The psychoanalytic study of literature has a history as long as that of psychoanalysis itself. Perhaps the most salient example of their mutual cross-fertilization is Freud's naming of ‘the nexus of the neuroses’ after the eponymous hero of Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex, while at the same time giving new and exciting insights into the meanings inherent in the play; but I am also reminded of his impressive 1907 analysis of Jensen's story ‘Gradiva’. Following Freud, analysts such as Jung and Lacan have found illustrations and developments of their theoretical constructs in literary works, and literary critics have turned to psychoanalysis as a tool to help them in their investigations of texts. This is hardly surprising given that psychoanalysis, both as a theoretical and therapeutic practice, is primarily concerned with the manifestation of fantasies and mental constructs in words; and words are also the stuff of those written fantasies and constructs we call literature.