The Best American Poetry

On Freud's birthday, the definitive "what do women want?" [by David Lehman]

Freud’s Immortal Question

Or, one student’s adventures in higher yearning

By David Lehman

May 6, 2018

To: Colleagues in the Writing Module

From: Jack Hexter

Many of you who have worked with Richard Treacy will be impressed by the progress he has made, as shown by his essay (below) on the take-home final (open-book, three hours).

Sigmund Freud asked, in evident exasperation, “What do women want?” Based on your understanding of at least three of the works we read this semester, how would you answer Freud’s question? Be sure to give a title to your essay.

What Women Want

by Richard H. Tracey

Some would say they want to get married and raise a family. Others want to “have it all.” I am not sure whether that is even possible, but it is the ideal pursued by some. I think the answer is more complicated than that.

It is hard to generalize about women, but I will try, because half of us are them, slightly more than a majority, and maybe even more than that according to demographic studies indicating that women live longer than men, and it is something like 50.2% versus 49.8% of the population. So technically it is possible that they could vote a woman president into office if they all stuck together.

When I think of Antigone, Major Barbara, The Death of Ivan Ilych, the Bible, and even Lucky Jim, looking for what they have in common, each woman is a unique individual, with an identity that sets them apart at the same time that they belong to a larger group, just like each of us who come from different backgrounds, and yet, as was mentioned in class, there is “unity in diversity” for despite our variegated pasts we share a “stake in humanity” by endeavoring to do the same little everyday things like brush our teeth, put on our clothes, and eat breakfast before we come to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9 A.M. in Hartwick Hall.

Let me give an example. Of these various female characters. And what they want. Since that is the question. They all want to help. Antigone helps her brother, Barbara tries to help those whose souls need saving, Lady Britomart tries to help her family and herself, and Praskovya helps society by conforming with it. Also, Eve helps to fulfill human destiny by eating the apple, and Kurtz’s fiancée in Heart of Darkness wants to help the war effort in the Congo by honoring Kurtz and the sacrifices he made.

Thus, each of these four women leads an individual life, with individual desires that sets them apart. One desires the ordinary, one the extraordinary; one desires to save souls, and one wants to be the center of attention.

Yet they have one thing in common. Whatever they desire, each wants to succeed in that desire. And furthermore each goes to extremes to fulfill that desire. Praskovya ignores her husband’s death, Antigone hangs herself, Barbara accepts the entirely different philosophy of Undershaft, Eve bites into the apple and then brings it to Adam, not knowing what the consequences will be, and Margaret throws fits. Women, then, desire what she will, but always desires success.

Sadly there may come a time for each of them when enough has gone too far. But for whom could it be different?

Speaking personally, it is very hard to say what a woman wants. Freud would not have asked it if the answer was obvious. He would probably answer in terms of “sexual desire,” which I find hard to believe considering that sex is not necessarily overrated but is merely one facet of a life in which there are other aspects including quality of life issues (food, beer, having a pet, etc.), sports (football being the obvious example, but again this transcends gender, e.g. the U.S. women’s soccer team), politics (Hillary Clinton), and yes, even our studies, which may be the key to future success if affluence is the goal or if you want to get into law school, the Peace Corpse, or the foreign service, which has a test which I hear is a bitch.>>

For more of "Freud's Immortal Question," this link should direct you to  The American Scholar (September 4, 2012).

The Clue in the Embers [by Martina Marietta]

for David Lehman

 (1) A lady inquires about a common acquaintance by her maiden name.

(2) The lost pencil was a present from the brother-in-law with whom he later quarreled.

(3) In the New Testament we read of women as "the weaker vessel."

(4) In dreams embarking on a journey represents dying.

(5) A broken arm coincides with the breaking of a marital vow.

(6) "One half of me is yours; the other half yours, --
       Mine own I would say. . . "

(7)" In his great career, he has punished many authors."

