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The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis
Thesis (PhD) University of Pretoria, 2025
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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University of Pretoria
2026
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| _version_ | 1867613453245480960 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author2 | Meylahn, Johann-Albrecht |
| author_browse | Meylahn, Johann-Albrecht |
| author_facet | Meylahn, Johann-Albrecht |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | © 2024 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
| description | Thesis (PhD) University of Pretoria, 2025 |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/107579 |
| institution | University of Pretoria (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:36:23.211Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | University of Pretoria |
| publisherStr | University of Pretoria |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| spelling | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/107579 The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis Meylahn, Johann-Albrecht karienearle@gmail.com Earle, Karien UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Poiesis Lack Real Desire Sex Thesis (PhD) University of Pretoria, 2025 This thesis seeks to unearth the promise of a form of wisdom deep-rooted in humanity’s Ur-wound— our irreducible trauma. To this end, it turns its gaze to the creation narrative in The Book of Genesis as re-imagined by poet John Milton in his epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667). Prominence will be afforded to the depiction of the creation of the sexes and their thirst for knowledge resulting in the Fall and Exile from Paradise. Milton’s rendition of the myth shall be analysed and interpreted through a Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalytic lens that considers sexuality as the domain in which the desire for knowledge emerges. This reading regards sexuality as the site of a rupture between ontology and epistemology, presenting a fundamental lack at the heart of Being (Zupančič, 2017:141). This lack, or primal wound, generates a perverse subjective and socio-political deadlock that simultaneously cradles the immanent and transformative potential for invention. For although this wound remains unchanging, beyond cure or symbolisation, it also serves as the wellspring for life-giving poiesis. Thus, borrowing from Marcus Pound’s (2009:1) interpretation of Jacques Lacan as “the great Christianiser of psychoanalysis,” I seek to illuminate the revivifying potential and fundamentally spiritual essence of our deepest impasse—the (im)possible Real. University of Pretoria Practical Theology PhD (Practical Theology) Unrestricted Faculty of Theology and Religion None 2026-01-27T07:31:36Z 2026-01-27T07:31:36Z 2026-04-01 2025-08-28 Thesis *In this thesis, The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis, the candidate undertakes a critical investigation of the Genesis creation myth as reimagined by John Milton in his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). Milton’s interpretation of the relationship between Adam and Eve serves as a stage for critically engaging with the Freudo-Lacanian understanding of human subjectivity. In this reading, where subjectivity is inseparable from sexuality, the study examines sex through a psychoanalytic lens as the rupture between ontology and epistemology, exposing the fundamental lack at the core of human subjectivity. From this lack arises desire, producing the perverse subjective and socio-political deadlock—the non-relation. The thesis therefore turns to Milton’s poem to explore how the fear of lack culminates in desire’s ultimate, violent, and narcissistic expression, operating within the logic of Symbolic and Imaginary sacrifice. Yet, paradoxically, it is also from this very lack that the potential for transformative, life-giving poiesis emerges. Thus, from the same fracture—the Real—that gives rise to the binding Symbolic and Imaginary phantasmic registers, there also arises the possibility of traversing these fantasies so as to live as ethical subjects: refusing totalisation or closure by remaining steadfast in our fidelity to lack. A2026 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/107579 en © 2024 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria |
| spellingShingle | UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Poiesis Lack Real Desire Sex The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis |
| title | The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis |
| title_full | The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis |
| title_fullStr | The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis |
| title_short | The Real as a portal to life-giving Poiesis |
| title_sort | real as a portal to life giving poiesis |
| topic | UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Poiesis Lack Real Desire Sex |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/107579 |