Freud Magill's Literary Annual 1991-2005

“Others abide our question,” the poet Matthew Arnold wrote of William Shakespeare, “Thou art free.” Indeed, Shakespeare may be one of the few giants in any field to have escaped the vicissitudes of public opinion—and even he has come under fire in the twentieth century. Therefore, it should be no surprise to see that Sigmund Freud, the man whose discoveries about the human psyche had made him a household name even before his death, is now as often vilified as vindicated by scholars. What may be surprising, however, is the rapidity with which Freud’s star has fallen after its...

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