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[[Desire ]] has to be placed at the heart of [[analysis|analytic ]] [[theory ]] and [[practice]]: the title of the [[seminar ]] does not indicate a mere juxtaposition of the two terms, it ties them around the essential function of [[language]]. [[Desire]], if the [[libido ]] is its [[psychic energy]], indicates the [[subject]]'s dependency on the signifiers [[signifier]]s which constitute the [[structure ]] proper. This is what the cure, based on [[speech]], must make clear beyond the [[analysand]]'s [[demand]]. [[Lacan ]] even asserts that "[[desire ]] is its own [[interpretation]]."<br>In approaching this seminar one might be aided by reading the seven lessons on <i>Hamlet</i> (1959) published by Jacques-Alain Miller in <i>Ornicar?</i> in 1983. After Freud Lacan offers a new interpretation. <i>Hamlet</i> is the tragedy of desire: this is why "we are in the midst of clinical experience." What is this "bird-catcher net in which man's desire is articulated according to the coordinates of Freud, Oedipus and castration?" The structural analysis of the play, which orders not only the characters' positions but also the succession of events, should lead us to "situate the meaning and direction (<i>le sens</i>) of desire." The enigma is that of Hamlet's inability to act: he cannot kill Claudius - his father's killer, his mother's lover, and the usurper) - he cannot love Ophelia, "he cannot want." When, at the end, he discovers his desire - by fighting Laertes in the hole that has been dug out to bury Ophelia - this revelation is ineluctably linked to the death in which they all disappear. This tragedy shed light on the masculine drama of desire and on the anxiety of "To be or not to be," hopeless truth of modern man.<br>

In approaching this [[seminar]] one might be aided by reading the seven lessons on <i>[[Hamlet]]</i> (1959) published by [[Jacques-Alain Miller]] in <i>[[Ornicar?]]</i> in 1983. After [[Freud]] [[Lacan]] offers a new [[interpretation]]. <i>[[Hamlet]]</i> is the [[tragedy]] of [[desire]]: this is why "we are in the midst of clinical experience." What is this "bird-catcher net in which [[man]]'s [[desire]] is articulated according to the coordinates of [[Freud]], [[Oedipus]] and [[castration]]?" The structural analysis of the play, which orders not only the characters' positions but also the succession of events, should lead us to "situate the meaning and direction (<i>le sens</i>) of [[desire]]." The enigma is that of [[Hamlet]]'s inability to [[act]]: he cannot kill Claudius - his father's killer, his mother's lover, and the usurper) - he cannot love Ophelia, "he cannot want." When, at the end, he discovers his desire - by fighting Laertes in the hole that has been dug out to bury Ophelia - this revelation is ineluctably linked to the death in which they all disappear. This tragedy shed light on the masculine drama of desire and on the anxiety of "To be or not to be," hopeless truth of modern man. On the [[Father]]'s side, the disappointment is beyond remedy: "[[There is no Other of the Other]]." The dead King wanders in quest of an impossible redemption. The [[Other]], the place of [[truth]], does not contain the [[signifier ]] that could be the guarantor of such [[truth]]. The [[phallus ]] is unavailable in the [[Other]], which is rendered by the [[sign]]: - </font><font face="Symbol" size="3">F</font><font face="BOOKMAN" size="3">. This would explain the almost desperate tone in [[Lacan]]'s next [[seminar]], <i>L'éthique...</i>. What if the [[masculine ]] [[subject ]] turns toward his [[mother ]] to praise her [[woman]]'s dignity? Then he comes up against what she manifests of her [[desire]]: "not desire, but a gluttony that is engulfing." The horror of [[femininity ]] rules over the play and hits Ophelia, the virgin fiancée, in the face. Her character is fascinating because it embodies "the drama of the [[feminine ]] [[object ]] caught in the snare of [[masculine ]] [[desire]]," but above all because she is at the same time the [[object ]] and the touchstone of [[desire]]: <i>[[objet a]]</i> ([[part object]]) of [[desire ]] and [[phallus ]] (present in Ophelia). The two terms are not quite distinguished and if Ophelia can only be discovered in [[mourning ]] - "I loved Ophelia" - such [[mourning ]] is both that of the [[object ]] and that of the [[phallus]]. Against Jones, whose definition of [[aphanisis ]] was an attempt to find in the fear of being deprived of one's [[desire ]] a factor common to both sexes, [[Lacan ]] maintains a radical asymmetry in the rapport to the [[phallic signifier]]. [[Man ]] "is not without having it" and [[woman ]] "is without having it." The only [[object of desire]], and at the same time its only [[signifier]], seems indeed to be the [[phallus]], which only appears "in flashes," during decisive phallophanias where death is at the rendez-vous.<br> [[Slavoj Zizek ]] notes that for [[Lacan ]] the [[phallus ]] is the pure [[signifier ]] that stands for its own opposite, that it functions as the [[signifier ]] of [[castration]]. The transition from pre-[[symbolic ]] [[antagonism ]] (the [[Real]]) to the [[symbolic order ]] where signifiers [[signifier]]s are related to meaning takes place by way of this pure [[signifier]], without [[signified]]. "In order for the field of meaning to emerge, for the series of signifiers [[signifier]]s to [[signify ]] something, there must be a [[signifier ]] that stands for [[nothing]], a signifying [[signify]]ing element whose very [[presence ]] stands for the [[absence ]] of [[meaning]], or rather for the [[absence ]] <i>tout court</i>." This [[nothing ]] is the [[subject ]] itself, "the [[subject ]] <i>[[qua]]</i> [[S]]." This Lacanian [[Lacan]]ian [[matheme ]] designates the [[subject ]] deprived of all content.