Coleridge’s Desire for Other Jouissance: A Lacanian Reading of Kubla Khan
Abstract
This article argues that desire begins Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and moves it forward. Coleridge projects himself onto Kubla’s garden, transcends his pleasure dome, and wishes to revive the Abyssinian maid’s song in order to build that dome in the air and experience a moment of jouissance. Subjectivity is returned in the end by Coleridge’s move from pleasure to jouissance and back to Kubla’s garden to reconcile conflicting desires for Symbolic pleasure and Real jouissance. Although desire begins the quest for the maid’s song as the lost object cause of desire, the inspired poet returns to the Symbolic order to prove that he is trapped in desire for the maid as an ever-eluding signifier that has a foot in the Real and cannot be articulated by Coleridge.
Opsomming
Hierdie artikel voer aan dat begeerte Coleridge se Kubla Khan begin en dit vorentoe dryf. Coleridge projekteer homself in Kubla se tuin, transendeer sy plesierpaleis en begeer om die Abessiniese diensmeisie se lied te laat herleef met die oog daarop om daardie paleis denkbeeldig (in air) te herskep en ’n oomblik van jouissance te ervaar. Subjektiwiteit word uiteindelik herstel deur Coleridge se beweging van plesier na jouissance en terug na Kubla se tuin om teenstrydige begeertes vir Simboliese genot en Werklike jouissance te versoen. Alhoewel begeerte begin met die soektog na die diensmeisie se lied as die verlore objek-oorsaak van begeerte, keer die besielde digter terug na die Simboliese orde om te bewys dat hy in sy begeerte vir die diensmeisie vasgevang is as ’n immer ontwykende aanduier wat ’n voet in die Werklike het en nie deur Coleridge verwoord kan word nie.
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