Psychoanalysis, fiction, and cure: between Fields Theory and Theory of Aesthetic Response

Abstract

This study intends to propose a reflection on the power of literature and the human need for fiction based on a first dialogue between Fabio Herrmann’s Fields Theory and Wolfgang Iser’s Theory of Aesthetic Response. We seek to outline some links between the status assigned to fiction in Herrmann’s work and the discussion in Iser’s work about fiction and imagination, which leads to a literary anthropology. This is an initial study that points to future research from Herrmann’s idea of literature as an analogue of psychoanalysis. We propose, therefore, that the Theory of Aesthetic Response is a theoretical possibility for grounding that idea.