later eras.Bargains with Fate employs a psychoanalytic approach inspired by the theories of Karen Horney to analyze Shakespeare's four major tragedies and the personality that can be inferred from all of his works. This compelling study first examines the tragedies as dramas about individuals with conflicts like our own who are in a state of crisis due to the breakdown of their bargains with fate, a belief that they can magically control their destinies by living up to the dictates of their defensive strategies.Filled with bold hypotheses supported by carefully detailed accounts, this innovative study is a resource for students and scholars of Shakespeare, and for those interested in literature as a source of psychological insight. The author's combination of literary and psychoanalytic perspectives guides us to a humane understanding of Shakespeare and his protagonists, and, in turn, to a more profound knowledge of ourselves and human behavior.

In Character and Conflict in Jane Austen's Novels,Bernard J. Paris offers an analysis of the protagonists in four of Jane Austen's most popular novels. His analysis reveals them to be brilliant mimetic creations who often break free of the formal and thematic limitations placed upon them by Austen. Paris traces the powerful tensions between form, theme, and mimesis in Mansfield Park, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion.Paris uses Northrop Frye's theory of comic forms to analyze and describe the formal structure of the novels, and Karen Horney's psychological theories to explore the personalities and inner conflicts of the main characters. The concluding chapter turns from the characters to their creator, employing the Horneyan categories of self-effacing, detached, and expansive personality types to interpret Jane Austen's own personality.Readers of Jane Austen will find much that is new and challenging in this study. It is one of the few books to recognize and pay tribute to Jane Austen's genius in characterization. Anyone who reads this book will come away with a new understanding of Austen's heroines as imagined human beings and also with a deeper feeling for the troubled humanity of the author herself.

The enduring appeal of Shakespeare's works derives largely from the fact that they contain brilliantly drawn characters. Interpretations of these characters are products of changing modes of thought, and thus past explanations of their behavior, including Shakespeare's, no longer satisfy us. In this work, Bernard J. Paris, an eminent Shakespearean scholar, shows how Shakespeare endowed his tragic heroes with enduring human qualities that have made them relevant to people of later eras.Bargains with Fate employs a psychoanalytic approach inspired by the theories of Karen Horney to analyze Shakespeare's four major tragedies and the personality that can be inferred from all of his works. This compelling study first examines the tragedies as dramas about individuals with conflicts like our own who are in a state of crisis due to the breakdown of their bargains with fate, a belief that they can magically control their destinies by living up to the dictates of their defensive strategies.Filled with bold hypotheses supported by carefully detailed accounts, this innovative study is a resource for students and scholars of Shakespeare, and for those interested in literature as a source of psychological insight. The author's combination of literary and psychoanalytic perspectives guides us to a humane understanding of Shakespeare and his protagonists, and, in turn, to a more profound knowledge of ourselves and human behavior.

Many critics agree with C. S. Lewis that ""Satan is the best drawn of Milton's characters"". Satan is certainly a wonderful creation, but Adam and Eve are also complex and well-drawn, and God may be the most complicated character of all. Paradise Lost is above all God's story; it is his discontent, first with Lucifer and then with human beings, that drives the action from the beginning until his anger subsides at the world's end.God and Satan have similarities not only in their pursuit of revenge, but also in their craving for power and glory. The ambitious Satan wants more than he already has, but what accounts for the voracity of God's appetite? Does the fact that each threatens the status of the other help to explain the intensity of their hatred and rage? Is their vindictiveness a response to being threatened, an effort to repair the injury they feel they've sustained? This seems to be the case for Satan, but must not God also have felt deeply hurt to have such a powerful need for vengeance? If so, why is the Almighty so vulnerable? And why is he so hard on Adam and Eve and the rest of humankind? These are the kinds of questions Bernard Paris tries to answer in this book.Paris's purpose is not to focus on Milton's illustrative intentions but to try to understand God, Satan, Adam, and Eve as psychologically motivated characters who are torn by inner conflicts.Most critics treat Milton's characters as coded messages from the author, but their mimetic features interfere with the process of decoding. Instead of looking through the characters to the author, Paris looks at Milton's characters as objects of interest in themselves, as creations inside a creation who escape their thematic roles and are embodiments of his psychological intuitions. This book heightens our appreciation of an ignored aspect of Milton's art and offers new insights into the critical controversies that have surrounded Paradise Lost.

"Psychology helps us to talk about what the novelist knows, but fiction helps us to know what the psychologist is talking about." So writes the author of this brilliant study. The chief impulse of realistic fiction is mimetic; novels of psychological realism call by their very nature for psychological analysis. This study uses psychology to analyze important characters and to explore the consciousness of the author and the work as a whole. What is needed for the interpretation of realistic fiction is a psychological theory congruent with the experience portrayed. Emerging from Paris' approach are wholly new and illuminating interpretations of Becky Sharp, William Dobbin, Amelia Sedley, Julien Sorel, Madame de Renal, Mathilde de la Mole, Maggie Tulliver, the underground man, Charley Marlow, and Lord Jim. The psychological approach employed by Paris helps the reader not only to grasp the intricacies of mimetic characterization, but also to make sense of thematic inconsistencies which occur in some of the books under consideration. For students of human behavior as well as students of literature, the great figures of realistic fiction provide a rich source of empathic understanding and psychological insight.

This motivational analysis of the protagonists in Thomas Hardy's three most widely read novels--Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Jude the Obscure--highlights an often-overlooked aspect of his art. Bernard J. Paris shows Hardy's genius in creating imagined human beings. He demonstrates that while Hardy tends to blame external conditions for his characters' painful fates, their downfalls are due to a very complex combination of cosmic, social, and psychological factors. Hardy's characters are usually discussed primarily in thematic terms. The characters are are so richly portrayed, Paris argues, that they can be better understood independent of Hardy's interpretations, in motivational terms and he utilizes the psychologist Karen Horney's theories to recover Hardy's intuitions. The characters are full of inner conflicts that make them difficult to fathom, but the approach Paris employs explains their contradictions and illuminates their troubled relationships--shedding light on these expertly crafted imagined human beings. This psychological approach to Hardy's characters enables us to understand his characters and gain insight into the implied authors of the works. In addition, the approach shows Hardy's authorial personality. We can see that Hardy treats some defensive strategies more sympathetically than others. Given his view of life as "a general drama of pain," resignation, like that of Hardy's character Elizabeth-Jane, is the strategy he prefers.