Lacan and Post-Structuralism

Lacan could be called the post-Structuralist theoretician par excellence. No one better embodies the cult of the intellectual hero, no one played to a fuller house with a longer run in the Parisian intellectual theatre season. Although Foucault's contribution to philosophy and Said's potential contributions to politics and political theory may appear to be rivals, no one has so well represented the intellectual from another academic speciality who has had such a great impact on both that specialty and literary theory. Yet post-Structuralism is fraught with philosopher-literati. Lacan, however, with his medical and psychiatric training, and his interest in philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and mathematics, transgresses the boundaries of many an academic specialty both in the influences on, and the impact of his work.

Still, Lacan's initial enterprise and staunchly maintained purpose was to reread Freud-he might say read Freud; others might say misread Freud. He presented himself as a disciple and an exegete. Lacan always called himself a Freudian, leaving to others the option of labelling themselves Lacanian. This work of exegesis draws him closer to the literary critic. Furthermore, Lacan's own style can be called post-Structuralist or post-Modernist. He privileges the materiality of language, forcing the reader back to the signifier. Understanding his text depends as much on the reconstruction of what is not there as on the interpretation of what is there. While Lacan attributes a Gongoresque style to the speaking unconscious, he also adopts a Gongoresque or metaphysical style that turns on the conceit of language. Thus he both harkens back to the seventeenth century while maintaining a contemporaneity of style that also forms a stylistic metaphor of his ideas.

Lacan is post-Structuralist in the sense of being post-Saussurean. His main contribution is the redefinition and resituation of the subject. Lacan has provided a semiotics of the subject, giving psychoana