The Death-Ego and the Vital Self Romances of Desire in Literature and Psychoanalysis

This volume presents original views of the relationship between desire and romance. It begins by looking anew at the nature of desire, citing its central theoretical text as Freud's 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle'. It traces the struggle betwen myth and romance, between the ego on its way to death and the self in search of life, through close readings of poems and letters of John Keats and in detailed considerations of a series of novels including Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Sons and Lovers.