==def==The letter refers to the material substrate, identical to the printed character, that serves as the vehicle for spoken or written language. It represents the two sides of the signifier (metaphor and metonymy) in the creation of meaning and in the production of dreams, where the letter designates one of the terms of the rebus. As the localized structure of the signifier, the letter's nature is real, exclusive of sense or meaning. Its function is symbolic to the extent that its absence determines the automatism of repetition. The letter constitutes the unconscious to the extent that it is organized as a literal heterogeneous set.{{Topp}}lettre{{Bottom}}
Freud==Jacques Lacan=====Ferdinand de Saussure===[[Lacan]]'s first allusion frequent references to the "[[letter and its function is found ]]" must be seen within the context of [[Saussure]]'s [[discussion]] of [[language]]. In his ''[[Saussure|Course in his correspondence with Wilhelm Fliess on December 6General Linguistics]]'', 1896 (1950a)[[Saussure]] privileges [[speech|spoken]] [[language]] above [[writing|written]] [[language]], where he describes a system on the grounds that the former appears before the latter both in the [[time|history]] of inscribing perceptions, [[human|humanity]] and in which the process [[life]] of repression can be conceptualized as the erasure [[individual]]. [[Writing]] is conceived of an inscription. In the analysis as a mere secondhand [[representation]] of the Wolfman[[speech|spoken]] [[language]], Freud (1918b) returns to and the letter [[signifier]] is conceived of as purely an acoustic [[image]] and its workingsnot as a graphic one. In 1927<ref>[[Saussure|Saussure, Ferdinand de]]. ''[[Saussure|Course in his article on fetishism (1927e)General Linguistics]]'', 1916. Ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, trans. Wade Baskin, he shows how a patient's erotic life remains attached to a permutation of lettersGlasgow: Collins Fontana.</ref>
However Freud never really formulated a theory ===Materiality===When [[Lacan]] takes up [[Saussure]]'s [[work]] in the 1950s, he adapts it freely to his own purposes. He thus conceives of the [[letter. Jacques Lacan in 1954-1957 (1966) provided ]], not as a theoretical elaboration mere graphic representation of a sound, but as the functioning [[materialism|material basis]] of the [[language]] itself.<blockquote>"By ''letter to the extent '' I designate that [[material]] support that it—and it alone—constitutes the topography of the unconscious[[concrete]] discourse borrows from language."<ref>{{E}} p.147</ref></blockquote>
Several additional aspects of how The [[letter]] is thus connected with the letter functions need to be distinguished: its situation within [[real]], a [[materialism|material substrate]] that underpins the articulation [[symbolic order]]. The [[concept]] of the two essential tropes that govern language[[materialism|materiality]] implies, metaphor, and metonymy (Roman Jakobson)for [[Lacan]], both the indivisibility and the function it plays in [[idea]] of locality; the dialectic [[letter]] is therefore "the essentially localized [[structure]] of desire and the automatism of repetitionsignifier. To explain these functions a few linguistic concepts are necessary"<ref>{{E}} p.153</ref>
Returning to ===Meaning===As an element of the Saussurian algorithm[[real]], Lacan emphasized the impermeable nature of the bar that separates signifier and signified[[letter]] is [[meaning]]less in itself. Contrary [[Lacan]] illustrates this by referring to what is suggested by the illustration of the algorithm between the sound "tree" and its iconic representationancient [[Egyptian hieroglyphics]], the unconscious does not acknowledge any univocal correspondence between a signifier and a signified, because the signifier only functions through its difference with other elements in the verbal chainwhich were indecipherable to Europeans for so long. Because of these three factors access Until Champollion was able to meaning can only occur through metaphor or metonymy. Thus Freud discovered decipher [[them]] on the processes basis of condensation (Verdichtung) and displacement (Verschiebung) in dreams. These two operations take place at the cost of eliding the signifier upon which Rosetta Stone, no one knew how to [[understand]] these enigmatic inscriptions, but it was nevertheless clear that they were originally basedorganized into a signifying [[system]]. This first obliterated signifier is automatically repressed as part of the natural operation of the production of meaning<ref>{{S1}} p. By extension, we recognize in this the model of symptom formation as a fact associated with language244-5; {{E}} p. Within 160</ref> In the differential coupling of signifiers as they occur in a language this first signifiersame way, the indifferent point of departure for metaphor or metonymy, can be conceptualized [[signifier]] persists as precipitated in the materiality of a [[meaning]]less [[letter that represents it in ]] which makes the chain of signifiers. This letter also prefigures the trace destiny of the lost object [[subject]] and the lack that causes desire, for in metonymy the trace of the loss is transferred to the object of desire. This led Lacan to designate the object-cause of desire by the letter a. The letter thus has a symbolic function that overdetermines the unalterable principle of the automatism of repetition to the extent that a letter will always be missing, the very letter that represents the lost objectwhich he must decipher.
