French Literature Reviews - 2026

W. Muschg and J. Schotte, Freud as a Writer
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Walter Muschg and Jacques Schotte, Freud as a Writer

Translated and annotated by Jacques Schotte, with a preface by Jacques Sédat.

Paris: Hermann Editions, coll. "Psychanalyse", 2012.

136 p.

EAN 9782705667856

27.00 EUR

Publisher's overview:

To Walter Muschg, author of a monumental Tragic History of Literature (not translated into French), we owe these pioneering reflections on "Freud as a Writer". Written in 1930—the very year Freud, "writer, scholar, and fighter all at once", was awarded the Goethe Prize by the city of Frankfurt am Main—W. Muschg's article portrays the founder of psychoanalysis "among his contemporaries with a literary body of work of rare breadth and richness". Translated from German by Jacques Schotte, who enriched it with an extensive introduction and copious notes, Muschg's article presents Freud's writings as constituting a literary work in their own right, albeit articulated through scientific reflection.
The point is not to assess Freud on an aesthetic level, but rather to highlight the movement of a truth at work: the creation of a technique through art. An indefatigable drive to write, a passionate love of the word, and the prominent place Freud assigns to metaphor are all traits that distinguish his writings from "scientific literature" and allow us to recognize within them a "literary space" in the sense meant by Blanchot: that realm where total solitude in the world is achieved through the means of literature.

Walter Muschg (1898-1965) was a professor of the history of literature in Zurich and Berlin, and later a professor of German literature in Basel in 1936. His students included Max Frisch and Urs Widmer.

Jacques Schotte (1928-2007) was a psychiatrist in Ghent, a professor of psychopathology in Louvain, and a pioneering researcher in anthropopsychiatry.

The intersection of psychoanalysis and literary expression has long occupied scholars of modern thought and European letters. Walter Muschg's 1930 reflection, translated and annotated by Jacques Schotte, examines the founder of psychoanalysis as a figure possessing a literary body of work. The volume considers how scientific reflection and artistic technique intertwine within these writings, highlighting an indefatigable drive to write and a prominent reliance on metaphor that distinguishes them from conventional scientific prose. Readers interested in the stylistic dimensions of psychoanalytic texts may find this translation and commentary relevant to their studies.