Impersonalità ed empatia in Katherine Mansfield: un percorso tra letteratura, cinema, filosofia e psicoanalisi

Abstract

Following the threads of impersonality and empathy, which are firmly interwoven in the stories of Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), this article aims to reflect on the author’s interest in the then-new medium of silent film, and to contextualize her work against the framework of interwar philosophy and psychoanalysis, highlighting its ethical and existential components, bordering on mysticism. Mansfield's private writings and stories will be compared with specific aspects of the works of Henri Bergson (sympathy), Edith Stein (empathy), Martin Buber (relationship), C.G. Jung (the collective unconscious and individuation), D.H. Lawrence (modernity and consciousness) and Sigmund Freud (oceanic feeling), contrasting Freudian psychoanalysis with the alternative visions of the human and the psyche that emerged around World War One.

Keywords

• impersonality
• empathy
• silent film
• literary impressionism
• literary modernism