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Traumatic Reliving in History, Literature and Film

Author(s) : Rudolph Binion

Reviews and Endorsements

The book begins with a brief introduction situating the reliving of trauma in the context of the varieties of reliving that pervade the natural and human worlds. There follows a discussion of psychoanalytic, psychiatric, and trauma theories. Next, the author draws on his own and others' monographic research on traumatic reliving by historic individuals and groups in an effort to define its normal course and typical features. This summary overview is followed by a new, detailed case study of the traumatic fall of the Third French Republic as it was relived through the fall of the Fourth.

Moving from history to literature, an examination of six representative classics from Euripides to Ibsen shows that the motif of traumatic reliving is recurrent in fiction over the centuries, albeit confined to individual reliving. Finally, to cinema, which, with its quick cuts and flashbacks, is uniquely well suited to convey the experience of traumatic reliving and, where again, individual reliving predominates. The basic pattern on screen and in literature closely parallels that found in history.

This book is a first step in an exciting new direction of research and analysis.