A Lacanian Study of Motherhood in the Poems of William Wordsworth Essay

William Wordsworth was a prolific poet of the Romantic movement, perhaps best known for publishing melodious Ballads with sensation and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798. These poems were written in what Wordsworth described as a common tongue with a focus on themes often found in Romantic poetry, such as the pastoral, the mythical, fragmentation, heroism and satire. In Lyrical Ballads one recurring subject almost unique to Wordsworth in its animosity and persistence is that of motherhood. The connection between womanhood and nature make it a frequently explored theme for many poets, such as Blake in his Songs of Innocence. However, I take hold chosen to focus on Wordsworth since motherhood is not sole(prenominal) catchd at great length in his poetry, but in like manner because biographical details of his own life make analysis of his works concerning the melodic theme all the more significant, since he had lost(p) his own mother at the age of eight. For a topic such as motherhood, one take aim of critical thought likely to provide interesting observations is that of psychoanalysis. I have chosen to focus on Jacques Lacan for this move since his theories have a greater emphasis on the use and formation of language in the various(prenominal) than other key figures in his field, such as Jung or Freud. Lacan believed that when we examine literature, we do not merely analyse the characters of a text, but also the text itself as an effect of the linguistic wordplay of the unconscious. For this reason I feel that Lacan is particularly well suited to the discussion of poetry. In this essay I shall be making reference to Lacans analysis of The lead Orders and his account of The Mirror map in relation to the ego. For Lacan, the Mirror Stage is not ... ...ressing or painful situations, although we may have forgotten of origins of the requirement. In the symbolic realm we also begin our unending search for Objet (petit) a, th e lost object that must constantly be sought in order, we feel, to end us an unobtainable other. For Wordsworth, this Objet (petit) a appears to be the mother figure and his compulsion is to write about her from every perspective.Works CitedBennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An introduction to literature, criticism and scheme 4. ed. Harlow Pearson Longman, 2009.Leitch, Vincent B. Jacques Lacan. In The Norton anthology of theory and criticism. New York Norton, 2001. Wilden, Anthony. System and structure essays in conversation and exchange. 2nd ed. London Tavistock, 1980.Wu, Duncan. Lyrical Ballads. In Romanticism an anthology. Oxford, UK Blackwell, 1994.