Angry literary criticism blogging

"The laurel and flute must symbolize not only Daphne and Syrinx but also the thwarted sexual impulse of the pursuers. As the texts suggest, that thwarting resembles a castration...Apollo's sign and Pan's new instrument are the pieces of their transformed loves and of their own transformed sexual powers, broken or cut, wreathed or sealed. Each is left grasping the sign of what he lacks...this castrative aspect should not be slighted, for it lies at the core of the work of mourning."

(From Peter M. Sacks's "Interpreting the Genre: The Elegy and the Work of Mourning", in "The English Elegy".)

I swear if I had a pound for every time someone mentioned castration as "the core" of a fundamental human activity I wouldn't have to apply for funding next year. YOUR ANALYSIS FAILS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT AN ENTIRE GENDER

(yes I know Freud has opinions on how castration is relevant to women too, that doesn't help, somehow.)

ETA: okay, Sacks then goes on to posit a counter-model for women - mostly along the lines of "I know Freud doesn't believe women have much of a superego, but I think they probably do", but he does support it with Emily Brontë, so we're cool. It's really the eliding of one gender that bothers me in theory, not the devaluing; the latter at least gives you something to argue with.

This has been your angry literary criticism blog post of the day; now I'm off through the snow to the Manor, where I will pick out the bits of "Middlemarch" that best serve my purposes. Whee!