(8) The primitive man (Urmensch) became the clock-man (Uhrmensch) because it was time for lunch

(9) "Do all Italian women dance so well?" "No, just the better part of them" (the bona parte).

(10) "He treated me famillionairely."

Author's note: which of these ten is a quote or paraphrase from Freud? -- MM

On the Sixth of May, Freud's birthday (and that of Willie Mays) [by David Lehman & Kathleen Heil]

Freud visited the United States in December 1929

(1) To investigate the spate of suicides following the stock market crash in October

(2) To meet with his American editor, Maxwell Perkins.

(3) To give the celebrated Kramden lectures at Princeton.

(4) Freud never visited the United States

(5) Do you mean Lucien Freud?

This one didn't make it into the published version of "Freud Quiz." But the following one did -- and triggered a response from Kathleen Heil in 2008:

February 23, 2008

Freud Quiz #5

What is the "compulsion to repeat"?

(a) the impulse to keep doing the thing that scares you -- in an effort to master the fear

(b) the wish to make the same mistake twice, and be forgiven 

(c) the reason why Hitler copied Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia

(d) the need to repeat the same futile action and the madness of expecting a different result

(e) the rhetorical strategy of using the same word (or an anagram of it) in every sentence of a paragraph

-- DL

The Compulsion to Repeat

(after reading David Lehman's Freud Quiz #5)

I'm going to begin by repeating a phrase
oft repeated
and despised by those like me who dislike
repetition for impression
a friend of mine
a poet
made a quiz about Freud:
what is the compulsion to repeat
to do the thing that scares you
over again and be
forgiven
or should we ask Hitler about Napoleon
and Russians about the madness of repeating the same futile action in hopes of expecting a different
result repeat it
in repeating your quiz, David
I pretend to make a poem
because
pretender
in Spanish is a lovely way to say
you tried, didn't you
implied, the failure being the outcome of your compulsion,
also to woo, court,
pretender
try it is better than our word to be
repeated repeat try
in a rhetorical strategy
to be better than pretending
to repeat what almost was
yet another attempt
to try and get
that Spaniard to pretend.

Kathleen Ignatius [i.e. Kathleen Heil]
Madrid, Spain
5 marzo

Freud's Immortal Question Revisited [by David Lehman]

Freud’s Immortal Question

Or, one student’s adventures in higher yearning

By David Lehman

May 6, 2018

To: Colleagues in the Writing Module

From: Jack Hexter

Many of you who have worked with Richard Treacy will be impressed by the progress he has made, as shown by his essay (below) on the take-home final (open-book, three hours).

Sigmund Freud asked, in evident exasperation, “What do women want?” Based on your understanding of at least three of the works we read this semester, how would you answer Freud’s question? Be sure to give a title to your essay.

What Women Want

by Richard H. Tracey

Some would say they want to get married and raise a family. Others want to “have it all.” I am not sure whether that is even possible, but it is the ideal pursued by some. I think the answer is more complicated than that.

It is hard to generalize about women, but I will try, because half of us are them, slightly more than a majority, and maybe even more than that according to demographic studies indicating that women live longer than men, and it is something like 50.2% versus 49.8% of the population. So technically it is possible that they could vote a woman president into office if they all stuck together.

When I think of Antigone, Major Barbara, The Death of Ivan Ilych, the Bible, and even Lucky Jim, looking for what they have in common, each woman is a unique individual, with an identity that sets them apart at the same time that they belong to a larger group, just like each of us who come from different backgrounds, and yet, as was mentioned in class, there is “unity in diversity” for despite our variegated pasts we share a “stake in humanity” by endeavoring to do the same little everyday things like brush our teeth, put on our clothes, and eat breakfast before we come to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9 A.M. in Hartwick Hall.

Let me give an example. Of these various female characters. And what they want. Since that is the question. They all want to help. Antigone helps her brother, Barbara tries to help those whose souls need saving, Lady Britomart tries to help her family and herself, and Praskovya helps society by conforming with it. Also, Eve helps to fulfill human destiny by eating the apple, and Kurtz’s fiancée in Heart of Darkness wants to help the war effort in the Congo by honoring Kurtz and the sacrifices he made.

