Irony Through Psychoanalysis

241 Pages·1992·28.533 MB·English

by  Giorgio Sacerdoti

G I O R G I O ^
S A C E R D O T I
IRONY THROUGH

PSYCHOANALYSIS

KARNAC BOOKS
IRONY

THROUGH

PSYCHOANALYSIS
Giorgio Sacerdoti
IRONY

T H R O U G H

PSYCHOANALYSIS

Giorgio Sacerdoti
translated by
Geraldine Ludbrook
forewords by
Joseph Sandler
and
Cesare Musatti
Karnac Books
London 1992 New York
English edition first published in 1992 by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd,
118 Finchley Road,
London NW3 5HT
Distributed in the United States of America by
Brunner/Mazel, Inc.
19 Union Square West
New York, NY 10003
Copyright © 1992 by Giorgio Sacerdoti
Italian edition, Uironia attraverso la psicoanalisi,
© 1987 Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano, via Rossini 4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
in any form, by any process or technique,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
Sacerdoti, Giorgio
Irony Through Psychoanalysis
I. Title II. Ludbrook, Geraldine
150.19
ISBN 978 1 85575 010 4
Printed in Great Britain by BPCC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter
CONTENTS

FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
Joseph Sandler ix

FOREWORD TO THE ITALIAN EDITION
xiii

Cesare Musatti
xix

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
Irony through a psychoanalytic lens 1

Notes on the recent evolution of the concept of irony

and on attempts at classification 1

Introduction to the concept of latent irony 5

The psychoanalytic viewpoint 8

Historical outline / 8

Irony and ambiguity / 10

Preconscious and unconscious levels in the emission

and reception of ironic messages / 14

Summary of main points and some expectations 21
Vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER TWO
Ironic aspects
in clinical psychoanalysis
Some examples and a discussion of latent ironies
Interconnections between playful

and serious aspects / 36

"Playing" and "being played" / 39
Examples broadened to the problem of pairs
of opposites, with particular attention to self-image
The active/passive antithesis / 44
The true/false antithesis
and the problem of deception in analysis / 50
Pairs of opposites and terminability

of the analysis / 60

Unconscious equivalences
of the psychopathologic/delinquent antithesis:
ironic aspects and prospectives / 69
Summary
CHAPTER THREE
Ironic aspects
in psychoanalytic theorization
The work/play pair
Irony, insight,

and the repressed/repressing pair / 102

Ironic work
The analytical relationship as eirdneia / 118
Ironic considerations on the position
of metapsychology
Summary
CONTENTS Vii
CHAPTER FOUR
Stable irony and genitality:

an historical perspective 139

A Jewish theme in Freud's day 139

Freud as ironist / 142

Thejudische Witz / 152

A universal theme today 158

The apparent disappearance of the medium

of irony / 164

A clinical detour / 166

Seduction as a form of unstable irony / 167

Irony of seduction in the age of surrogates / 170

Se-duction from what? / 176

Are investment and "playing stakes"

irreducible? / 180

"Unicuique suurrT:

the renunciation of the "alibi** and the

reappearance of the space of irony / 183

Summary of main points 187

BIBLIOGRAPHY 193

INDEX 205

FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
Joseph Sandler
T
he Oxford English Dictionary defines irony as a figure of
speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of
that expressed by the words used. In his outstanding
book Professor Sacerdoti applies a psychoanalytic point of view
to irony and examines the dynamics of this form of expression
in its conscious, preconscious, and unconscious aspects. The
author poses the question of why irony has been relatively
ignored by psychoanalysts, and he responds by showing that
Freud had used a limited and rather obsolete definition of
irony. He adds, more significantly, that psychoanalysts have
paid little attention to the history of ideas, which have also
influenced psychoanalysis. He asks why, if irony as a rhetorical
device can be considered as one form of expression of thought
that can achieve particular concreteness and liveliness, it has
acquired a predominantly negative connotation, and why psy­
choanalysts have not made greater use of it. One need only
think of the rhetorical value of Antony's saying, Tor Brutus is
an honourable man". Over the years, there has been a progres­
sive undervaluation of the communicative potential of irony,
ix