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FREUD, Sigmund (1856-1939). Autograph Letter Signed (“freud”) [to Percy Allen (1875-1959)], Vienna, 7 November 1935.
FREUD, Sigmund (1856-1939). Autograph Letter Signed (“freud”) [to Percy Allen (1875-1959)], Vienna, 7 November 1935. In German, two pages, 280 x 226mm (some creasing and minor spots, small marginal repair). Matted and bound with typed translation in custom full black morocco album; cloth clamshell box. Freud denying William Shakespeare’s authorship of the plays: “‘Lear’ can only be understood psychologically by assuming [Edward de Vere, Earl of] Oxford is the author and … I believe Edward de Vere to have been the author of all the other genuine Shakespeare plays” (in translation). Freud began reading Shakespeare at the age of eight; he remained a favorite and often quoted author throughout his life. References to Shakespeare are frequent in Freud’s work and psychoanalytic interpretations of the plays have been deeply influential. Today one can hardly think of Hamlet without the Oedipal complex and, indeed, Shakespeare’s play was a more direct influence on Freud than that of Sophocles. However, despite Freud’s admiration (one could suspect with undeclared hostility to the object of his admiration), Freud announced in 1930 that he no longer believed the man from Stratford could be the author of the plays. Of particular appeal to Freud was that de Vere’s father died when he was young and that de Vere’s estranged mother remarried quickly à la Hamlet. King Lear, mentioned in this letter, was also one of Freud’s favorites; he analyzed the opening scene in “The Theme of the Three Caskets” (1913). The recipient of this letter is Percy Allen, a fellow Oxfordian. Allen took it a bit further, suggesting that de Vere had a child by Queen Elizabeth. This idea Freud finds fantastical. See Norman Holland, “Freud on Shakespeare,” PMLA , vol. 75, no. 3.