Między wyobraźnią romantyczną a literacką moderną. Georg Groddeck w lustrze psychoanalizy
Between Romantic Imagination and Literary Modernism. Georg Groddeck in the Psychoanalytic Mirror

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the present paper is to introduce the theory of a German physician and so-called “wild psychoanalyst” Georg Groddeck. During World War I, after contacting Sigmund Freud, Groddeck has started to develop his own psychoanalytic theory in his scientific as well as literary writings. In 1923 he published a novel entitled The Book of the It (Das Buch vom Es), in which he discussed and reinterpreted Freud’s theory. By introducing the category of the “It” (das Es), Groddeck aimed to elaborate on Freud’s concept of the unconscious, which he considered too restricted and reduced to what the Viennese psychoanalyst defined as the conscious and the preconscious. The author points out to the importance of the discussion between Freud and Groddeck, which began as early as in 1917 in their letters. The publication of The Book of the It coincide with Freud’s treatise The Ego and the Id (Das Ich und das Es) written the same year. The author analyzes the similarities as well as the differences between Freud’s and Groddeck’s concepts of the It (das Es). Groddeck’s theory is presented in the light of German philosophical and literary tradition. The paper addresses the problem of Groddeck modernist writing strategies, such as combining psychoanalysis with literature and with different life-writing genres which are seen as his way to create a new language in the scientific discourse of his time. The author emphasizes the importance of two main categories in Groddeck’s writings, which have animated his entire theory. One is imagination, deeply rooted in romanticism, the other is self-analysis related to the modernist understanding of autobiography. While imagination represents Groddeck’s general doubt in the objectivity of science, especially in a linear progress in medicine, self-analysis is linked to his conviction that every discourse – not only literary, but also philosophical or psychoanalytic, has an autobiographical, hence also intimate dimension.

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