Moreover, A [[good]] example of this is the impossibility [[case]] of grasping the letter [[Wolf Man]], in its signification, its resistance to meaning, because it lies outside the signified, shows which [[Freud]] noted that in is essence the [[meaning]]less [[letter is real: It forms a hole ]] V reappeared under many guides in unconscious knowledgethe [[Wolf Man]]'s life. Exploration <ref>{{F}} "[[Works of this hole in meaning using Sigmund Freud|From the real History of an Infantile Neurosis]]," 1918b [1914]. [[SE]] XVII, 3.</ref> As the letter remains example of the nub of [[Wolf Man]] demonstrates, the unconscious [[letter]] is essentially that which [[return]]s and [[repetition|repeats]] itself; it constantly insists in inscribing itself in the experience of analysis[[subject]]'s life.
JEAN===Repetition===[[Lacan]] illustrates this [[repetition]] by reference to [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s story ''[[The Purloined Letter]]''.<ref>Poe, Edgar Allan. 1844. "The [[Purloined Letter]]," in ''Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe'', New York: Pocket [[Library]], 1951.</ref> Playing on the [[double]]-PIERRE HILTENBRANDmeaning of the term "[[letter]]", [[Lacan]] presents [[Poe]]'s account of a written document (a [[letter]]) which passes through various hands as a [[metaphor]] for the [[signifier]] which circulates between various [[subject]]s, assigning a peculiar [[position]] to whoever is possessed by it.<ref>{{L}} 1955a. "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Le séminaire sur 'La lettre volée']]", in [[Jacques Lacan]], ''[[Écrits]]'', [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1966, pp. 11-61 ["[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter']]", trans. Jeffrey Mehlman, ''Yale [[French]] Studies'', 48 (1972): 38-72.</ref> It is in this paper that [[Lacan]] proposes that "a letter always arrives at its destination."<ref>{{Ec}} p.41</ref>
See also: Real===To the Letter===It is because of the [[role]] of the [[letter]] in the [[unconscious]] that the [[analyst]] must focus not on the [[meaning]] or the [[signification]] of the [[analysand]]'s [[discourse]], but purely on its [[formal]] properties; the [[analyst]] must read the [[analysand]]'s [[speech]] as if it were a [[text]], "taking it literally" (Lacan''prendre à la lettre''); Signifier; Symptom/sinthome.Bibliography
* Freud=====Writing=====There is thus a close connection between the [[letter]] and [[writing]], a connection which [[Lacan]] explores in his [[seminar]] of 1972-3.<ref>{{S20}} pp. 29-38</ref> Although both the [[letter]] and [[writing]] are located in the [[order]] of the [[real]], and hence partake of a [[meaning]]less quality, [[Lacan]] argues that the [[letter]] is that which one reads, as opposed to [[writing]], Sigmundwhich is not to be read. (1918b)<ref>{{S20}} p. From 29</ref> [[Writing]] is also connected with the history idea of an infantile neurosis[[formalization]] and the [[matheme]]s; [[Lacan]] thus speaks of his [[algebra]]ic [[symbol]]s as "[[letter]]s."<ref>{{S20}} p. SE30</ref> [[Lacan]]'s concept of the [[letter]] is the subject of a critique by [[Jacques Derrida]]<ref>[[Jacques Derrida|Derrida, 17Jacques]] 1975. "Le facteur de la vérité," in ''The Post Card: 1-122From [[Socrates]] to Freud and Beyond'', trans. * ——Alan Bass, Chicago and [[London]]: [[University]] of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. (1927e)413-96. Fetishism</ref> and by two of [[Derrida]]'s followers. SE<ref>Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, and Nancy, 21: 147Jean-157Luc. * ——1973. (1950a). Extracts from the Fliess papers''Le Titre de la lettre'', SE, 1Paris: 173-280Galilée.</ref>. * [[Lacan, Jacques]] refers to the latter work in his 1972-3 [[seminar]]. (1966)Écrits<ref>{{S20}} p. Paris: Le Seuil62-6.</ref>
eNotes Lookup Tip:==See Also=={{See}}* [[Language]]* [[Materialism]]||* [[Meaning]]* [[Signifier]]||* [[Speech]]* [[Unconscious]]{{Also}}
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