Vol. 8 No. 1 (2006)
Critica

Le langage de l'abjection: Kristeva et Céline

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Josef Fulka
Université Charles de Prague
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1556/Verb.8.2006.1.8

Published 01-06-2006

Keywords

  • Louis-Ferdinand Céline,
  • Julia Kristeva,
  • French literary theory,
  • psychoanalysis,
  • abjection

How to Cite

Fulka, J. (2006). Le langage de l’abjection: Kristeva et Céline. Verbum – Analecta Neolatina, 8(1), 109–115. https://doi.org/10.1556/Verb.8.2006.1.8
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to discuss Kristeva's notion of abjection, as it is presented in her book entitled Pouvoirs de l'horreur (essai sur l'abjection), and to analyse the consequences such a psychological view of literature seems to imply. Abjection is a mechanism of introjection/rejection that characterises the pre-oidipal affective life of human being. Before being able to constitute itself as subjet in the proper sense of the word, the human being judges the surrounding objects (partial objects, according to Melanie Klein's coinage) from the point of view of their immediate affective influence. As an example of this primitive affective reaction, which consists of rejecting the objects which are supposed to be "bad" and introjecting the ones which are supposed to be "good," Kristeva presents an analysis of Céline's novels. This paper tries to measure the consequences of this interpretation of literary writing.

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