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We think of the key, each in his prison.
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
T.S. Eliot The Waste Land
WHAT IS DESIRE? THE ANSWER IS NEITHER AS obvious nor as casual as one might think. Desire has very specific implications and, without understanding them, one cannot begin to grasp the nuances of much of present psychoanalytic debate. To begin with, "desire" is a totally un-American concept. It's not a word we really use much. "What do you desire for lunch?", or, "I desire you madly", sounds rather awkward to Americans. Rather, it's one of those words, like "discourse, " or "subtext" one tends to hear used only in post-modernist criticism, feminist writings, or, as I shall elaborate, some European psychoanalytic derivatives.
To understand the concept of desire, as it is used in contemporary theory, one must first understand that desire is not a cognate of, and cannot be used interchangeably with, need, want, drive or satisfaction. Desire, as a concept, is derived directly from Hegel. I would love to tell you that I've read Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind in the original German; or, even in English translation. But alas, pre-medical indoctrination—at least in my day—seemed more directed toward dissecting clams and nematodes than studying nineteenth-century German philosophers. At any rate, my sources are all secondary.1 Nevertheless, one must attempt to grapple with Hegel's concept; since, to quote Wilden, "The Hegelian conception