Wilfred Bion and Literary Criticism

Wilfred Bion and Literary Criticism introduces the work of the British psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion (1897–1979), and the immense potential of his ideas for thinking about literature, creative process, and creative writing. There is now renewed interest in Bion’s work following the publication of his Complete Works but the complexities of his theory and his distinctive style can be forbidding. Less well-known than Freud or Lacan, the work of Wilfred Bion nevertheless offers new insights for psychoanalytic literary criticism and creative writing. For newer readers of his work, this book offers an engaging introduction to several of Bion’s key ideas, including his theory of thinking (the ‘thought without a thinker’), the container/contained relationship, alpha-function; alpha-elements, beta-elements, and bizarre objects; K and -K; the Grid, O, and the caesura. It also offers a way in to Bion’s astonishing and challenging experimental work, A Memoir of the Future, and explores the impact of his devastating personal experiences as an officer during the First World War. Each chapter of Wilfred Bion and Literary Criticism draws on one or more specific aspects of Bion’s theory in relation to creative texts by Sigmund Freud, Stevie Smith, B.S. Johnson, Mary Butts, Jean Rhys, Nicholas Royle, J.G. Ballard, and Wilfred Bion himself. The first full-length study to explore the potential of Bion’s ideas for literary criticism, Wilfred Bion and Literary Criticism introduces his complex and extensive work for a new audience in an accessible and engaging way, and will be of great interest to scholars of creative writing, literary criticism, and psychoanalysis.

1. Selected Facts: Introducing the work of Wilfred Bion 2. Freud’s ‘excessively intense’ idea: the Project for a Scientific Psychology 3. Pompey’s thought-worm: Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper 4. Restoring the lost container: B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates 5. With and without Bion: supplementing an uncanny reading of Mary Butts 6. Jean Rhys’ bizarre telescope:a Bion-emic/-etic Reading of Wide Sargasso Sea 7. Efficient psychosis: notes towards a Bionian Ballardian breakdown 8. Becoming ray: Transformations in Nicholas Royle’s Quilt 9. Dream I Tell You: Bion’s A Memoir of the Future 10.Is writing (an) Alpha-Function?

Naomi Wynter-Vincent holds degrees from the University of Cambridge, University of Sussex, and University College London. She completed her PhD at the University of Sussex. She has presented her work on Wilfred Bion at conferences in the UK, Italy, Finland and Brazil. Naomi works in private practice in London and Luton as a therapist and coach.