Jacques Lacan Simplified: His Real, His Imaginary, His Symbolic (Modern Literary Theory)

Much new information has been added. Sitting in the audience at a recital hall in Johns Hopkins University in 1966 was a collection of some of the brightest literary theorists known to western civilization. They were there to take part in a symposium on structuralism, which was then the leading theory of the day. One of them was a psychoanalyst not much well known outside of France. His name was Jacques Lacan and over the next few years his name eclipsed all the rest (except possibly for Jacques Derrida) as having the most profound impact on a myriad of disciplines ranging from his own psychoanalysis to literature and to media studies. For the next half century his studies on the relation of the self to society have outpaced even those of his beloved predecessor Sigmund Freud. Understanding Lacan has never been easy. Lacan went to significant lengths to ensure that his prose style would be so allusive, nuanced, and just plain hard to read that only the most persistent of readers could grasp his essential points. Still, there have been more than enough persistent readers of Jacques Lacan to guarantee his place in the pantheon of twentieth century intellectual heavyweights.