On Bullfighting and the Future of Tragedy

The psycho-analyst may feel unqualified to discuss the analytic interpretation of bullfighting. He may never have seen a bullfight, might not accept an invitation to do so, and may abhor the whole idea. If forced to witness such a spectacle he may fortify himself with large quantities of dramamine and sleep through the whole performance. The horrible aspects of the fight obscure any interest in the symbolization of the ritual. This perhaps explains the relative sparsity of analytic attempts to interpret the flesta (2), (4). An analyst finds it easier to identify with the attitude of conscientious objection as represented by Ferdinand the Bull (3).

The ancient history of bullfighting shows that in historical reality something was dramatized which, in later times, became a psychological representation in the unconscious of modern man. This relationship between the historical past and the psychological present has always been of interest to psycho-analysis.

Historically speaking, the cow is probably older than the bull. The cow was worshipped as the representation of the milk-giving good mother in many religions, as for instance in early Egyptian cults or in Hinduism to this day. The bull was introduced into the picture as the primal mother's phallic consort, and may have been her son, as was Horus, the son of Isis. The original bullfighting or bull grappling, known to us best from the paintings found in Crete, was a kind of gymnastic dance in which girls participated. The idea was to vault over the back of the bull while holding on to his horns, perhaps imitating, symbolically, the salto mortale, or the course of the moon or the sun. The emblem of the moon (or of the sun) was placed between the horns of the cow or of the bull. The horns also symbolized the crescent moon, another source of magic power (1).

In other rites, the bull was sacrificed as the symbol of the sacred king who was ritually killed after his thirtee