Letter from Genoa

Gianpaolo Sasso's La Mente Intralinguistica (The Intralinguistic Mind) is a work of considerable heuristic value and an aid in comprehending the process of signification. Language (above all, poetry), has anagrams and words inside other words, in which the unconscious reveals unsuspected surprises. As lovers of linguistics know, anagrams are the result of a process that consists of obtaining other words and sentences of different meanings, using the same letters. For example: ROME/MORE, READ/DEAR. Words inside other words are easily found in common language: TEMPORARY, for instance, is a word contained in CONTEMPORARY and ANY is contained in MANY.

Anagrams are known in many languages and have a long history; they occur frequently in the Bible. The Greeks attributed the authorship of anagrams to a tragic poet who lived during the fourth and third centuries BC. Anagrams play a great part in the creation of pseudonyms and noms de plume. Think of Voltaire (Arouet l/e j/eune), where u=v and j=i. One may take many liberties with anagrams.

Sasso's work appears to be directed to linguists, but is of value to psychologists and psychoanalysts. Freud himself was attracted to anagrams. We know that the pun “zeruf” (a combination), is present in Jewish mysticism which establishes the meaning according to the numeric value of words; in alphabetical symbolism, that is, forming words starting either from the first or the last letter of the other words, according to the principle of dominoes; and finally in the Kabala's mystical reinterpretation of words, where anagrams are employed. It is very likely that Jewish tradition influenced the young Freud and aroused his interest in puns and wit. In his analysis of the “Wolf Man,” Freud worked long with his patient on the mysterious word “Gleizsamen” that the Wolf Man would continuously repeat in an obsessive way, while masturbating. Finally Freud came to the conclusion that the word was the union of Gledjs (the anagram of Gisel) and samen,