Quartet: On the Theme of to Portray is to Betray

Paul Magee

doi:10.5130/csr.v10i1.3526

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Published: Sep 2, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v10i1.3526

Keywords:

literature, art, neurosis, psychosis, Oedipus, consciousness, illusion

Paul Magee

University of Canberra

Abstract

Art does not deceive its readers with an illusion of reality, as the common-sense notion has it, but rather pretends to deceive them. For the communicative power of the work of art lies precisely in the fact that we recognise its artificiality, its status as a work within a given genre, following certain conventions, set in a particular frame. What the work really points to, beyond the page, is the existence and actions of a creative consciousness, as that consciousness works through a given set of symbols to express itself. For reading is all about experiencing another’s mind. In the lack. Which makes it a matter of desire. My purpose in the following is to use literature to crack open the everyday, to write about neurosis and psychosis, how they write their way into the real world around us, the dinner table, this novel, a Greek tragedy, I mean Oedipus complex.

Issue

Vol 10 No 1 (2004): Action

Section

New Writing (Peer Reviewed)

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Author Biography

Paul Magee, University of Canberra

PAUL MAGEE is a poet, librettist and lecturer in the University of Canberra’s School of Creative Communication. With composer David Chisholm, he is currently completing Doctor Couteau, a chamber opera on the theme of plastic surgery, which will premiere at the 2005 Melbourne Fashion Festival. He has just submitted a Doctorate of Creative Arts, entitled ‘Hello, Cruel World’, at the University of Technology, Sydney.

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Paul Magee, University of Canberra