Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

“A FREUDIAN FANTASY” (COMMENT).

May 13, 2015 at 9:15 PM · Literature, Shakespeare

“A FREUDIAN FANTASY” (COMMENT). Dick Weisfelder commented pithily on yesterday’s post, which quoted heavily from a Freudian analysis by Adam Phillips of the cruelty of much self criticism. Dick’s comment: “A Freudian fantasy”. I certainly found the Freudian analysis to be such tough going that I only skimmed it. But Phillips did state a conclusion that I have only arrived at in the last few years. Phillips discusses self criticism by analyzing Freud and Hamlet. I noted in my first post on the “Against Self Criticism” essay that I had come to the same conclusions by watching Blackadder’s treatment of his dogsbody Baldrick (my earlier post was dated January 15 of this year). Blackadder is a lot easier than Freud to understand.