Strategie freudiane: cultura classica e psicoanalisi

Abstract

Greek and Latin authors are frequently quoted in Freud’s works, as part of a discursive strategy which presents reconstructible development. References to the ancient world are absent or rare in the first period of Freud’s activity, until 1899: in their “Studies on Hysteria” Freud and Breuer don’t quote Aristotle, despite the fact that their ‘cathartic method’ took its name from Aristotle’s catharsis. References to Aristotle, Artemidoros and other classical authors are present in the first edition of “The Interpretation of Dreams”, and become more frequent and detailed in the following editions. Subsequently Freud indicated some Greek authors as the real precursors of his thought: Plato for his theory of eros, seen as an antecedent of the psychoanalytical libido, and Empedocles for the death instinct introduced by Freud in the last years of his life.