freudian idiom

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Notes

Forbes Morlock Syracuse University London Centre 24 Kensington Park Gardens London W11 2QU UK E‐mail: f.morlock@syracuse‐u.ac.uk

My thanks to Daniëlle Kisluk‐Grosheide of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for her gracious assistance, Peter Leuner of the Syracuse University London Program for his generous support, Gregg Lambert for his mobile home, Gabrielle Brown for her acute ear, and Sarah Wood, as always, for her unstinting rigour.

The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey, 24 vols. (London: Hogarth and the Institute of Psycho‐Analysis, 1953–74) vol. 10, 245. Unless otherwise stated, all references to Freud's published writings are to this edition.

The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, eds. Eva Brabant, Ernst Falzeder, and Patrizia Giampieri‐Deutsch, trans. Peter T. Hoffer, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap – Harvard UP, 1993–2000) vol. 1, 69/Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Briefwechsel, eds. Eva Brabant, Ernst Falzeder and Patrizia Giampieri‐Deutsch, 6 vols. (Vienna: Böhlau, 1993–) vol. I/1, 131. All references to Freud's letters to and from Ferenczi are to these editions.

“What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” [1999], trans. Lawrence Venturi, Critical Inquiry 27.2 (2001): 174–200, 184 n.

Gesammelte Werke, eds. Anna Freud et al., 18 vols. (London: Imago, 1940–68) vol. 7, 461; hereafter GW.

Patrick Mahony, Freud and the Rat Man (New Haven: Yale UP, 1986) 207.

“Some Remarks on a Case of Obsessive‐Compulsive Neurosis” in The “Wolfman” and Other Cases, trans. Louise Adey Huish (London: Penguin, 2002) 123–202 (197).

Roman Jakobson distinguishes “an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language” from “an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language”: “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” [1959] in Language in Literature, eds. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap – Harvard UP, 1987) 428–35 (429).

Cf. the French “transfert.” The history of the French word for “transfer” as well as “transference” is complicated by its earlier use as a medical term even in Freud's German: “Hückel (1888) expresses his conviction that the first ‘transfert’ (the transferring [der erste ‘Transfert’ (Übertragung)] of sensibility from a part of the body to the corresponding part on the other side) made by a hysteric was suggested to her”: “Preface to the Translation of Bernheim's Suggestion” vol. 1, 78/Gesammelte Werke, Nachtragsband, ed. Angela Richards with Ilse Grubrich‐Simitis (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1987) 107–22 (113). The transfers between “transfert” and “Übertragung” cross not just French and German but the intrasomatic and the interpsychic as well.

Charcot, Neue Vorlesungen über die Krankheiten des Nervensystems insbesondere über Hysterie, trans. Sigmund Freud (Leipzig: Toeplitz and Deuticke, 1886); Bernheim, Die Suggestion und ihre Heilwirkung, trans. Sigmund Freud (Leipzig: Deuticke, 1888); and Bonaparte, Topsy. Der goldhaarige Chow, trans. Anna and Sigmund Freud (Amsterdam: Allert de Lange, 1939).

“At a time when Breuer's patient had forgotten her mother tongue and every other language but English, her grasp of English reached such heights that, if she was handed a German book, she was able straight away to read out a correct and fluent translation of it” (11: 22; cf. Studies on Hysteria 2: 25–26). Cf. Anna Freud's account of her father's translations, “Freud was a gifted translator, who could easily read off a page of a foreign‐language text in German without, unlike others, having to search for the right word or construction”: “Vorwort zur Neuausgabe,” Marie Bonaparte, Topsy. Der goldhaarige Chow, trans Anna and Sigmund Freud (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1981) 7–10 (8); my trans.

The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887–1904, trans. and ed. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Cambridge, MA: Belknap – Harvard UP, 1985) 208 (cf. vol. 1, 235)/Briefe an Wilhelm Fliess 1887–1904, ed. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson with Michael Schröter, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1999) 218–19. All references to Freud's letters to Fliess are to these editions.

Interestingly, in terms of what will follow, Martin Stanton may be learning a lesson of fundamental significance from Laplanche (“he suggests that …”) and Freud (“[he] uses …”) which is not strictly either's to teach: Out of Order: Clinical Work & Unconscious Process (London: Rebus, 1997) 54.

The Language of Psychoanalysis [1967], trans. Donald Nicholson‐Smith (London: Hogarth, 1973).

Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873–1939, ed. Ernst L. Freud, trans. Tania and James Stern (London: Hogarth, 1960) 206–07/Briefe 1873–1939, eds. Ernst and Lucie Freud, 3rd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1980) 200. Unless otherwise stated, all references to Freud's correspondence (other than with Ferenczi and Fliess) are to these editions.

Hence the recurrence of “one day” four times in little more than a page? On “one day [eines Tages]” as the verbal marker of an irreversible but undateable event, cf. the most celebrated “one day” in Freud, that of the killing and devouring of the primal father in Totem and Taboo (13: 141)/Gesammelte Schriften, eds. Anna Freud et al., 12 vols. (Leipzig: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1924–34) vol. 10, 171; hereafter GS.

Or, as Strachey politely translates the phrase in a footnote, “a question of the genitals” (14: 14 n.).

“Le Complexe de l'acteur” [1938], quoted in Claudine Brécourt‐Villars, Yvette Guilbert. L'Irrespectueuse (Paris: Plon, 1988) 323; my trans.

