GOETHE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (born August 28, 1748; died March 22, 1832), poet and dramatist, dominated the German literary scene of his time. The Aufklärung, Sturm und Drang, of which he is the principal representative along with Johann Herder and Friedrich von Schiller, the German classicism he embodied along with Schiller, and German romanticism have all been referred to by Heinrich Heine as "Goethean." He is one of the principle sources of Freudian thought.

Freud noted Goethe's scientific interests (Freud, 1930e). After reading the poem, "Hymn to Nature"—then attributed to Goethe but in reality written by Georg Christoph Tobler, a Swiss pietist—Freud decided to enter medical school, and according to Ludwig Binswanger, throughout his work remained faithful to nature's "mythical essence." A theoretician of evolution fifty years before Darwin, Goethe inspired Freud, as shown by the "sheep's head" dream, where the dreamer's associations make reference to Goethe's research on the intermaxillary bone of the sheep.

Goethe introduced the ideas of Spinoza—another of Freud's models—into Germany, and Freud often quoted Goethe's maxim: "The best of what you know/You could not tell your students," which reflected the need for dissimulation imposed by the revelation of essential truths.

Freud often quoted Goethe's Faust ; speaking through the devil, he assumed his role as (metapsychological) sorcerer in the creation of his work. He also referred to the "eternal feminine" and the "Mothers," using the poet's words to flesh out his conception of the representation of the mother and woman. He made use of a number of Goethe's lines, such as "in the beginning was the Deed," (for example, 1912-13a, p. 161) and "What thou hast inherited from thy fathers, acquire it to make it thine" (e.g., 1912-13a, p. 158n).

Goethe was a secret advisor to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and had Johann Fichte and representatives of the first phase of German romanticism appointed to the University of Jena. Nearly contemporary with the universalism of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, he opposed a number of romantic ideas, even though the concept of Naturphilosophie was a logical outcome of his scientific research. In Goethe's work, the word Trieb —which became a core concept in psychoanalysis—assumes the meaning of instinct, need, and mental impulse, Bildungstrieb being the secret force that animates living creatures. The model of the Urphänomen influenced the model of the primal in mental life (Vermorel, 1995).

Goethe was one of Freud's principal models and he quotes him a hundred and ten times, according to the Concordance. He even shows up in Freud's dreams asa familiar character, like his family and friends. Freud identified with this creative genius, who, like him, was coddled during childhood by his mother but deeply wounded by the death of family members. According to Alain de Mijolla (1981), because he often held his father in low esteem, Freud created a double of his grandfather Schlomo in the idealized figure of the sage of Weimar.

In his acknowledgments for receiving the Goethe prize, Freud recognized that the poet had emphasized Eros in mental life and appreciated the value of dreams. He said his inspiration for the term "psychoanalysis" came from the "chemistry" found in the Elective Affinities (the alchemy to which Goethe was introduced as a young man). He went so far as to turn him into a precursor of psychoanalysis, for having described in Iphigenia a kind of spiritual cure, and using conversation to heal a mental symptom experienced by Mrs. Herder (Freud, 1930e).

Henri Vermorel

See also: Act/action; Eissler, Kurt Robert; Freud-Nathanson, Amalia Malka; Goethe Prize; On Dreams ; On Transience ; Vienna, University of; Witch of Metapsychology, the.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1917b). A childhood recollection from Dichtung und Wahrheit. SE, 17: 145-156.

——. (1930e). Address delivered in the Goethe Haus at Frankfurt. SE, 21: 208-212.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. (1992). Faust, a tragedy, part one. (Martin Greenberg, Trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Original work published 1808)

——. (1998). Faust, part two. (Martin Greenberg, Trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Original work published 1883)

Hachet, Pascal. (1995). Les psychanalystes et Goethe. Paris: L'Harmattan.

Vermorel, Henri. (1995). La pulsion, de Goethe et de Schiller à Freud. In H. Vermorel et al. (Eds.), Freud, Judéité, Lumières et Romantisme (pp. 133-149.). Lausanne: Delachaux & Niestlé.