Childhood As Memory Myth And Metaphor

"A fascination with childhood unites the artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) and the writers Samuel Beckett (1906-89) and Marcel Proust (1871-1922). But while many commentators have traced their childhood images back to memories of lived experiences, there is more to their mythologies of childhood that waits to be explored. They invite us to move away from familiar ideas - whether psychological or biographical - about what a child can represent, and even what a child is. The haunting child figures of Bourgeois, Beckett and Proust echo each other as they show how imagining origins- for a life, for a work of art - involves paradoxes that test the limits of our forms of expression. Art meets literature, profusion meets concision, French meets English, and images of childhood reveal new insights in this encounter between three great figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture. Catherine Crimp holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and is currently Lectrice d'anglais at theEcole Normale Superieure de Lyon."

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

French composer Maurice Ravel was described by critics as a magician, conjurer, and illusionist. Scholars have been aware of this historical curiosity, but none so far have explained why Ravel attracted such critiques or what they might tell us about how to interpret his music. Magician of Sound examines Ravel's music through the lens of illusory experience, considering how timbre, orchestral effects, figure/ground relationships, and impressions of motion and stasis might be experienced as if they were conjuring tricks. Applying concepts from music theory, psychology, philosophy, and the history of magic, Jessie Fillerup develops an approach to musical illusion that newly illuminates Ravel's fascination with machines and creates compelling links between his music and other forms of aesthetic illusion, from painting and poetry to fiction and phantasmagoria. Fillerup analyzes scenes of enchantment and illusory effects in Ravel's most popular works, including Boléro, La Valse, Daphnis et Chloé, and Rapsodie espagnole, relating his methods and musical effects to the practice of theatrical conjurers. Drawing on a rich well of primary sources, Magician of Sound provides a new interdisciplinary framework for interpreting this enigmatic composer, linking magic and music.

Readers once believed in Proust’s madeleine and in Wordsworth’s recollections of his boyhood—but that was before literary culture began to defer to Freud’s questioning of adult memories of childhood. In this first sustained look at childhood memories as depicted in literature, Lorna Martens reveals how much we may have lost by turning our attention the other way. Her work opens a new perspective on early recollection—how it works, why it is valuable, and how shifts in our understanding are reflected in both scientific and literary writings. Science plays an important role in The Promise of Memory, which is squarely situated at the intersection of literature and psychology. Psychologists have made important discoveries about when childhood memories most often form, and what form they most often take. These findings resonate throughout the literary works of the three writers who are the focus of Martens’ book. Proust and Rilke, writing in the modernist period before Freudian theory penetrated literary culture, offer original answers to questions such as “Why do writers consider it important to remember childhood? What kinds of things do they remember? What do their memories tell us?” In Walter Benjamin, Martens finds a writer willing to grapple with Freud, and one whose writings on childhood capture that struggle. For all three authors, places and things figure prominently in the workings of memory. Connections between memory and materiality suggest new ways of understanding not just childhood recollection but also the artistic inclination, which draws on a childlike way of seeing: object-focused, imaginative, and emotionally intense.

In the First Country of Places explores how people's personal philosophies of nature shape their childhood memories and self-identities. Drawing upon written work and original interviews, the book describes uses of memory through the perspectives of five American Poets who represent different contemporary beliefs: William Bronk, David Ignatow, Audre Lorde, Marie Ponsot, and Henry Weinfield. These authors present their relationships with nature and childhood in the context of major Western traditions of philosophy and religion. Each poet confronts the modern scientific image of an alien nature within which histories of individuals are insignificant; and three poets elaborate alternative versions of connection with nature and their own past. This work opens new directions in the psychology of memory, developmental and environmental psychology, environmental studies, and the study of American poetry.

This book contributes to the debate surrounding the origin of language by demonstrating that riddles and myths can be examined as evidence of the emergence of conceptual metaphors, a prerequisite for the development of a complete language.

It is the author's contention that creating an environment where the client expects change is the foundation of doing effective very brief therapy. His own private practice is one where he rarely sees clients more than one or two times. Clients know in advance that this is the way that he works, and so their expectation is that during this session they are going to get down to the hard stuff. This means working as if each session were the last one. So, this book is about all of the things that are designed to work in a single-session mode.

Winner of the 1988 Clark Vincent Award for an "outstanding contribution to the profession through a literary work" and translated into four languages, the original edition of Therapeutic Metaphors for Children and the Child Within was considered a groundbreaking addition to the field of child and adolescent psychotherapy. The 1986 edition was the first—and to this day the only—book that solely intertwines the extraordinary foundational teachings and philosophies of Milton H. Erickson and creative healing approaches for children and adolescents. With resiliency at its core, this revision now brings forward important topics related to neurobiology and cultural value of metaphor and play, along with fresh case examples and creative activities to a new generation of mental health, education, and coaching professionals.