Abstract
The essay describes a stage in Freud's literary education initiated by an early reading of Don Quixote in German translation. Fired by the depth and inventiveness of Cervantes's story-telling and the insight into human character it revealed, Freud conceived a desire to learn something of the language in which it was originally written; and the discovery of an excerpt from Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares in a Spanish reader led him and a schoolfriend to fashion for themselves a home-made Spanish as a medium for the construction of a private world. Assumption of the persona of Cipión, the dog who conducts a conversation with a fellow-dog in Cervantes's 'Coloquio entre Cipión y Berganza', made possible various kinds of self-image and distancing. Repeated readings of Don Quixote sharpened Freud's appreciation of different kinds of humour, provided dramatic images for himself and his fiancée along with opportunities to indulge his didactic impulses, and helped him portray, through contrast and parallel, characters encountered in his life and his reading. They also strengthened his appreciation of graphic art when he set himself to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Gustave Doré's illustrations. Some of Freud's comments bring into focus his time-conditioned social preconceptions, especially about the nature and social rôles of women. Freud subjects neither Don Quixote nor the 'Coloquio' to the kinds of psychoanalytic analysis he applied to the writings of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and Wilhelm Jensen; but when his aesthetic delight in Cervantes's art led him into self-definition and character analysis, he took a decisive step towards enlisting literature in the psychoanalytic quest. A concluding summary of the rôle of Cervantes's writings in Freud's life and thought offers itself as a demonstration of the part literature may play in the lives of sensitive and intelligent people who have not made its aesthetic investigation their principal task.
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