Psychoanalyzing Writers

One of the most difficult things that the teacher has to achieve in introductory literature courses is convincing the students that trying to psychoanalyze writers is a bad idea.

Benito Jeronimo Feijoo, one of the greatest thinkers of the Spanish Enlightenment, did not write his famous feminist essay "In Defense of Women" because "his mother was nicer to him than other writers' mothers and she spent more quality time with him." Both Feijoo and his mother have been dead for centuries, and their relationship is neither interesting nor relevant.

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