Thus, each of these four women leads an individual life, with individual desires that sets them apart. One desires the ordinary, one the extraordinary; one desires to save souls, and one wants to be the center of attention.

Yet they have one thing in common. Whatever they desire, each wants to succeed in that desire. And furthermore each goes to extremes to fulfill that desire. Praskovya ignores her husband’s death, Antigone hangs herself, Barbara accepts the entirely different philosophy of Undershaft, Eve bites into the apple and then brings it to Adam, not knowing what the consequences will be, and Margaret throws fits. Women, then, desire what she will, but always desires success.

Sadly there may come a time for each of them when enough has gone too far. But for whom could it be different?

Speaking personally, it is very hard to say what a woman wants. Freud would not have asked it if the answer was obvious. He would probably answer in terms of “sexual desire,” which I find hard to believe considering that sex is not necessarily overrated but is merely one facet of a life in which there are other aspects including quality of life issues (food, beer, having a pet, etc.), sports (football being the obvious example, but again this transcends gender, e.g. the U.S. women’s soccer team), politics (Hillary Clinton), and yes, even our studies, which may be the key to future success if affluence is the goal or if you want to get into law school, the Peace Corpse, or the foreign service, which has a test which I hear is a bitch.>>

For more of "Freud's Immortal Question," this link should direct you to  The American Scholar (September 4, 2012).

Freud Quiz: Bonus Round #2 [by David Lehman]

Freud was seen leaving the theater after a showing of Terence Malick's new movie "The Tree of Life." Our intrepid reporter caught up with the great man and what do you think happened?
(1) Freud introduced the reporter and his significant other to Jean Piaget, with whom he had witnessed the picture. He called it "picture."
(2) Freud said the technique was impressive and that the content was at bottom the "same old same old" complex that afflicted Oedipus, though in this case the murderous impulse was repressed, with lingering emotions of rage and guilt.
(3) Freud's customary glare flirted with a smile when his female companion said "Brad Pitt was excellent but who needs Sean Penn?"
(4) Freud said the picture was the best depiction of evolution since 2001 (the movie, not the year)
(5) The bearded man in the three-piece suit, with the chain of his pocketwatch stylishly in view, and with a lighted cigar between the index and middle finger of his right hand, denied being Freud despite being a dead ringer for him. "You're not the first person to make that mistake," he said.

[from the archive:originally posted 2011]

Freud Quiz -- Bonus Round [by David Lehman]

If you went “beyond the pleasure principle,” where would you be going, and with whom?

(a) the Italian Renaissance with Vasari

(b) the Spanish Inquisition with Loyola

(c) the French Revolution with Saint-Just

(d) the Trojan War with Agamemnon

(e) the American century with Henry Ford

Extra credit:
Although this question has no correct answer, the question mattered to Freud because

(1) Depending on the patient’s answer he would know whether she was an Alice or a Mabel.
(2) When the tide ebbs you can see which bathers are naked.
(3) He had set out to refute Henry Ford’s line that “history is bunk”
(4) He knew that “the present is a future that came through” (Frank O’Hara”)
(5) He was certain that the Great War would have been prevented had they heeded his counsel.

-- DL

Freud Quiz #32: Mays Continues to Amaze [by DL]

Heartfelt happy birthday wishes to Willie Mays born today, on May 6, 1931, echoing the birthday of Sigmund Schlomo Freud on May 6, 1856. The fact that the father of psychoanalysis and the Giants' great center-fielder shared a birthday

(1) would have been deemed inevitable to a student of their natal charts who was also a watcher of the skies.
(2) begs the question.
(3) dares one to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion
(4) proves that the best and most natural of center-fielders was playing unconscious in a sense Freud may be said to have uncovered in his studies of geniuses who had been naughty boys, like Goethe
(5) reminds me of the little-known fact that Mays argued against the view that Freud's thought resembled the Russian Revolution inasmuch as it is said to have betrayed itself from the start, in Freud's case with the concept of the Oedipus complex.
(6) leaves even the most ardent advocates of the children of Taurus convinced that the two had nothing in common but their greatness, but Isn't that enough?

