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These two publications are indicative of the great interest that Lacan continues to arouse throughout the world. France's enfant terrible of psychoanalysis, Lacan gained great notoriety in French intellectual circles as a critic of mainstream Freudianism and, at the same time, a radical Freudian. A modern Kierkegaard in this respect, Lacan went through a series of ruptures and rebirths throughout his life, founding new schools and then dismissing them on several occasions. To understand Lacan at least partially, a difficult task in itself, it is important to have an idea as to his background.
Lacan was born to an upper-middle-class Parisian couple and he was educated in Paris in the earliest part of this century. He was immersed in two opposite worlds; the artistic with the surrealists with whom he was close, particularly Andre Breton, and a psychoanalytic group, mostly composed of physicians who were interested in psychoanalysis. Lacan's interest in psychoanalysis draws from the two camps. As we know, the surrealists' motto at the time was “a paranoid critique of everything created.” On the other hand, French psychiatry was mostly organic in orientation, as it was in most of Europe, with little interest in dynamic issues. This dual influence in Lacan's intellectual upbringing would be clearly reflected throughout his writings, making for the difficulty most people encounter in reading his opus.
Also important in Lacan's intellectual development is a clear Hegelian philosophical orientation. This is part of France's cultural life that has seen many waves of neo-Hegelianism. There is probably no other country in the world that has produced as many humanist intellectuals during this century, all inspired by Hegel in one way or another, and by the famous Kojeve's lectures about Hegel. Since Freud was caught in a paradigmatic