"On Transience" (German: Vergänglichkeit) is a philosophical essay by Sigmund Freud. It consists of a dialogue between Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke in which they discuss the meaning of transience. It was written in November 1915 and published the next year.[1]

Content

Freud frames the essay as a dialogue between him and Rainer Maria Rilke (referred to as "the poet" throughout).[2] He reflects upon a most likely fictitious walk the pair went on, reportedly in the summer of 1913.[3] Freud refers to a discussion they had (possibly in September of that year) on the matter of transience of which they had differing perceptions.[3] Rilke found the transience of life disheartening whereas Freud viewed it as engendering value and beauty.[4]

Interpretations

Written during the midst of World War I, Jonathan Lear interpreted the essay as a response to the war's upheaval, describing it as "the problem that haunts it from the beginning", as well as mediation upon "a phenomenon that marks the human condition"; Lear did consider Freud's psyche more salient to the essay's conception than the mediation itself, writing that "This is not a thoughtful engagement between two serious people about the meaning of transience in human life: it is a polarized stand-off between caricatured figures in Freud’s imagination", a by-product of recent disillusionment.[2] The psychoanalyst Matthew Von Unwerth described the essay as a "portrait in miniature of the world of [Freud]".[5]

Frances Wilson observed that Rilke and Freud represent passion and reason respectively.[6]

References

  • Lear, Jonathan (2021). "Transience and hope: A return to Freud in a time of pandemic". The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 102 (1): 3–15. doi:10.1080/00207578.2021.1875836. ISSN 0020-7578. PMID 33952008. S2CID 231878304.
  • Lehmann, Herbert (1966). "A Conversation between Freud and Rilke". The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 35 (3): 423–427. doi:10.1080/21674086.1966.11926399. ISSN 0033-2828. PMID 5328702.
  • Razinsky, Liran (2015). "On Time, Transience and Literary Creation: Freud and Rilke a Century Ago". Forum for Modern Language Studies. 51 (4): 464–479. doi:10.1093/fmls/cqv056. ISSN 0015-8518.
  • Unwerth, Matthew von (2006). Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781441120274.
  • Wilson, Frances (2006-04-28). "Review: Freud's Requiem by Matthew von Unwerth". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
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