Friday, October 28, 2011

When less is more

Freud got some things right. As, for instance, here, when he's talking about Shakespeare's artful characterization (of Richard in Richard III):
It is, however, a subtle economy of art in the poet that he does not permit his hero to give open and complete expression to all his secret motives. By this means he obliges us to supplement them; he engages our intellectual activity, diverts it from critical reflection and keeps us firmly identified with his hero. A bungled in his place would give conscious expression to all that he wishes to reveal to us, and would then find himself confronted by our cool untrammeled intelligence, which would preclude any deepening of the illusion.

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