Wagner, Freud and the End of Myth 4: Stephen Gross - Freud and Wagner: The Assault on Reason

Stephen Gross - Freud and Wagner: The Assault on Reason

Wagner, Freud and the End of Myth: Day conference, Saturday 28 September 2013

A highly significant connection linking Freud and Wagner is the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. His claim that true reality consists of the primordial and undifferentiated Will beyond both space and time as well as the reach of Reason and appearance, was hugely influential on Wagner's music, particularly "Tristan and Isolde" as Bryan Magee has argued in his celebrated study Wagner and Philosophy. Freud's notion of the unconscious, most specifically the id as seat of the sex drives, can now be seen as a derivation of Schopenhauer's ideas, thereby establishing his link with Wagner. The fierce resistance and hostility towards both Freud and Wagner was founded not only on their perceived assault on prevailing sexual mores, but their assault on Reason itself, and, in Wagner's case, on his association with Nazism.

Stephen Gross is an analytic psychotherapist in private practice. He also teaches and supervises at WPF Therapy and other training organisations. He is particularly interested in the overlap between psychotherapy and literature, especially the works of Shakespeare on which he has published widely. His first play, "Freud's Night Visitors" has been performed twice at The Freud Museum London.