From the Inside Flap
"For his boldness of argument, astonishing breadth and depth of learning, gift for apt quotation, and stylistic verve and panache, Richard H. Armstrong should be awarded the yellow jersey of Freud studies. His tour de force provides the first comprehensive account of how antiquity is implicated in psychoanalytic theory and argument, and how Freud’s ‘compulsion for antiquity’ in turn provides a paradigm for the entire reception of classical culture in the age of High Modernism."—Peter L. Rudnytsky, University of Florida
"In this intriguing book, Richard H. Armstrong excavates Freud’s vast and diverse ancient ‘archive,’ showing in wonderful detail the ways in which psychoanalysis was built on archaeological, mythological, and historical analogies and evidence. Armstrong has done a wonderful job of documenting Freud’s imaginative reconfiguring of the neoclassical tradition, and showing how his sources of resistance to it—his Jewish identity and his debts to French and English anthropology and natural science—were also incorporated into his conception of the psyche. Finally, Armstrong poses a very timely question: if, as seems likely, twenty-first-century culture is no longer so deeply entangled with the ancient world as was Freud’s fin de siècle, is psychoanalysis, too, obsolete?"—Suzanne Marchand, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
"A Compulsion for Antiquity is a lively and enlivening, deeply scholarly, work on the dynamic relationship among Freud, the development of psychoanalysis, and the role of the resurrected and re-created nineteenth-century images of classical, biblical, and Middle Eastern antiquity. It stands out among the already fine literature on Freud’s intellectual and spiritual matrix."—Bennett Simon, MD, Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and author of Mind and Madness
From the Back Cover
"For his boldness of argument, astonishing breadth and depth of learning, gift for apt quotation, and stylistic verve and panache, Richard H. Armstrong should be awarded the yellow jersey of Freud studies. His tour de force provides the first comprehensive account of how antiquity is implicated in psychoanalytic theory and argument, and how Freud’s ‘compulsion for antiquity’ in turn provides a paradigm for the entire reception of classical culture in the age of High Modernism."—Peter L. Rudnytsky, University of Florida
"In this intriguing book, Richard H. Armstrong excavates Freud’s vast and diverse ancient ‘archive,’ showing in wonderful detail the ways in which psychoanalysis was built on archaeological, mythological, and historical analogies and evidence. Armstrong has done a wonderful job of documenting Freud’s imaginative reconfiguring of the neoclassical tradition, and showing how his sources of resistance to it—his Jewish identity and his debts to French and English anthropology and natural science—were also incorporated into his conception of the psyche. Finally, Armstrong poses a very timely question: if, as seems likely, twenty-first-century culture is no longer so deeply entangled with the ancient world as was Freud’s fin de siècle, is psychoanalysis, too, obsolete?"—Suzanne Marchand, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
"A Compulsion for Antiquity is a lively and enlivening, deeply scholarly, work on the dynamic relationship among Freud, the development of psychoanalysis, and the role of the resurrected and re-created nineteenth-century images of classical, biblical, and Middle Eastern antiquity. It stands out among the already fine literature on Freud’s intellectual and spiritual matrix."—Bennett Simon, MD, Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and author of Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece
"This book, to use Richard H. Armstrong’s own words, ‘hovers around Freud’s couch’ to record the fascinating dialogue between the ancient world and the architect of psychoanalysis. Armstrong’s interests are not to use psychoanalysis to interpret classical thought, but rather to show how classical thought shaped psychoanalysis. I know of no more riveting or detailed account of the complex role classical antiquity played in Freud’s life and works."—John Peradotto, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
