Signifying Nothing: Lacanian Theory And Tragic Form

There is a brief moment in literary history which is of interest in the context of Lacan's theorisation of the coming into being of the subject. It is located at the juncture that Lacan designates as that of the birth of modern science and of the subject of psychoanalysis; in other words, the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. In literature, this moment corresponds to the decline of tragedy and the rise of the novel.…