Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytical Lens: Allegorical Reflections on Shakespeare’s Selected Poetry

Abstract

This paper centers Sigmund’s Freud’s psychoanalytical notion of id, ego and superego to unearth the philosophical interconnectedness with regards to consciousness, employing The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare as an interpretative lens. Freud’s ideals maintain that id drives primal instincts, ego operates based on the reality principle while the superego is the enforcer of moral and societal ideals often resulting in psychic disintegration. The investigation posits that these tensions ultimately culminate in the degeneration of identity and raises questions about the unconscious. Utilizing The Ego and the Id (1923), the paper examines numerous Freudian interpretations of the poem particularly the unconscious desires and death. The allegorical figures in ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ presents a wholesome albeit self-annihilating love provides an apt narrative blueprint: the phoenix represents id’s primitive impulses; the turtle reflects the superego’s romanticized devoutness whilst the ego imitates their futile bond. Adopting a philosophical basis, the study employs abstract reasoning to unearth how Freud’s framework connects to the symbolic structure present in the poem, supplemented by a close investigation. Findings reveal a deep rooted connection between the Freudian tripartite structure and the psychic as revealed in the disintegration of identity through the poem’s examination.