St John In The Imaginary Order example essay topic

The Work of David St. John David St. John writes of love in a pessimistic way in his collection of poems, The Red Leaves of Night. His writings suggest love is unattainable and his relationships with people (especially with females) are portrayed as negative. St. John creates a fallen man in his text, especially when his poems focus on his dilemmas with women. Psychoanalysis plays a large role in the writings of St. John being that he shows the effects of his downfall and the negativity the downfall incorporates. Lacanian psychoanalysis suggests our language is structured like our subconscious and full of desires. Lacanian analysis also shows that the!

SS signs!" in language are split between the signifier and the signified and the barrier between the two lead to unfulfilled desires. St. John's poetry is swarming with lines alluding to unfulfilled desires or a longing for things that simply cannot be obtained. St. John establishes the breaking of a psyche and through Lacanian analysis we can see that the desires expressed in his poetry will never be met. Through Lacanian analysis, we are able to see that St. John is seeking more, and wanting more substance out of relationships and his life that cannot be obtained.

St. John is longing for a sense completeness yet his completion is something that can never happen. Lacan shows the human psyche in three parts, similar to that of Sigmund Freud. Lacan calls the three parts! SS Orders!" and they consist of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. The Imaginary is! SSthe part of the psyche that contains our wishes, fantasies, and, most importantly, images!" (Bressler 156).

Lacan's major focus is in his theory that our psyche is lack and fragmentation.! SSWe have longings for love, for physical pleasure! K but nothing can fulfill our desire to return to the Imaginary Order and be at one with our mother!" (Bressler 158). Many of the poems in The Red Leaves of Night withhold the sense that St. John is yearning for something and is never complete. For example, in his poem! SSThe Unsay able, the Unknowable & You!" St. John presents a situation where he is completely captivated by a woman and lusts for more activity with her.!

SS My prize: A night alone (again) with you, tracing / This brocade of sweat along your amber shoulder. /Let's weave together the dawn's superior light-/A script of bodies, inscribed by the summer's night!" (St. John 35). This poem is rich in symbolism especially with the image of St. John become one and united with the women he is so entranced by. On a psychoanalytical level, the poem could be a case study in Lacan's theory that we strive! SS to return to the Imaginary Order and to regain that sense of pure joy we felt when we were whole and united with our mothers!" (Bressler 158). St. John's focus in the poem is essentially a love poem where St. John is reaching out to his desires.

However, the longing he feels is very present and with the word! SS again!" put in parentheses the assumption is that St. John will continue to search for completeness. A Lacanian view of desires shows that! SSWe distort this desire and confuse it with other terms if we fail to locate it in reference to a set of coordinates that! K establish the subject in! K dependence upon the signifier!" (Vesterman 716).

St. John's distortion is evident in many poems especially in! SS Mystic Eyes!" where St. John writes of dependence on a woman. He writes of his relationship with her as! SSThe very definition of love!" (St. John 68) but follows that line with the haunting stanza of!

SS Meaning I suppose a sexual wound tempered in that chilling well / Of the bitter and clearly ordinary world!" (St. John 68). In St. John's case, if the signifier were to be this woman, his desires would be complete being that his dependency for the woman is evident and he maintains his completion through her. However, if this were the case, St. John would not write of the world as! SS bitter!" and! SS clearly ordinary. !" The Lacanian standpoint is that!

SSThe signifier is not a reflection, a product pure and simple of what are called inter human relationships"o all psychoanalytical experience indicates the contrary!" (Vesterman 716). Under the guidelines that desires are simply not! SSinterhuman relationships!" the assumption can be made that St. John's dilemmas lie within himself. Otherwise, he would have reached his completeness by placing the woman as the object of his desires. Even without looking at the personal life of St. John, it is easy to see a man that is seeking an outside source to make himself whole. He is in constant battle between what he wants (the Imaginary Order) and what is real.

St. John puts his deepest thoughts and emotions right on paper and through many of his poems, we are able to see St. John in the Imaginary Order. His desires and fantasies can be assessed through a Lacanian standpoint, which opens up interpretations of his text to whole new things. In doing so, readers can uncover rich and reflective views on poems that may have previously been read on only a textual level.

Bibliography

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.
147-168. St. John, David. The Red Leaves of Night. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.
3-85. Vesterman, William. Literature: An Introduction to Critical Reading. Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1993.