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We are happy to publish herewith a translation of an article by Jean-Claude Rolland simultaneously to it being presented to the French public in Libres cahiers pour la psychanalyse. Rolland is one of the most notable psychoanalysts in the generation following André Green, Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bernard Pontalis, who, as we sadly know, have all died during the last couple of years. Like them, Rolland combines a thorough knowledge of Freud’s oeuvre with a subtle appreciation of literature and art.
When I met Jean-Claude Rolland last November, in Beaujolais just north of Lyon, he described to me how he among authors held Charles Baudelaire in high regard. In the Preface to his second book, Pontalis told precisely how Rolland quotes poems in his writings, often by Baudelaire. “It is not in order to analyse them, it is rather to listen to what the words of the poets evoke, which even may have escaped the attention of the poet; words deposed there like relics and fossils”, says Pontalis.
The title of this book, Avant d’être celui qui parle (Before being the person who speaks), can be read as indicating Rolland’s wide-reaching field of interest. As many of his French colleagues, we also find with Rolland a lucid reflection on the rôle of language in the cure as well as in the organization of the psyche. On how for instance, words heard in childhood can be left with us like relics and fossils.
It would, however, not be just to say that it is only by means of words that we gain access to the inner life. Running through the works of Rolland – his main articles are collected in three books – is an attentiveness to the import of images. The way he sits with