Freud in Rome

2020 Ken Evans. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/17/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7912-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8027-4 (e)

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Contents

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

THE NOTES

ROME I (1901)

INTERLUDE I

ROME II (1902)

INTERLUDE II

ROME III (1907)

INTERLUDE III

ROME IV (1910)

INTERLUDE IV

ROME V (1912)

INTERLUDE V

ROME VI (1913)

INTERLUDE VI

ROME VII (1937)

INTERLUDE VII

NOTES FROM LONDON.

DEDICATION

Dedicated to My Soulmate Diego, the Divine Cat,

who represents the dawn of Civilisation,

Protector of the Tree of Life,

which held the secrets

of eternal life,

Divine

Knowledge.

He flieth, flieth!

He flieth away from you, ye men.

He is no longer in the earth. He is in the sky.

He rusheth at the sky as a heaven.

He has kissed the sky as a hawk.

He has leapt skywards as a grasshopper.

God Bless you Dear

Diego.

INTRODUCTION

A small event occurred during Sigmund Freud’s eightieth birthday celebrations, that would influence future appraisals of his contribution to human knowledge. That small event at which Freud seemingly privately invited Thomas Mann into his study to view a new antique acquisition, went largely unnoticed. But in fact, it was a request by Freud to his Novelist friend to take possession of his Personal Notes ‘Visits to Rome’, as a precaution against their possible destruction by his family. Freud knew his daughter Anna and others, had become robustly protective of his public reputation; hence Freud regarded his arrangement with Mann as something of a secret, a sacred tryst, between them.

Freud saw each of his visits to Rome as a means of experimenting with his private life, with his several selves, his personal relationships, sexual proclivities, private obsessions and his literary interests to such a point, that he came to see himself as Roman and Rome as Freudian!

His personal experiences in Rome were not available to professional biographers, but emerged gradually through his personal notes entrusted to Mann, and subsequently discovered through Mann’s manuscripts, the letters he exchanged with his wife and family, and other documentation entrusted to a Munich lawyer Dr.Valentin Heins, who offered to keep them safe until after the war, later impounded by the Weimar Republic authorities, and sold on to collectors. As Mann’s eldest daughter Erika Mann explains: In their totality these letters constituted a kind of autobiography which, if they did not encompass that period of his life, at least richly illustrated it, and in many respects provided far more detail more exactly than any autobiographer would ever be able to recall. The same applies to the inclusion of Freud’s ‘personal notes’ that were among Mann’s confiscated papers, that have since resurfaced through other routes; news reports and published letters, such as those of Hilda Doolittle and Bryher, and their Circle of American and London friends, which have provided first-hand descriptions of personal relationships and conversations with Freud, providing the raw material for this account of Freud’s theorising and reflections on his times in Rome.

Unlike Cicero’s polishing of his text, with a possible view to a posthumous audience, Freud regarded his notes as memoranda, written without preliminary drafts. As he said; written with the flow of the pen; a flowing laboratory of ideas and theorizing mostly for psychoanalysis, but not all, his autobiographical and semantic memories intertwined, revealing real experiences and fantasies.

Freud was a ‘jotter’ of snippets of experiences, recording fantasies and dreams, mythologising his own psychoanalytical language, as well as re-activating old myths in an age of disenchantment; transforming all into an uncanny Freudian presence in Rome. Blurring the boundaries between imagination and reality, the borders between individual and collective psychology; addressing all through his Notes, recorded and delivered in the first-person.

THE NOTES

ROME I

(1901)

I dreamt of visiting Rome since my childhood days after learning about Hannibal’s war from my father. I planned several trips to the eternal city, and even set out on each of them, but each time a powerful phobia stopped me from reaching my goal. I finally made it on September the second 1901, accompanied by my younger brother Alexander; I clearly remember the circumstances that prompted me to finally complete the journey there. My wife and children were away on a brief holiday, the house was empty, and I was alone and had again dreamt of going to Rome. This was also the time when my long relationship with Fliess ended; leaving me bereft! When quite suddenly I felt a frightening compulsion to get away from Vienna and escape to Rome.

The very next day, with my younger brother Alexander, both of us were off, with no turning back! We both arrived in a joyful mood, surprised that at last we had made it. I felt as if I had finally broken the spell that had held me back, and that my life had somehow changed direction. We arrived like excited children, to be ‘luxuriated’ in a sumptuous hotel hot bath; it’s main attraction, that of advertising itself as being lit by ‘electric light’!

