Shandean Psychoanalysis

Book excerpt: This unique book examines the psychoanalysis of madness and trauma through an extended discussion of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, the provocative eighteenth-century novel by Laurence Sterne. Françoise Davoine explores the entire novel—each of her chapters corresponding to a volume of the novel—viewing it through a psychoanalytic lens: the monologue by Tristram’s embryo in the opening chapter, the war traumas of Captain Toby and Corporal Trim and several key themes, including confinement, love and history. In parallel to her own analytic comments on these inventions, Françoise Davoine follows the writing of the novel itself, keeping the reader constantly aware that Sterne’s endeavour is a race against death—his own. Davoine points out that time acts as a major character in the novel, constantly upsetting chronology, and bringing about the same impasses as the psychoanalysis of madness and trauma does. The book presents Shandean wit as a valuable tool in therapeutic work. Shandean Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and to academics and students engaged in psychoanalytic studies, literary studies and trauma-related studies.