Lexis Complexes: Literary Interventions

Psychoanalysts originally used the term "complex" to describe obsessional word associations and ideas that define individual neuroses. Literary scholars of any of the phenomena identified as "seed-words," "key-words," "nuclei," "nodal points," "switch-words," and "hypograms" are also familiar with what Nelson Hilton calls lexis complexes. Clusters based on homonymic series of words such as idol, idle, and idyll, lexis complexes are not only intrinsic to poetic language but are keys to the artistic discovery of symbolic meaning, argues Hilton. In this study, he draws on a broad range of theoretical methods to demonstrate how lexis complexes offer dynamic and visible links between particular texts and the persisting concerns of an individual's other works, and how they can also reflect the formative context of early object-relations.
Using insights from such psychoanalysts as Freud, Jung, Lacan, and Kristeva; from such semioticians and philosophers as Saussure, Wittgenstein, and Grice; and from such literary theorists as Empson, Brooks, and Riffaterre, this interdisciplinary work will have implications for anyone concerned with questions of language, intention, and how a word to the wise suffices.

Nelson Hilton is an associate professor of English at the University of Georgia.