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This remarkable book by the well-known semiologist Teresa de Lauretis begins with an introduction that looks at the past, but also at the present and the future. The main thesis of the book rehabilitates the Freudian theory of the death drive, a theory that is hardly accepted by mainstream psychoanalytic circles. But so many other themes and hypotheses are included in Freud's Drive that the book demands careful reading. The author discusses the Freudian theory of drives, with long quotations revised from the Standard Edition. She also spans from the present time to mythical time and illustrates the transitions from Freud's thinking to issues debated today.
The overall aim of Freud's Drive is “to reflect on the relevance of Freud's theory of drives for the history of…our present” (p. 1). The dualism of the life drive and the death drive is part of Freud's legacy; however, here we have a revisionist view of the Freudian theory as put forth by Jean Laplanche, the gist of which is to take a deeper look at the death drive. It is symptomatic of our times-times marked by interminable wars. Written at this particular moment in time, the book is an indication of de Lauretis's ability to understand the present.
One surprise is the fact that Freud's classic work Inhibition, Symptom, Anxiety is not mentioned, as it would have shed light on de Lauretis's theory of trauma. Even so, Freud's theory on trauma is rightly considered here as being “an internal ‘foreign body’…acting there like a computer virus in a database” (p. 7). Trauma reveals how the role of the unconscious installs a duality that is impossible to avoid. De Lauretis defends Freud's theories notwithstanding his ubiquitous ambiguities and his persistent biologism. At the same time she is attentive to other psychoanalytic sources that clarify Freud's ideas.
Freud's Drive is written in the language of semiotics where text and signifiers call for the inclusion of some major historical personalities who help in making psych