Questions for September 27th Great Books Discussion

The Huntington Public Library's Great Books Discussion Group meets Monday, September 27th. We will discuss an excerpt from "On Dreams," by Sigmund Freud, from the Great Books Reading and Discussion Program, Fifth Series, Book 1, available at the main library's customer services desk.

My major recommendation to help you prepare is to read Freud's own "specimen dream" concerning Frau E.L. apparently making a "pass" at Freud on page 74 (beginning "company at table or table d'hôte ... spinach was being served ..."). It is only one paragraph. Freud's analysis of this dream is found on pages 74 to 76. Here are some other questions to consider:

1. What is the "manifest content" of Freud's dream?

2. Why does a taximeter remind Freud of a table d'hôte?

3. What is the significance of the Goethe quote "You lead us into life, you make the poor creature guilty."? (M. D. Eder translates this as, "To earth, this weary earth, you bring us, to guilt you let us heedless go").

4. What is a "love that costs nothing"? (p. 88)

5. On page 76 Freud says, "Frau E. L.'s speech in the dream, 'You've always had such beautiful eyes,' can only have meant, 'People have always done everything for you for love; you have always had everything without paying for it [Emphasis added by Freud!]. " Is this indeed what it can only have meant.

6. Freud then says "The truth is, of course, just the contrary: I have always paid dearly for whatever advantage I have had from other people." Do we have any way of evaluating the accuracy of this statement? Clue: read the very next sentence : "the fact that my friend took me home yesterday in a cab without my paying for it must, after all, have made an impression on me."

7. Freud tells us that the dream about Frau E.L. was a variation on something that took place during his courtship of his wife. Is it possible to say that Freud is right or wrong in this interpretation?

8. What do you think is the "latent content" of Freud's dream?

9. Freud says in the last paragraph that his regret at spending a large sum of money on a family member was not a conscious regret. What do you think was the reason for Freud's regret?

10. Is Freud's classification of dreams into three categories in terms of their relation of manifest and latent content (on p. 79) valid? What is the difference between the first and second categories (i.e., "bewildering" dreams and ones that are "disconnected, confused, and meaningless.")

Freud in Dreamland

Our selection this month, "On Dreams," by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), was first published as part of the monographic serial publication Grenzfragen des Nerven und Seelenlebens in 1901. It was eventually published in its own right in 1911. Freud intended it as a popularization of some of the ideas he put forth in his longer and denser Interpretation of Dreams, which was published a little earlier. As the historian and Freud scholar Peter Gay has noted, "Freud was always his best expounder and advocate." In reading this text, it is helpful to remember that what we have here is Freud in his earlier period. You'll note that the dream he analyzes is his own, and the piece has none of the jargon he later used to promote the psychoanalytic movement with which his name has become so closely identified. I'll also call your attention to the quotation from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Goethe's Faust will be the subject of our discussions in November and December.