-- DL

Freud Quiz #31: The Acquisition of Power over Fire [by David Lehman]

To explain how man acquired the power of fire, Freud appeals to which of the following:

(1) The story of Prometheus, the Titan, who stole the fire of the gods and gave it to humankind, hidden in a phallic-shaped hollow rod. For this crime he was punished most vilely: each day a vulture feasted on his liver, which in ancient times was regarded as the seat of all passion and desires.

(2) The organ that Heine describes in these lines: "Was dem Menscen dient zum Seichen / Damit schafft er Seinesgleichen." ["With that which serves a man to piss / He reproduces his own kind."] The child thinks he can do both things at once. But the adult knows that "the two acts are as incompatible as fire and water."

(3) The fact that the penis is sometimes in a fiery state of excitation that justifies calling it a cock in English (or a vogel, or bird, in German). In such a state, urination is impossible

(4) The example of fictional characters such as Gargantua and Pantagruel in Rabelais and Gulliver in Swift [see illustration] who put out fires by pissing on them, dramatizing that such an action is natural and must be renounced by mankind if we are going to achieve civilization and its attendant discontents.

(5) Hercules can achieve his triumph over the hydra-headed water-snake of Lerna only when he uses fire to burn out the snake's one immortal head -- which seems counter to the thrust of our argument until we "reverse the manifest content."

(6) All of the above. -- DL

What Made Freud Think of That? [by David Lehman]

A definitive example of the spontaneous aphorism:
<<<
One is irresistibly reminded of an incident in the French Chamber when capital punishment was being debated. A member had been passionately supporting its abolition and his speech was being received with tumultuous applause, when a voice from the hall called out: 'Que messieurs les assassins commencent!' [Let the murderers make the first move.]

-- Freud.Civilization and Its Discontents
>>>

OK, everyone. In the course of writing, Civilization and Its Discontents, what argument or quotation "irresistibly reminded" Freud of this incident?

I wonder whether others will concur when I say that Civilization and Its Discontents is one of the most irresistible titles of the twentieth century. -- DL

Jacques Lacan: Imaginary Philosopher (by Jenny Factor)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my son's favorite people is Jacques Lacan. "He's dead," you say? Well, you have a right to your opinion.

I can tell you that Lacan has been riding in the backseat of my Toyota Prius, keeping my teen and me company as we cross town between school and our small house, whose front yard is set in a great school district and whose backyard answers to a not-so-fine one. My son does not always agree with Lacan, but he knows him like a brother. As the wheels turn, we rattle on about current events, the unknowable Big Other, the Register of the Real, the Lack, and other Lacanisms made popular by a man we refer to as Jacques or just "Jack". 

My son never had an imaginary friend, but I now live with my son and his Imaginary Philosopher.

And truly, if you ask him, my kid can tell you what Jacques thinks about everything...

The Imaginary, The Symbolic, and the Real: Three types of experience, all bound up in signfication (and signifiers)

Freud Quiz # 30: The Freudian Slap [by David Lehman]

A Freudian slip is

(a) A courteous form letter from the New Yorker declining to print your latest effort “despite its obvious merit.”
(b) A patch of a woman’s white slip strategically exposed beneath her skirt or dress.
(c) The inability to keep a secret, usually but not always sexual.
(d) The laughter aroused when a rotund man slips on a banana peel and flies spectacularly to a hard landing.on the pavement
(e) A mistake attributable to deep subconscious elements in the human psyche.
(f) Such stuff as dreams are made of.
(g) An error, as in the joke Jung told Freud about the man, the woman, and the duck entering a bar, which resulted in Jung’s expulsion from the movement on the grounds that either woman or duck was code for Jew in that joke.
(h) A pyrrhic victory, or deja-vu in French.

