This is the first book to explore the full range and import of Lacan's theory of poetry and its relationship to his understanding of the subject and historicity. Gilbert Chaitin's lucid and accessible study of this famously complex thinker shows how Lacan moves beyond the traditionally hostile polarities of mythos and logos, poetics and philosophy, to conceive of the subject as a complex interplay between psychoanalysis, rationality and history. Lacan's incorporation of historical necessity into the formation of subjectivity enables him to illuminate the role literature plays in the creation of selfhood. Lacan's metaphor of the subject, Chaitin argues, draws not only on Saussure, Jakobson, Freud, Heidegger and Hegel but on hitherto unacknowledged sources such as Bertrand Russell and I.A. Richards. Chaitin explores the ambiguities, contradictions and singularities of Lacan's immensely influential work to provide a definitive account of the theoretical development across his entire career.