Why do we laugh? The answer, argued Freud in this groundbreaking study of humor, is that jokes, like dreams, satisfy our unconscious desires. "The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious" explains how jokes provide immense pleasure by releasing us from our inhibitions and allowing us to express sexual, aggressive, playful, or cynical instincts that would otherwise remain hidden. In elaborating this theory, Freud brings together a rich collection of puns, witticisms, one-liners, and anecdotes, which, as Freud shows, are a method of giving ourselves away.
Translated by Joyce Crick.
Introduction by John Carey.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was born in Moravia and lived in Vienna between the ages of four and eighty-two. In 1938 Hitler's invasion of Austria forced him to seek asylum in London, where he died the following year. Freud's career began with several years of brilliant work on the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. He was almost thirty when, after a period of study under Charcot in Paris, his interests first turned to psychology, and another ten years of clinical work in Vienna (at first in collaboration with Breuer, an older colleague) saw the birth of his creation: psychoanalysis. This began simply as a method of treating neurotic patients by investigating their minds, but it quickly grew into an accumulation of knowledge about the workings of the mind in general, whether sick or healthy. Freud was thus able to demonstrate the normal development of the sexual instinct in childhood and, largely on the basis of an examination of dreams, arrived at his fundamental discovery of the unconscious forces that influence our everyday thoughts and actions. Freud's life was uneventful, but his ideas have shaped not only many specialist disciplines, but the whole intellectual climate of the last half-century.
Joyce Crick was for many years a senior lecturer in German at University College London. In 2000, she was awarded the Schlegel Tieck Prize for her translation of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams for Oxford University Press.
John Carey is an emeritus professor of English at Oxford, a fellow of the British Academy, and chief book reviewer for the London Sunday Times.
Why do we laugh? The answer, argued Freud in this groundbreaking study of humor, is that jokes, like dreams, satisfy our unconscious desires. "The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious" explains how jokes provide immense pleasure by releasing us from our inhibitions and allowing us to express sexual, aggressive, playful, or cynical instincts that would otherwise remain hidden. In elaborating this theory, Freud brings together a rich collection of puns, witticisms, one-liners, and anecdotes, which, as Freud shows, are a method of giving ourselves away.
Translated by Joyce Crick.
Introduction by John Carey.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was born in Moravia and lived in Vienna between the ages of four and eighty-two. In 1938 Hitler's invasion of Austria forced him to seek asylum in London, where he died the following year. Freud's career began with several years of brilliant work on the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. He was almost thirty when, after a period of study under Charcot in Paris, his interests first turned to psychology, and another ten years of clinical work in Vienna (at first in collaboration with Breuer, an older colleague) saw the birth of his creation: psychoanalysis. This began simply as a method of treating neurotic patients by investigating their minds, but it quickly grew into an accumulation of knowledge about the workings of the mind in general, whether sick or healthy. Freud was thus able to demonstrate the normal development of the sexual instinct in childhood and, largely on the basis of an examination of dreams, arrived at his fundamental discovery of the unconscious forces that influence our everyday thoughts and actions. Freud's life was uneventful, but his ideas have shaped not only many specialist disciplines, but the whole intellectual climate of the last half-century.
Joyce Crick was for many years a senior lecturer in German at University College London. In 2000, she was awarded the Schlegel Tieck Prize for her translation of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams for Oxford University Press.
John Carey is an emeritus professor of English at Oxford, a fellow of the British Academy, and chief book reviewer for the London Sunday Times.
The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious - Sigmund Freud
Introduction
Translator's Preface
A. Analytic Part
I. Introduction
II. The Technique of the Joke
III. The Tendencies of the Joke
B. Synthetic Part
IV. The Mechanism of Pleasure and the Psychological Origins of the
Joke
V. The Motives for Jokes - The Joke as Social Process
C. Theoretical Part
VI. The Relation of the Joke to Dreams and to the Unconscious
VII. The Joke and the Varieties of the Comic
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was born in Moravia and lived
in Vienna between the ages of four and eighty-two. In 1938 Hitler's
invasion of Austria forced him to seek asylum in London, where he
died the following year. Freud's career began with several
years of brilliant work on the anatomy and physiology of the
nervous system. He was almost thirty when, after a period of study
under Charcot in Paris, his interests first turned to psychology,
and another ten years of clinical work in Vienna (at first in
collaboration with Breuer, an older colleague) saw the birth of his
creation: psychoanalysis. This began simply as a method of treating
neurotic patients by investigating their minds, but it quickly grew
into an accumulation of knowledge about the workings of the mind in
general, whether sick or healthy. Freud was thus able to
demonstrate the normal development of the sexual instinct in
childhood and, largely on the basis of an examination of dreams,
arrived at his fundamental discovery of the unconscious forces that
influence our everyday thoughts and actions. Freud's life was
uneventful, but his ideas have shaped not only many specialist
disciplines, but the whole intellectual climate of the last
half-century.
Joyce Crick was for many years a senior lecturer in German
at University College London. In 2000, she was awarded the Schlegel
Tieck Prize for her translation of Freud's The Interpretation of
Dreams for Oxford University Press.
John Carey is an emeritus professor of English at Oxford, a
fellow of the British Academy, and chief book reviewer for the
London Sunday Times.
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