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Professor Holland's book focuses on the response of the reader and the observer to works of art. In this venture, he finds it desirable to take an eclectic approach, utilizing not only orthodox Freudism and more recent ego psychology, but also the findings of academic psychology regarding the interplay of consciousness and unconscious emotional attitudes.
The first theory he uses is the Freudian, and he finds its
most useful tenet for his purposes the Oedipus complex. But he makes no distinction between what to me would be a plausible and an eccentric application of it.
To illustrate my point, I will quote the well-known passage from Macbeth and Holland's explication:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrowCreeps in this petty pace from day to dayTo the last syllable of recorded time.And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle—Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player