Egyptian Moses and Joseph: Sigmund Freud and Thomas Mann
Type de matériel :
TexteLangue : français Détails de publication : 2005.
Sujet(s) : Ressources en ligne : Abrégé : During Freud’s elaboration of the culture-analysis which his work Moses and Monotheism represents, and in order to defuse the rivalry produced by the doctrine of ‘Election’ which he considered one of the most deep-seated roots of anti-Semitism, he attempts to show that the Hebrews were not the "inventors of monotheism", since there existed another monotheism: that of the sun worship of Pharaoh Ekhnaton at Héliopolis. The invention of the Hebrews was to establish an identity link between monotheism, scientific rationalism and ethics. The influence of Moses and Monotheism on the last volume of Thomas Mann’s tetralogy, Joseph and his Brothers, published in 1943 with the title Joseph the Provider, as well as on the short story, The Tables of the Law, published in 1944, has often been underlined. It is important to stress that during the beginning of the writing of Moses and Monotheism Freud was not only able to read the three volumes of the tetralogy but to discuss them personally with Thomas Mann. We will show that the third volume, Joseph in Egypt, published in 1934, brought a strong influence to bear on Freud’s imagination, while helping him to clarify his own position as an ‘egyptophile’.
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During Freud’s elaboration of the culture-analysis which his work Moses and Monotheism represents, and in order to defuse the rivalry produced by the doctrine of ‘Election’ which he considered one of the most deep-seated roots of anti-Semitism, he attempts to show that the Hebrews were not the "inventors of monotheism", since there existed another monotheism: that of the sun worship of Pharaoh Ekhnaton at Héliopolis. The invention of the Hebrews was to establish an identity link between monotheism, scientific rationalism and ethics. The influence of Moses and Monotheism on the last volume of Thomas Mann’s tetralogy, Joseph and his Brothers, published in 1943 with the title Joseph the Provider, as well as on the short story, The Tables of the Law, published in 1944, has often been underlined. It is important to stress that during the beginning of the writing of Moses and Monotheism Freud was not only able to read the three volumes of the tetralogy but to discuss them personally with Thomas Mann. We will show that the third volume, Joseph in Egypt, published in 1934, brought a strong influence to bear on Freud’s imagination, while helping him to clarify his own position as an ‘egyptophile’.




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