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Freud’s interpretation in “Medusa’s Head” and some alternative psychoanalytic implications of Ovid’s Medusa.

Authors :
Sokol, B. J.
Source :
International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Apr2024, Vol. 105 Issue 2, p192-209. 18p.
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

Freud’s very brief 1922 paper on the beheading of Medusa by Perseus wisely concludes with a call for a further examination of the sources of the legend. A now widespread interpretation of this legend is based (often without acknowledgement) on an addition to traditions concerning Medusa made in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It is argued here that this Ovidian innovation has often been misinterpreted, and that a more careful reading of Metamorphoses supports neither a widely alleged exclusively vengeful portrayal of Medusa, nor Freud’s portrayal of Medusa’s decapitation as solely a pitiable and terrible symbol of castration. Instead, Ovid’s complex treatments of myths involving Medusa, Minerva and Perseus present parallels with Kleinian insights into phantasy attacks on fecundity, and into imagined revivals of dead or damaged inside babies. Thus the “displacement upwards” of the fearful castrated maternal genital envisioned in Freud’s “Medusa’s Head” must stand beside a quite different “displacement upwards” of the life-giving maternal genital. Indeed, tradition holds that Medusa’s beheading gives rise to the birth of vigorous twins. Together with allied details, this aligns Ovid’s masterwork with theories that modify or displace the so called “sexual phallic monism” that some believe taints Freud’s theories of gender development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects

Subjects :
*CASTRATION
*MYTH
*MONISM
*BEHEADING

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00207578
Volume :
105
Issue :
2
Database :
Academic Search Index
Journal :
International Journal of Psychoanalysis
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
177522979
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2023.2255888