During the train journey I had been planning our schedule, promising myself we would be more than mere visitors, or tourists! For my part I would immerse myself in everything Roman, and draw deeply from its history to invade its city’s secrets, penetrate its tiniest cavities, and maybe conquer like Hannibal, to follow every route, and with my road-map, my mind would become my compass, my imagination a time machine!

At some point of my meandering walk, I was suddenly struck by an idea that these ancient stones were trying to communicate a hidden secret to me. That the history and story of the Eternal City was a clue to explaining the structures of humans mental life, as a kind of psycho-archeology of the mind. Layer upon layer, building upon building, each successive one constructed on the foundations of previous buildings, creating a continuous link of structures, each with its new and special purpose. This image struck me as Rome’s special message to me, as a spontaneous insight into psychoanalysis, which led me to compose lists of every small discovery, master every technique required to expose Rome’s many truths and untruths, to reveal her eternal soul.

It was at this time that I was quite taken by the idea that Rome, physically with its several historical layers, perfectly described how I had long imagined the human mind, with the unconscious deeply buried beneath everything else. That I should take this as my theoretical model to investigate myself and my patients troubled experiences, as well as, in a sense paying homage to Rome, the mother of cities and ideas!

I had prepared our daily itinerary and diligently planned our excursion’s-route on a city-map, taking-in the major tourist’s attractions; explaining to Alexander about the Pantheon, the Colosseum, etc, but our last day I claimed exclusively and selfishly for myself. I gave no explanation to Alex for this, because I reasoned it would make no sense to him or to anyone else.

On our last day I sat silently alone in the darkened shadows of the Nave in San. Pietro’s Church; as if in a trance. I had been sitting there quietly for several hours. My eyes transfixed on Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of ‘Moses’ as if hypnotised. Throughout that morning penitents slipped in and passed by me silently, to light a candle or say a prayer. Then leaving without disturbing me, bundled as I was for comfort in my oversized black overcoat. Unmoved and undisturbed as if chastened by a God. Had anyone bothered to look into my face as they passed by, they might have surmised I was deep in prayer, but they would have been mistaken, for my fixation was deeper than any prayer; and beyond anyone’s imagination. It was in fact a strange kind of worship; that of a godless Jew searching for his origins!

Sometime around mid-day when the sun had moved to the other side of the building, it’s bright midday sunlight blazing through the high roof-windows, bathing the Moses sculpture in the most eery pale light, the statue’s expression, one of barely controlled anger, repressed rage! My own expression of delight and contentment. In this rapture I believed myself to be entirely alone with the sculpture, failing to see or hear the traipsing footfalls behind me, or the dark presence of something or someone edging closer, breaking the peaceful silence.

Welcome to our abode, Dottore Freud.

I didn’t recognise the high-pitched Italian voice; but quickly shook myself from my reverie, surprised at the mention of my name, and the quiet tremulous falsetto voice of a dark lean shadowy figure; a young priest, all black in his cassock, shuffling in the aisle beside me; whispering.

Perdono, … for disturbing like this, . .. I knew it was you, … I saw you here the day before, … but missed my opportunity to catch you then.

I was puzzled, looking for an explanation, hurriedly searching the lean figure’s face and asking him how he knew it was me.

We all knew you were here,. . . it was just a matter of time!

The priest quietly took a seat next to me, turning his head towards me, almost touching, a friendly sign of familiarity.

"Dottore, . . we are pleased you’re here, …at last, … to welcome you, … a great honour for us, . . fiduciosamente, . . to learn from you. . . your methods, . . for maladies of the mind."

I, thinking very slowly how I might respond, imagining to anyone observing us how they might assume our two figures to be those of old friends, the young priest gesticulating, his hands excitedly fanning the air, I languid and static! Both of us crouching in the darkening shadows in deep conversation for so long, until it became impossible for either of us to see the other’s face. Eventually the light faded completely, and like a dream we were gone!

That night I dreamt that Michelangelo’s sculpture had come to life! Sitting together in the church chatting like old friends, when the sculpture informed me I too would soon become a hero, as if from the Talmud, that my name would be known from generation to generation! In fact it was an old dream, resonating with childhood memories of me sitting on my father’s lap, leafing through our huge Philipsson illustrated Bible,