The Stuttering Son in Literature and Psychology

The Stuttering Son: A Literary Study of Boys and Their Fathers examines stuttering, a condition which overwhelmingly affects boys, in terms of the complex relationships a number of male authors have had with their fathers. Most of these writers, from Cotton Mather to John Updike, were themselves stutterers; for two others, Melville and Kafka, the focus shifts to how similar family tensions contributed to their interest in the related condition of anorexia. A final section looks at the patricidal impulse lurking behind much of this analysis, as evident in Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare's Hamlet , and Nietzsche. By focusing on the issue of a boy's emotional development, this book attempts to re-establish the value of a broadly psychological approach to understanding stuttering.

Examines writers with a speech disorder and those whose interest in anorexia is traced back to a difficulty speaking up Draws on Freudian psychology to explore masculinity Considers complex father-son relationships of male authors

Auteur

Myron Tuman was a professor of English at universities in West Virginia, Alabama, and Louisiana. His work on male writers and their mothers, The Sensitive Son and the Feminine Ideal in Literature (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) follows earlier studies of male writers and their sons, Melville's Gay Father, and female writers and their fathers, Don Juan and His Daughter.

Texte du rabat

The Stuttering Son: A Literary Study of Boys and Their Fathers examines stuttering, a condition which overwhelmingly affects boys, in terms of the complex relationships a number of male authors have had with their fathers. Most of these writers, from Cotton Mather to John Updike, were themselves stutterers; for two others, Melville and Kafka, the focus shifts to how similar family tensions contributed to their interest in the related condition of anorexia. A final section looks at the patricidal impulse lurking behind much of this analysis, as evident in Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare s Hamlet, and Nietzsche. By focusing on the issue of a boy s emotional development, this book attempts to re-establish the value of a broadly psychological approach to understanding stuttering.

Contenu

1. Introduction.- Part I: The Son Who Stutters.- 2. Stuttering Orators and Their Counterparts.- 3. Five Victorian Sons.- 4. Four Modern Sons.- Part II: The Son with Other Challenges.- 5. The Guilty Son.- 6. The Anorexic Son.- 7. 7. The Patricidal Son.- 8. Afterword. <p