Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 5-2009 Psyche and History in Shelley and Freud Brent Robida Clemson University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Robida, Brent, "Psyche and History in Shelley and Freud" (2009). All Theses. 576. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/576 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. PSYCHE AND HISTORY IN SHELLEY AND FREUD A Thesis Presented to The Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts English by Brent Robida May 2009 Accepted by: Dr. Brian McGrath, Committee Chair Dr. Lee Morrissey Dr. Art Young ABSTRACT The comfortable thought is over in our psychical relation to Percy Shelley and Sigmund Freud because the line of reasoning it invokes is chaotic, if only because trying to define psyche and history leads to chaotic conclusions, especially at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Shelley and Freud recognized this and were able to channel it into their art, myth, fable, allegory. The events of their lives, their History, produces itself from chaos (Freud writes across two World Wars, Shelley under the shadow of the French Revolution, Jacobin massacres and Napoleonic wars), which means its producer is chaotic, Divine Chaos, Miltonic Chaos, but chaos it still remains. There is no systematic order to their thought except that systematic order escapes all Thought, true thought, at least.