Freud's Rome

Abstract

This book is a meditation on the role of psychoanalysis within Latin literary studies. Neither a sceptic nor a true believer, Oliensis adopts a pragmatic approach to her subject, emphasizing what psychoanalytic theory has to contribute to interpretation. Drawing especially on Freud's work on dreams and slips, she spotlights textual phenomena that cannot be securely anchored in any intention or psyche but that nevertheless, or for that very reason, seem fraught with meaning; the 'textual unconscious' is her name for the indefinite place from which these phenomena erupt, or which they retroactively constitute, as a kind of 'unconsciousness-effect'. The discussion is organized around three key topics in psychoanalysis - mourning, motherhood, and the origins of sexual difference - and takes the poetry of Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid as its point of reference. A brief afterword considers Freud's own witting and unwitting engagement with the idea of Rome.

Asphaltene Deposition

“…Methods have been developed to characterize and to model asphaltene phase behavior. The earliest example of experimental onset characterization is the Oliensis spot test . The ASIST method uses microscopic observations to identify asphaltene instability in response to changes in oil solubility parameter.…”

Dedications and Status: Catullus 1 and Horace Epodes 1

“…Horace must therefore carefully negotiate the issue of relative status, balancing his desire to be complimentary to Maecenas against his reluctance to reduce his own position too much. 25 Ellen Oliensis sees this poem as opening with a "programmatic exercise in epodic hierarchy" which establishes the relative positions of poet and patron, and with a "gesture of deference [that] extends not only to his position in the hierarchy but to the very mettle of his manhood"; 26 as the poem continues, however, this subordination of Horace to Maecenas is problematized. 27 While agreeing with the outlines of this reading, I think the mechanisms of Horace's negotiation of his position require more detailed examination, especially with reference to the example furnished by Catullus 1.…”

“…This implies a reversal of the position of the protector and protected, although, according to Oliensis, Horace is an ineffective protector. 42 She also connects the simile to the one used by Achilles in Iliad 9.32-4, in which the hero compares himself to a mother bird working to get food for her chicks and getting nothing for herself. 43 Horace has replaced the content of Achilles' simile with "his own deferential blend," but the implied reversal of positions remains to remind us that the mother bird can figure not only helplessness but nurturing This states Horace's favorite philosophical stance of moderation, which he developed much further in his subsequent poetry.…”