Alexander Welsh – författare

Although it is customary to credit Freud''s self-analysis, it may be more accurate, Alexander Welsh argues, to say that psychoanalysis began when The Interpretation of Dreams was published in the last weeks of the nineteenth century. Only by going public with his theory--that dreams manifest hidden wishes--did Freud establish a position to defend and embark upon a career. That position and career have been among the most influential in this century. In August 1899, Freud wrote to Wilhelm Fliess of the dream book in terms reminiscent of Dante''s Inferno. Beginning from a dark wood, this modern journey features "a concealed pass though which I lead the reader--my specimen dream with its peculiarities, details, indiscretions, bad jokes--and then suddenly the high ground and the view and the question, Which way do you wish to go now?" Physician that he is, Freud appoints himself guide rather than hero, yet the way "you" wish to go is very much his prescribed way. In Welsh''s book, readers are invited on Freud''s journey, to pause at each concealed pass in his seminal work and ask where the guide is taking them and why. Along the way, Welsh shows how Freud''s arbitrary turnings are themselves wishful, intended to persuade by pleasing the reader and author alike; that his interest in secrets and his self-proclaimed modest ambition are products of their time; and that the book may best be read as a romance or serial comedy. "Some of the humor throughout," Welsh notes, "can only be understood as a particular kind of fine performance." Welsh offers the first critical overview of the argument in Freud''s masterpiece and of the author who presents himself as guide.

Focusing on Shakespeare''s Hamlet as foremost a study of grief, Alexander Welsh offers a powerful analysis of its protagonist as the archetype of the modern hero. For over two centuries writers and critics have viewed Hamlet''s persona as a fascinating blend of self-consciousness, guilt, and wit. Yet in order to understand more deeply the modernity of this Shakespearean hero, Welsh first situates Hamlet within the context of family and mourning as it was presented in other revenge tragedies of Shakespeare''s time. Revenge, he maintains, appears as a function of mourning rather than an end in itself. Welsh also reminds us that the mourning of a son for his father may not always be sincere. This book relates the problem of dubious mourning to Hamlet''s ascendancy as an icon of Western culture, which began late in the eighteenth century, a time when the thinking of past generations--or fathers--represented to many an obstacle to human progress. Welsh reveals how Hamlet inspired some of the greatest practitioners of modernity''s quintessential literary form, the novel. Goethe''s Wilhelm Meister''s Apprenticeship, Scott''s Redgauntlet, Dickens''s Great Expectations, Melville''s Pierre, and Joyce''s Ulysses all enhance our understanding of the play while illustrating a trend in which Hamlet ultimately becomes a model of intense consciousness. Arguing that modern consciousness mourns for the past, even as it pretends to be free of it, Welsh offers a compelling explanation of why Hamlet remains marvelously attractive to this day.