Changes

[[Lacan]] only published one book in his lifetime - [[Écrits]].<ref>[[Jacques Lacan|Lacan, Jacques]]. [[Écrits]]. [[Paris]]: [[Editions du Seuil]], [[{{Y}}|1966]].</ref> [[Écrits]] is not an introductory [[text ]] but the summation of a lifetime's [[training|teaching]] and [[clinic]]al [[practice]]. Each paper contains a [[multiplicity ]] of allusions and references that [[need ]] to be unpacked, if we are to begin [[understanding ]] [[Lacan]]'s [[ideas]]. "[[The Mirror Stage]]", for example, is only seven pages long, while "[[The Signification of the Phallus]]" is just nine, but each of these papers has generated volumes of explication, critique and applications.

The [[English ]] [[translation]], [[Écrits: A Selection ]] by Alan [[Sheridan ]] ([[London]]: Tavistock Publications, 1977), contains many of the key [[texts ]] we have discussed in the preceding chapters: 'The [[Mirror ]] [[Stage]]', 'The Rome [[Discourse]]', 'The [[Agency ]] of the [[Letter ]] in the [[Unconscious]]', 'The [[Meaning ]] of the [[Phallus]]' and 'The [[Subversion ]] of the [[Subject ]] and the [[Dialectic ]] of [[Desire]]', but it still only consists of one-[[third ]] of the [[French ]] edition. A new translation of this selection has recently been produced by [[Bruce Fink ]] (Écrits: A Selection, New York: Norton, 2002) but his translation of the [[complete ]] Écrits is still awaited. Fink's extensively annotated translations will undoubtedly become the standard authoritative texts of Lacan in the coming years but as this is not yet the [[case ]] all references in this introduction are to the Sheridan edition.