Freud’s “Die Traumdeutung”

Basic Info

Sigmund Freud, born in 1856, was an Austrian psychologist who is known for laying the foundations of modern psychology, founding the science of psychoanalysis. He left Austria to flee to the United Kingdom in 1938, and died there in 1939. Even though Freudian analysis and psychology is not considered seriously in the modern psychology world, only existing as a relic and base point, his impact on literary criticism through psychoanalysis continues to this day.

Use in Essay 

Miller uses Die Traumdeutung to discuss Lacanian psychology within literary criticism, as Freud’s work is “…to be read in the same way as a ‘literary’ text” (124). In order to understand Miller’s reference, one must understand what Freud wrote about, especially within Die Traumdeutung, as Lacanian psychoanalysis has its roots in Freud, because as Miller writes, “…Freud is reread in the light of modern linguistics by the school of Jacques Lacan.

Further Info 

His 1899 book Die Traumdeutung sought to find meaning in people’s dreams through analyzing the unconscious.. As scholar Albert Stefana writes in his work “From Die Traumdeutung to the Squiggle Game: A Brief History of Evolution”, Freud thought that “…dreams were the manifestations of the primary process, and through the study of the dream-work it was possible to explore the unconscious” (183). Through the unconscious, Freud explores what he called “The Oedipus Complex”, which, put simply, is the desire to marry one’s mother and kill one’s father. This comes from the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, where the title character, Oedipus, is cursed to marry and kill his father, which despite all efforts to prevent, happens anyway.

Evaluation of Sources

I used Wikipedia for background information on Freud, like, for example, where he was born. I then used Agnes Scott’s GALILEO to look for peer reviewed sources online, which was where I found Stefana’s piece, which provided more information into what Freud studied and wrote about. I also used quotes directly from Miller’s essay.

List of Sources Consulted

“Sigmund Freud.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud.

Miller, J. Hillis. “Steven’s Rock and Criticism as Cure, II.” Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies, by Professor Robert Dale Parker, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 120–133.

Stefana, Alberto. “From Die Traumdeutung to The Squiggle Game: A Brief History of an Evolution.” The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 78, no. 2, 2018, pp. 182–194., doi:10.1057/s11231-018-9138-5.