Page 125 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 10: Freud and Literature—Lionel Trilling: An Introduction

Trilling also wrote a number of short stories, and Mrs. Trilling edited a volume of these for the Notes
Uniform edition, with a title drawn from the best known of them, "Of This Time, of That Place."
The volume includes the often anthologized "The Other Margaret" as well as a number of stories
bearing on Jewishness.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Trilling was ............... .
(a) A British literary critic (b) An American literary critic
(c) An Irish literary critic (d) None of these
(ii) Trilling earned his doctorate with a dissertation about ............... .
(a) William Shakespear (b) T. S. Eliot
(c) Matthw Arnold (d) None of these
(iii) Trilling was selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver the first
Jefferson lecture in ............... .
(a) 1972 (b) 1980
(c) 1985 (d) 1965
(iv) Trilling who became an associate professor at Columbia in ............... .
(a) 1943 (b) 1944
(c) 1945 (d) 1948

10.4 Summary

• Trilling discusses the relationships that exist between Freud and literature. Beginning with
the statement that psychoanalysis may be viewed as a culmination of the nineteenth-century
Romantic movement in literature, Trilling develops a striking thesis that revolves around the
delineation of three Romantic hallmarks: devotion to research into the self, recognition of the
hidden element in human behavior, and the concept of the mind as a divisible entity. While
all these items are undoubtedly part of the Freudian base, Trilling suggests that Freud added
a rationalistic anti-Romantic construct to the system, viewing the final aim of psychoanalysis
as control of the impulses-- "where id was, there shall ego be." In critical, but not unsympathetic
fashion, Trilling regards Freud's views on the artist as somewhat narrow and undertakes at
some length to reconcile certain contradictions.
• Lionel Trilling was born in Queens, New York City, the son of Fannie (née Cohen), who was
from London, and David Trilling, a tailor from Bialystok in Poland. His family was Jewish.
In 1921, he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, and, at age sixteen, entered Columbia
University, thus beginning a perpetual association with the university. In 1925, he graduated
from Columbia, and, in 1926, earned a Master of Arts degree. He taught at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and at Hunter College. In 1932, he taught literature at Columbia
University. In 1938, he earned his doctorate with a dissertation about Matthew Arnold, that
he later published.
• Trilling wrote one novel, The Middle of the Journey (1947), about an affluent Communist
couple's encounter with a Communist defector. (Trilling later acknowledged that the character
was inspired by his Columbia College compatriot and contemporary Whittaker Chambers).
His short stories include "The Other Margaret." Otherwise, he wrote essays and reviews, in
which he reflected on literature's ability to challenge the morality and conventions of the
culture.
• Trilling has alternatively been characterized as solidly moderate, as evidenced by many
statements, ranging from the very title of his novel, The Middle of the Journey to a central
passage from the novel: "An absolute freedom from responsibility - that much of a child none
of us can be. An absolute responsibility - that much of a divine or metaphysical essence none
of us is."

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 119