462
PARTISAN REVIEW
air is so full of energy, idealism and identity possibilities." Most im–
portant, Erikson's focus on identity may be said to presage, and even
inspire, the current interest in the various conceptions of self as
distinct from conceptions of ego.
Erikson's apparent disappearance from the psychoanalytic fir–
mament of stars may prove illusory. He was among the first to
understand the need to theorize the intersection between the self and
the historical moment and to focus on what has subsequently been
developed as ego and self psychology. His large insights are wonder–
ful, his attempts to reduce them to workable theories inadequate.
His genius has been in identifying theoretical deficiencies and in–
tuiting solutions, his failure in systematizing his insights. Yet, given
his major insight into the concept of identity as distinct from ego and
his widespread influence, I believe he has indeed secured a signif–
icant place in the intellectual history of post-Freudian psycho–
analytic theory.
The Life Cycle Completed,
unfortunately, cannot enhance Erik–
son's reputation, focusing as it does on his epigenetic scheme and
minimizing his work on identity.
It
is not, as he claims, a fair sum–
mation of his work. But it does bring into bold relief the central
problem in that body of work: its theoretical weakness when stripped
of narrative and vignette.
ETHEL S. PERSON
FLAUBERT VERSUS JAMES
FLAUBERT AND HENRY JAMES: A STUDY IN CONTRASTS. By David
Gervais.
The MacMillan Press. $8.95.
When James's Isabel Archer tells Henrietta Stackpole that
her idea of happiness is "a swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling
with four horses over roads that one can't see," her friend accuses her
of speaking "like the heroine of an immoral novel." R. W. Stallman
has noted that this is an allusion to
Madame Bovary.
Henrietta's com–
ment may point up the essential difference rather than the likeness
between James's self-conscious, even inhibited young woman and
Emma - nothing seems more preposterous than a vision of the girl
