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The English Freud: W. H. R. Rivers, Dreaming, and the Making of the Early Twentieth-Century Human Sciences

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History and Psyche

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Abstract

In the “General Preface” to The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, James Strachey wrote: “The imaginary model which I have always kept before me is of the writings of some English man of science of wide education born in the middle of the nineteenth century. And I should like, in an explanatory and no patriotic spirit, to emphasize the word ‘English.’”1 It is an amusing, seemingly pointless, question to ask: whom did Strachey have in mind as his model? And it leads to another parallel question: since Strachey actually did create, through his translation, an imagined “English Freud,” a man of science of wide education born around 1850, can we pinpoint an actual English man of science who corresponds closely to this figure? This “English man of science” would have to have an inclination for bold speculation and adventure. He would have to be bold, courageous, imaginative, and empirically immersed through firsthand experience in the construction of a new human science or sciences. Once one specifies these characteristics, a plausible candidate comes into focus: W. H. R. Rivers.

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Notes

  1. James Strachey, “General Preface,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume I (1886–1899): Pre-Psycho-Analytic Publications and Unpublished Drafts, Standard Edition, 1 (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1966), xiii-xxvi, at xix.

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Sally Alexander Barbara Taylor

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Forrester, J. (2012). The English Freud: W. H. R. Rivers, Dreaming, and the Making of the Early Twentieth-Century Human Sciences. In: Alexander, S., Taylor, B. (eds) History and Psyche. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137092427_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137092427_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-230-11385-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-09242-7

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