The Fantasy: A Scientific Legend

Abstract

The essay explores the notion of the "fantasy" in the thought of Jacques Lacan, particularly in Seminar XIV, offering a topological and structural reading of it. Far from being a mere fantasy or imaginary representation, the fantasy is conceived here as a formal and transformative device that structures desire and subjectivity. Starting from Ibsen’s play "Ghosts" and the emotional sketches inspired by it from Edvard Munch, the aim is to show how the fantasy operates not only as a narrative or visual element, but as a structured scene—a kind of “scaffold” that enables the subject to encounter the most radical alterity.

Through a differential comparison with Freud’s theories and the “cryptophoric” psychoanalysis of Abraham and Torok, the Lacanian fantasy is defined as a generative subjective construction, rather than a simple transgenerational legacy. The analysis leads to a mathematical and topological interpretation of the fantasy, illustrated through the Klein group and the structure of the graph of desire, with the aim of showing how the fantasy is not repressed but transfigured as a torsion point in subjectivation.