This is an exploration of ways in which psychoanalytic theory can be put to work in the reading of literary texts. Using concepts such as the unconscious, object relations, desire, abjection, the uncanny, hysteria, the masquerade and the death drive, it analyzes a broad range of well known literary texts in different genres, from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Derek Walcott and Jeanette Winterson. Freud, Klein, Bion, Lacan, Abraham, Torok and Kristeva are read alongside literary theory from Blanchot to Derrida to provide the theoretical basis for an investigation of the complexity of human phantasy as it seeks representation in literature.