Analysis is distinctive…in that it states the following, which is at the core of my teaching; I speak without knowing. I speak with my body, and this without knowing. I say thus always more than what I know.
Lacan - SeminarXX. Encore. 1972-1973. Translated by Cormac Gallagher from unedited French manuscripts.
Psychoanalysis announces that you are no longer the centre of yourself, since there is another subject within you, the Unconscious. It was, at first, not well-accepted news. The so-called irrationalism which has been used to define Freud! When it is exactly the contrary: not only did he rationalise all that had resisted rationalisation until he came along, but he even showed that in action there is a process of reasoning going on; I mean, something that is reasoning and functioning logically, without the knowledge of the subject. All of this, viewed classically, as being in the field of the irrational; let’s call it the field of passion.
This is precisely what he was not forgiven for. His introduction of the notion of sexual forces that take over the subject without warning, nor logic, was still admitted; but that sexuality is a place of speech, that neurosis is an illness that speaks, here is something strange, and even his disciples prefer that we speak of something else.
Interview with Jacques Lacan, Published in L’Express in May 1957.
by Friedrich Hölderlin c. 1824 Translated by Michael Hamburger
If from the distance where we were forced to part I’m recognizable to you still, the past, O you the sharer of my sufferings, Still can convey to you something pleasant,
Then tell me how your loved one awaits you now? In those same gardens where after horrible And darkened years once more we’re meeting, Here by the holy, the Prime World’s rivers.
This much I have to say, something good there was In how you gazed when in the distances For once you cheerfully looked around, you Man always shut like a clam, of gloomy
Appearance. How the hours glided by, how calm My soul was at the thought of the truth that I For so long had been separated. Yes, I confessed, I was yours entirely.
In truth! As you are trying to bring and write These well-known things all back to my memory With letters, so it is with me, and All that is past I now freely speak of.
Was it in spring? In summer? The nightingale Lived sweetly singing with other birds that were Not far within the thicket And there was fragrance of trees around us.
The clear-cut pathways, shrubs rather low and sand On which we walked were made more agreeable, More charming by the hyacinth or Tulip, the violet or carnation.
On walls and bowers ivy grew green, green too A blissful darkness made by tall avenues. There we spent many mornings, evenings, Said this and that and exchanged glad glances.
In my embrace it was that the youth revived Who, still forsaken, came from the very Fields To which he led me, his heart so heavy, But the strange names of rarest places
He has retained, and everything beautiful On blessed shores, most precious also to me, That blossoms in our native country, Else, can be hidden, so high the outlook
That from it someone too can fix on the sea, But bent on being no one. Make do, and think Of her still happy, for this reason: That on to us shone a day so radiant,
Which with confessions opened or hands entwined That pressed, uniting us. Oh, my loss, my lack! They were most lovely days, but then came Deepening dusk of unbroken sadness.
That you’re so much alone in this lovely world You will insist to me, but, my darling, that Is not for you to know,
You walk aloft in light On tender ground, rejoicing geniuses! Gleaming godlike air Moves you as lightly As the artist’s fingers, The holy strings.
Fateless as slumbering Sucklings, the celestials breathe. Chastely preserved In unassuming buds, Blooming eternally, The spirits of them, And the blessed eyes Gazing in silent Eternal clarity.
We have been given, Rather, to rest nowhere, To wane and fall, Blindly from one Hour to another, Like water from cliff To cliff thrown down Yearlong into uncertainty.
You might make bad first impressions because of social awkwardness frequently, but you will never f*** up like Hölderlin did when he met Schiller in Jena in November 1794:
Hölderlin (then 24) had just finished his studies and accepted an occupation offer from Schiller, whom he just knew through correspondence,
as a home tutor for his friend’s son. The rather unknown Hölderlin (he shared a room with Schelling and Hegel during his studies in Tübingen, but both of them were rather unknown then, too) was a huge admirer of Schiller as his works got him out of a slump/depression and motivated him to pursue his ideal: to live as a poet. Hölderlin sent him poems as he believed this newly arised offer to be a chance for him to ascend to the olympus of German genius, maybe one day to be recognized by Schiller, Fichte or maybe even Goethe, who was already believed to be the greatest European writer and poet since Shakespeare and a friend of Schiller. One of Hölderlin’s poems was accepted to be published in the ‘Thalia’, a magazine published by Schiller himself.
He arrived at Schiller’s house in the evening, the streets were dark and shadowy, and stepped in after Schiller had welcomed him at the door. Hölderlin was so nervous, that during his travel he already wrote down the sentences he was about to say, but nothing went as it was planned: Schiller asked questions right away and Hölderlin began to stutter as he was fussed and overwhelmed, dropping his jacket onto the floor in the entry area, where another man’s face was visible in a lamplight, reading the new Thalia, sitting in a corner. Schiller went to get Hölderlin something to drink, leaving him with the man. Hölderlin didn’t care much about him. Still being nervous and anxious while thinking about what to say next to Schiller, he replied very short, impolite and rather laconian, not listening, concentrating on finding the right words when the unknown man asked him about his travel and complimented his poem. When Schiller came back and invited both to the professor’s club for the night, Hölderlin began to think about the elaborate language the unknown man was able to speak. Later that evening, Schiller apologized for not introducing Hölderlin to the man, and it was nobody else than Goethe.
When I was a boy A god often rescued me From the shouts and the rods of men And I played among trees and flowers Secure in their kindness And the breezes of heaven Were playing there too. And as you delight The hearts of plants When they stretch towards you With little strength So you delighted the heart in me Father Helios, and like Endymion I was your favourite, Moon. O all You friendly And faithful gods I wish you could know How my soul has loved you. Even though when I called to you then It was not yet with names, and you Never named me as people do As though they knew one another I knew you better Than I have ever known them. I understood the stillness above the sky But never the words of men. Trees were my teachers Melodious trees And I learned to love Among flowers. I grew up in the arms of the gods.
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