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This is a translation of Professor Freud's analysis of Wilhelm Jensen's novel “Gradiva.” Prefacing the translation of the analysis there is a translation of the novel itself, which makes the work complete in every way.
The novel “Gradiva” is itself well worth reading, aside from its analysis, just for the joy it gives. It is really a wonderful piece of phantasy wonderfully told, and might well be taken as a model by psychoanalysts of literary aspirations of what a psychoanalytic novel should be.
The analysis of the novel hardly needs comment. Professor Freud's authorship of it guarantees its excellence. It is most incisive, interesting and logically compelling, as are all of his wonderful writings. Strewn through the analysis are invaluable comments, more particularly upon the relation between delusions and dreams and upon the mechanism of recovery from delusions.
The work as a whole is absorbingly interesting from beginning to end and the wise judgment of the translator, which has put novel and analysis between the same covers, makes it to my mind one of the best, if not the best, introductions to psychoanalysis which the uninitiated could be given. The relationship between the elements in the phantasy and the actual events in the hero's life are so clearly portrayed that hardly anyone can fail to see them, and at the same time there is an absence of those elements which repel many from psychoanalysis before they have had an opportunity to learn enough about it to understand it.
The translation is exceptionally well done. The psychoanalytic movement is indebted to Miss Downey for her excellent work.
White