The purpose of this thesis is to investigate sublimation of abjection, expressed through festive and artistic symbols. Abjection is usually defined as the dirty, disgusting, and/or fearful. Through sublimation, however, abjection is characterized by the source to generate new ideas, to subvert the h...
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate sublimation of abjection, expressed through festive and artistic symbols. Abjection is usually defined as the dirty, disgusting, and/or fearful. Through sublimation, however, abjection is characterized by the source to generate new ideas, to subvert the hierarchical system, and to transform the order of the symbolic.
Julia Kristeva philosophically examines the concept of abjection in her own work, Powers of Horror. According to her, “abject, which is the jettisoned object, is radically excluded and draws us toward the place where meaning collapses.” What is abject is constantly disfiguring one’s own identity. Due to the feeling of abjection, a subject recognizes feelings of “want” on which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded. Besides, “want” is tied to sin as debt and iniquity, which is associated with an overflowing, and unquenchable desire. Desire creates, in a subject, something uncontrollable so much so that the desire itself becomes estranged and alien to the subject.
The feminine characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream reject the implantation of desire flowing from others because it disfigures the identity of the self, which is identified with “abjection.” Hermia does not select Demetrius but instead Lysander as her partner as she wants to keep her subjectivity with “cleanness and properness.” Hippolyta and Titania, like Hermia, strive to keep themselves from masculine desire which is biologically and symbolically reproductive.
After illuminating abjection and desire, this thesis delineates the festive, and literary images which are revealed in this work. Specifically, I investigate how it may be possible to transform the abjection into the sublime using this work (literature), Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque (festival), and most importantly, Kristeva’s concept of the semiotic.
With regard to the festival, the grotesque images are one of the most prevalent forms that are displayed in this work. As well, the loss of identity, transcendence of death, and forgiveness are also discovered as the outstanding features of the festival. Whereas all the festive elements are abjected in the symbolic, they become the factors by which the subject is transformed. By using Kristevan theory on the festival, I explain how Shakespeare transforms the abjection into the sublime. For the purpose of this transformation, I explore the elements of the festival presented in this work: specifically, fairies, transformed Bottom, the juice of the flower love-in-idle, and Puck’s epilogue.
In relation to the semiotic, I argue that the green wood does not represent only the world of the festive but also the artistic and literary, which is opposed to the symbolic. The characters in this work attain a new perspective after they go through the green wood. They realize that the world cannot be divided with dichotomous categories and furthermore, everything should be evaluated ambivalently. This process finds its fullest expression in Hermia, who sees the “double” in everything and Theseus, who stresses on the imagination of a poet. In addition to the green wood, the night and the dream, which charge semiotic cathexis to the subject, display the characteristics of the semiotic in this work. Besides, the fact that “Pyramus and Thisbe” performed in the royal court is composed of “nothing” also presents the signification of the semiotic, which is very much like that the subject is structured by the signifier. In delineating these semiotic signifying processes, I explore how the semiotic processes operate, and indeed how sublimation of abjection in the symbolic world proceeds.
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate sublimation of abjection, expressed through festive and artistic symbols. Abjection is usually defined as the dirty, disgusting, and/or fearful. Through sublimation, however, abjection is characterized by the source to generate new ideas, to subvert the hierarchical system, and to transform the order of the symbolic.
Julia Kristeva philosophically examines the concept of abjection in her own work, Powers of Horror. According to her, “abject, which is the jettisoned object, is radically excluded and draws us toward the place where meaning collapses.” What is abject is constantly disfiguring one’s own identity. Due to the feeling of abjection, a subject recognizes feelings of “want” on which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded. Besides, “want” is tied to sin as debt and iniquity, which is associated with an overflowing, and unquenchable desire. Desire creates, in a subject, something uncontrollable so much so that the desire itself becomes estranged and alien to the subject.
The feminine characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream reject the implantation of desire flowing from others because it disfigures the identity of the self, which is identified with “abjection.” Hermia does not select Demetrius but instead Lysander as her partner as she wants to keep her subjectivity with “cleanness and properness.” Hippolyta and Titania, like Hermia, strive to keep themselves from masculine desire which is biologically and symbolically reproductive.
After illuminating abjection and desire, this thesis delineates the festive, and literary images which are revealed in this work. Specifically, I investigate how it may be possible to transform the abjection into the sublime using this work (literature), Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque (festival), and most importantly, Kristeva’s concept of the semiotic.
With regard to the festival, the grotesque images are one of the most prevalent forms that are displayed in this work. As well, the loss of identity, transcendence of death, and forgiveness are also discovered as the outstanding features of the festival. Whereas all the festive elements are abjected in the symbolic, they become the factors by which the subject is transformed. By using Kristevan theory on the festival, I explain how Shakespeare transforms the abjection into the sublime. For the purpose of this transformation, I explore the elements of the festival presented in this work: specifically, fairies, transformed Bottom, the juice of the flower love-in-idle, and Puck’s epilogue.
In relation to the semiotic, I argue that the green wood does not represent only the world of the festive but also the artistic and literary, which is opposed to the symbolic. The characters in this work attain a new perspective after they go through the green wood. They realize that the world cannot be divided with dichotomous categories and furthermore, everything should be evaluated ambivalently. This process finds its fullest expression in Hermia, who sees the “double” in everything and Theseus, who stresses on the imagination of a poet. In addition to the green wood, the night and the dream, which charge semiotic cathexis to the subject, display the characteristics of the semiotic in this work. Besides, the fact that “Pyramus and Thisbe” performed in the royal court is composed of “nothing” also presents the signification of the semiotic, which is very much like that the subject is structured by the signifier. In delineating these semiotic signifying processes, I explore how the semiotic processes operate, and indeed how sublimation of abjection in the symbolic world proceeds.
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