Dear Sphericals,

Dr. Freud will be suffering his 150th birthday on May 6. However we may find his pseudoscience silly, puerile, misogynist, homophobic, anti-primitivist, supply your own adjective here, I for one must remain grateful. He is (one of) the greatest poet who never wrote in verse. And I don't mean to imply he wrote that gruesome thing poetic prose. A man of huge compassion and personal bravery. I thought perhaps in this thread we could share favorite paragraphs from his work, and more especially poems inspired by his work. Not merely tributes to him, although we'll all think of Auden. Perhaps earlier poems that seem to prefigure and surpass him. Also, if it needs saying, naysayers should be welcome. This is a poem from the Hungarian of Attila Jozsef (1905-1937), himself analyzed by a student of Freud's (my translation).

The Things Your Heart Has Secreted
(on the occasion of Freud's eightieth birthday)


The things your heart has secreted
uncover for you eyes.
The things your eyes have forecasted
await til heart replies.

And all who live must die for love.
Happiness proves, it's said,
a needfulness perhaps above
the morsels of our bread.

And all who live are children still.
To mother's lap we yield.
When not embracing we would kill,
the bed our battlefield.

Be like the Man of Eighty Years
whom youths are savaging,
when from commingled blood and tears
his million sons will spring.

The broken thorn that pierced your foot
has long since dropped away,
so death, which in your heart took root,
so gently drops, this day.

The things your eyes have forecasted
now grasp with hand and will.
Whomever your heart secreted
bring forth to kiss or kill.



[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited March 22, 2006).]

All hail to the chief. I well remember when we were jung and easily freudend!

Cheers,

------------------
Ralph

Mike,

I share your estimation of Freud as thinker, writer, mensch. I would add only that he was, to my mind, among the greatest literary critics and theorists of the 20th century. I can't imagine how I would read without his insights. I will pop back later with a poem to share.

epigone