The Interpretation of Dreams | Critical Responses to Freud's Dream Interpretation
In the following introductory essay, Bloom examines critical responses to Freud’s dream interpretation,
including reading Freud’s work as literature.
Charles Rycroft explains his use of the word ‘‘innocence’’ in the title of his The Innocence of Dreams as a reference to ‘‘the idea that dreams back knowingness, display an indifference to received categories, and have a core which cannot but be sincere and is uncontaminated by the self-conscious will.’’ Such an explanation is itself innocent and hardly accounts for the polemical force of the title, since the book is largely written against Freud where Freud is strongest, in the interpretation of dreams. The actual rhetorical force of Rycroft’s title is that it...
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