Jacques Lacan, “The Freudian Thing” [1956], Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1977) 116. Cf. Edward Bennet's memory of Jung's memory of Freud's words, “Won't they get a surprise when they hear what we have to say to them”: E.A. Bennet, C. G. Jung (London: Barrie & Rockcliff, 1961) 40–41; hereafter Bennet.

Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, trans. A.A. Brill (New York: Nervous and Mental Diseases Publishing, 1909). Freud, who at least later kept a photograph of Charcot in his study, notes of Brill: “Of course my photograph hangs in his office [in seinem Arbeitszimmer]”: letter to his family, 31 Aug. 1909, Unser Herz zeigt nach dem Süden. Reisebriefe 1895–1923, ed. Christfried Tögel with Michael Molnar (Berlin: Aufbau, 2002) 303; hereafter Reisebriefe. All translations from this edition are mine.

Freud, letter to Eduard Hitschmann, 6 Nov. 1935, quoted in trans. in Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, 3 vols. (London: Hogarth, 1953–57) vol. 2, 64.

“[Zimmer=room; Frauenzimmer=woman (contemptuously).]”: editor's note, The Freud/Jung Letters: The Correspondence between Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire, trans. Ralph Manheim and R.F.C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1974) 248.

Cf., for an excellent account of the “impression” (Eindruck) in Freud, on Freud, even of Freud, a lecture Jacques Derrida first delivered in London under the auspices of the Freud Museum: Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression [1995], trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996) esp. 8, 25–31.

James Parker, “The Hôtel de Varengeville Room and the Room from the Palais Paar: A Magnificent Donation,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin n.s. 28.3 (1969): 129–46 (134).

A. de Champeaux, “L'Art décoratif dans le vieux Paris IV,” Gazette des Beaux‐Arts 3e période 5 (avril 1891): 265–89 (270); my trans.

Devant la douleur. Souvenirs des milieux littéraires, politiques, artistiques et médicaux de 1880 à 1905, 2nd ser. (Paris: Nouvelle Libraire nationale, 1915) 11; my trans.

James Parker, “The Varengeville Room” in Amelia Peck et al., Period Rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Harry N. Abrams, 1996) 77–85 (82).

Pierre de Roux, L'Hôtel Amelot et l'Hôtel Varengeville (n.p.: Imprimerie de la Banque d'Algérie, 1947) 54–55.

Or as Freud transposes its name, “Hotel Esplanade – Warrington Crescent”: diary entry, 2 Sept. 1938, The Diary of Sigmund Freud 1929–1939: A Record of the Final Decade, trans. and ed. Michael Molnar (London: Hogarth, 1992) 248; hereafter Diary.

Smiley Blanton, Diary of My Analysis with Sigmund Freud (New York: Hawthorn, 1971) 107.

“Also play on my name: ‘Freudenhaus‐Mädchen’ [girls belonging to a House of Joy – i.e., prostitutes]” (“Original Record of the Case” 10: 284).

Copy in the library of the Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna.

Letter to Arnold Zweig, 28 June 1938: The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Arnold Zweig, ed. Ernst L. Freud, trans. Elaine and William Robson‐Scott (New York: Harcourt, 1970) 164.

Most notably, perhaps: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable (New Haven: Yale UP, 1991) hereafter Yerushalmi; Jacques Derrida's Archive Fever; and another lecture delivered in London under the auspices of the Freud Museum – this time by a resident of New York rather than Paris – Edward W. Said, Freud and the Non‐European (London: Verso, 2003). The best discussion of the text appears in Ilse Grubrich‐Simitis, Early Freud and Late Freud: Reading Anew Studies on Hysteria and Moses and Monotheism [1994], trans. Philip Slotkin (London: Routledge, 1997).

Or as Strachey translates the German: “this transference to group psychology”; “this transference from individual to group psychology”; “It is not easy for us to carry over the concepts of individual psychology into group psychology.”

“The story is told in an enormously condensed form, as though it had happened on a single occasion, while in fact it covered thousands of years and was repeated countless times during that long period” (23: 81).

“We too believe that the pious solution contains the truth – but the historical truth [die historische Wahrheit] and not the material truth [die materielle Wahrheit]” (23: 129/GW 16: 238). Cf. Freud's earlier declaration, “I express it now in this formula: the strength of religion lies not in its material [reale], but in its historical [historische] truth” (letter to Lou Andreas‐Salomé, 6 Jan. 1935); and the end of Freud's 1937 paper “Constructions in Analysis” (23: 267–69): Freud and Lou Andreas‐Salomé, Letters, ed. Ernst Pfeiffer, trans. William and Elaine Robson‐Scott (London: Hogarth and the Institute of Psycho‐Analysis, 1972) 205/Briefwechsel, ed. Ernst Pfeiffer (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1966) 224.

Although Yerushalmi jokes, in a book subtitled Judaism Terminable and Interminable, he provides no account of Freud's personal pleasure and theoretical interest in Jewish jokes. Symptomatically, he spends two pages interpreting a biblical misquotation in a letter to Fliess, while overlooking a Jewish joke on the next page recounted from Freud's growing collection (Yerushalmi 66–67; letter to Fliess, 21 Sept. 1897, 266). On jokes' resistance to translation, cf. the different strategies of Freud's translators to his material: Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, trans. A.A. Brill (New York: Moffat, 1916); Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, trans. James Strachey, vol. 8, 1–236; and The Joke and its Relation to the Unconscious, trans. Joyce Crick (London: Penguin, 2002).

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forbes morlock

Forbes Morlock Syracuse University London Centre 24 Kensington Park Gardens London W11 2QU UK E‐mail: f.morlock@syracuse‐u.ac.uk