David St. John :: essays research papers fc

The Work of David St. crapper David St. John writes of love in a pessimistic way in his assemblage of poems, The Red Leaves of Night. His writings suggest love is unattainable and his relationships with people ( peculiarly with females) be portrayed as negative. St. John creates a fallen man in his text, especially when his poems focus on his dilemmas with women. Psychoanalysis plays a large role in the writings of St. John being that he shows the effects of his autumn and the negativity the downfall incorporates. Lacanian psychoanalysis suggests our language is structured like our subconscious and full of desires. Lacanian analysis also shows that the signs in language are split between the signifier and the sensory faculty and the barrier between the two lead to unfulfilled desires. St. Johns poetry is swarming with lines alluding to unfulfilled desires or a longing for things that simply cannot be obtained. St. John establishes the breaking of a psyche and through Lacanian a nalysis we can see that the desires expressed in his poetry will never be met. Through Lacanian analysis, we are able to see that St. John is seeking more, and wanting more substance out of relationships and his life that cannot be obtained. St. John is longing for a sense completeness moreover his completion is something that can never happen. Lacan shows the human psyche in three parts, similar to that of Sigmund Freud. Lacan calls the three parts Orders and they consist of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. The Imaginary is the part of the psyche that contains our wishes, fantasies, and, more or less importantly, images (Bressler 156). Lacans major focus is in his theory that our psyche is lack and fragmentation. We have longings for love, for physical pleasureKbut nothing can fulfill our desire to come down to the Imaginary Order and be at one with our mother (Bressler 158). Many of the poems in The Red Leaves of Night withhold the sense that St. John is yearning for something and is never complete. For example, in his poem The Unsayable, the Unknowable & You St. John presents a situation where he is completely captivated by a woman and lusts for more activity with her. My look upon A night alone (again) with you,tracing/This brocade of sweat along your amber shoulder./Lets weave together the dawns superior light-/A script of bodies, inscribed by the summers night (St.