Freud Quiz # 29

Freud was seen leaving the theater after a showing of Terence Malick's new movie "The Tree of Life." Our intrepid reporter caught up with the great man and what do you think happened?
(1) Freud introduced the reporter and his significant other to Jean Piaget, with whom he had witnessed the picture. He called it "a picture."
(2) Freud said the technique was impressive and that the content was at bottom the "same old same old" complex that afflicted Oedipus, though in this case the murderous impulse was repressed, with lingering emotions of rage and guilt.
(3) Freud smiled in possible agreement when his female companion said that "Brad Pitt was excellent but who needs Sean Penn?"
(4) Freud said the picture was the best depiction of evolution since 2001 (the movie, not the year)
(5) The bearded man in the three-piece suit with the chain of his pocketwatch stylishly in view, holding a lighted cigar between the index and middle finger of his rigth hand, denied being Freud despite being a dead ringer for him. "You're not the first person to make that mistake," he said.

Freud Quiz #28

y

If you went “beyond the pleasure principle,” where would you be going, and with whom?
(a) the Italian Renaissance with Vasari
(b) the Spanish Inquisition with Loyola
(c) the French Revolution with Saint-Just
(d) the Trojan War with Ares or Poseidon
(e) the American century with Henry Ford

Extra credit:

1. Name the dudes above. Who is the third who sits always by their side?  
II. Although the question just asked has no correct answer, Freud liked to ask it because
(1) By these means he would be able to tell the sheep from the wolf
(2) He felt that the only one thing that was inevitable besides death and taxes was history
(3) He felt that those who didn't know their history were doomed to repeat it.
(4) He believed that history to the defated may say Alas but cannot help or pardon.
(5) He and Wittgentstein spent hours analyzing the remark they overheard from a disgruntled student: "History is a waste of time." -- DL

Freud Quiz # 27

In addition to John Huston's movie Freud, starring Montgomery Clift, which of these movies deals with the papa of psychoanalysis:

(1) Orson Welles''s "The Trial" in which Joseph K. (Anthony Perkins) -- and by extension Kafka himself -- is understood to be Freud's anti-type and thus, by Freudian logic, Freud himself.

(2) Orson Welles's "Chimes at Midnight" in which Freud (Orson Welles) cavorts after hours with tippling cronies and good-natured prostitutes.

(3) Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" in which Freud is depicted as a version of Macbeth, with Mrs. Freud (Lady MacBeth) providing the brains and the drive of the operation.

(4) Hitchcock's "Spellbound" in which Gregory Peck is an amnesiac, Ingrid Bergman is his analyst, and Freud is Ingrid Bergman's father in upstate New York

(5) Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch," an allegory about the triumph of Freud's ego psychology (William Holden) over rival theories of the universe such as those of Karl Marx (the Mexicans), Lenin (the machine gun), and Jacques Derrida (the scorpions). Ernest Borgnine plays Freud's wife and Robert Ryan is Jung. Also starring Ben Joihnson as Ben Jonson and Warren Oates as himself. For extra credit, what is the last thing William Holden says in the movie? .

Freud Quiz # 26

If Freud and Dante held a summit meeting, where would it be?

(a) The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, 1962.
(b) Greenwich Village
(c) With Ulysses and Diomedes in the Eighth Circle of The Inferno
(d) Stanza 14 of Auden’s elegy for Freud.
(e) AA
(f) In New York City’s war on crime
(g) Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944

and what would they discuss?

(a) penis envy
(b) castration complexes
(c) Oedipal complexes
(d) Beatrice's health
(e) syphilis
(f) why they both hate Derrida
(g) the food

Kudos to Kenyon

The new issue of Kenyon Review is here and once again editor David Lynn and poetry editor David Baker have given us much to savor. Franz Wright has a wondeful prose poem from the point of view of a girl who has had "a particularly arduous day in eighth grade," and Jane Hirshfield gets under the skin of a vestment: "A sweater takes on the shape of its wearer." A third impressive poem is Paisley Rekdal's "Happiness," surely a more challenging subject than its opposite. The biographer Jeffrey Meyers is prolific and knowledgable and quirky in the best sense, and here he weighs in with an essay about John Huston's movie Freud: The Secret Passion starring Montgeomery Clift and Susannah York. Meyers has great material to work with and does it justice. Even the groanworthy puns ("Cecil's father likes to go driving, but puts the whores before the cart") are enjoyable. Evidently no one liked the movie but it is a fascinating piece of work if only for the dream sequences (in one of which "protestant" turns out to be dream shorthand for "prostitute") and the weirdness of Monty as Freud. -- DL

Freud Quiz #25

Freud visited the United States in 1929

(1) To investigate the spate of suicides following the stock market crash in October

(2) To meet with his American editor, Maxwell Perkins.

(3) To give the celebrated Kramden lectures at Princeton.

(4) Freud never visited the United States

(5) Do you mean Lucien Freud?

Freud Quiz #24

Where and when did Freud die, and of what cause?

(1) At Freiberg (then part of Moravia) of a gunshot wound said to be self-inflicted on 6 May 1856

(2) In London of throat cancer on 23 September 1939

(3) Brokenhearted in North London of so-called natural causes on March 14, 1883

(4) In Paris, executed by guillotine, 28 July 1794

(5) In the saddle on January 26, 1979

(6) Of food poisoning a week after the publication of Traumdeutung in Vienna on November 1899

Extra credit:

What were his last words?
(1) Mehr licht! Mehr licht!
(2) More beer!
(3) Either the wallpaper goes, or I do.
(3) Friends, applaud! The comedy is finished.
(4) Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
(5) Am I dying, or is it my birthday?

Freud Quiz #23

April 26, 2009
Freud Quiz # 23
One August day in 1909 Freud fainted in Jung's company because
(1) He was eating lunch with Jung and the schnitzel disagreed with him
(2) He felt a sexual attraction to Jung
(3) Freud had slept with his wife’s younger sister and Jung threatened to blackmail him after hearing him talk about it in his sleep on the trip the two men took to America
(4) They were having an argument about something trivial when Jung revealed himself to be a virulent anti-Semite. “You’re next,” he said with an evil laugh. He kept repeating, Jude Jude Jude.
(5) Freud said the father of monotheism must have hated his own father and Jung gave him a dirty look
(6) Jung said the spring weather made him feel like a young man. From this innocuous remark, Freud knew that Jung was an impostor. “You were never Jung!” Freud cried.

 

Freud's fainting couch in Vienna, where he practiced his famous fainting spell.

-- DL

Freud Quiz # 22

Freud Quiz # 22
The secret agenda of Moses and Monotheism is
(a) Moses was an Egyptian
(b) Monotheism was an advance on polytheism because the concentration of divinity in a single individual meant that man could restore the intimacy of the child’s relation to his father
(c) Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny
(d) Peace in the Middle East
(e) If you tell an animal joke, your chances of getting a laugh will improve if you make the animal a duck.

-- DL

Freud Quiz # 21

Freud Quiz # 21
This is the first sentence of Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents:
(a) “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement – that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”
(b) “Two scenes from Shakespeare, one from a comedy and the other from a tragedy, have lately given me occasion for setting and solving a little problem.”
(c) “In my Traumdeutung I made a statement concerning one of the findings of my analytic work which I did not then understand.”
(d) “The word ‘No’ does not seem to exist for a dream.”
(e) “Anyone who has at any time had occasion to enquire from the literature of aesthetics and psychology what light can be thrown on the nature of jokes  and on the position they occupy will probably have to admit that jokes have not received nearly as much philosophical consideration as they deserve in view of the part they play in our mental life.”

Note: The opening lines of three other essays by Freud are also given here.

-- DL