Dear Naomi
this is a great literary puzzle. my first response is to agree with you
entirely about the first person position, but one might need to know more
about the context in which the note was found.
was it hand-written, scribbled in the margin of another (someone else's)
text?
in which case it could be a disparaging comment on someone else's argument
(1st phrase: "his mental capacities (or argument) extended/tendentious")
(2nd phrase: "doesn't know what he's talking about"). I might veer this way,
since the generic "davon" shouldn't really refer to the substantive "Psyche"
unless Freud were using his own terminology generically by then (ie
Psyche=Psychoanalysis).
to revert to the first person hypothesis, it's tempting to see the old man
scrawling a word of despair on his sickbed. thus, in the vernacular: "my
mind's fucked: can't get there any more". this might depend on an
unconscious overlap (or possible misspelling) of ausgedehnt with ausgedient
(clapped out). and I have no idea whether Freud would ever have used "Pyche"
of his own mind. if he did, it might say some interesting things about his
self-analysis in degenerative old age. (of course this dramatic outburst
apppeals to the screenwriter in me).
lastly, if a comment on another writer, it might even split 3rd and 1st
persons between the two phrases: "his psyche is overstretched; I can't
follow a word of it". this might well apply to Freud scrawling in anger
about (in the margins of) an earlier work of his own. my grandmother always
referred to herself in later years as "silly old fool" . thus 3rd and 1st
persons are one and the same.
having only now (as you insisted) checked Nancy's version... I can't make it
add up. it doesn't seem to make sense for the verb "weiss" to qualify the
noun "Psyche". the colon is too disruptive. however, it might (in a more
literary/analytical reading than any of the above, mean "the psyche is above
all of this: can't be bothered to comment". ie "psychoanalysis is a broad
discipline and doesn't stoop to these trivialities". Thus: "Psyche ist
ausgedehnt" = "the activities of the psyche are broad"; "weiss nichts
davon" = "and can't concern itself with these questions". one would need to
know what the "davon" referred to, since (in this reading) it falls outside
the context of the quote.
please keep us posted!
all the best
Gareth Jones
St John's, CU
www.scenariofilms.com
-----Original Message-----
From: JISCmail German Studies List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Naomi Segal
Sent: 03 September 2007 11:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Psyche ist ausgedehnt...
Dear All
I'd like your help in giving me your immediate and instinctive translation
of the following sentence. It comes from a book by Jean-Luc Nancy (Corpus,
2006), where it is quoted in German and then given a French translation
which seems to me wrong. It comes, Nancy says, from a posthumous note of
Freud's. Voilà:
Psyche ist ausgedehnt: weiss nichts davon.
Could you, if you can bear it, decide what you think it means first and only
then look at what I say below.
Thanks!
Naomi
Okay this is the dilemma. Nancy translates it as: "La psyché est étendue:
n'en sait rien" (The psyche is extended: knows nothing of/about it). I am
not so bothered about "the psyche/Psyche" since this is something Nancy
plays around with, for the original it is genuinely ambiguous since it's the
start of a sentence. What I'm interested in is the "weiss", also ambiguous.
My first (and indeed second & third) reaction is that it is a first-person
verb, ie Freud (who was very old & ill at the time, I assume) can't think
further about this; Nancy takes it (without comment) that it's Psyche/the
psyche that knows nothing. I'd like to see whether any of you, as
native/near-native speakers agree with him.
Prof Naomi Segal
Director, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
School of Advanced Study
Senate House, Malet St., London WC1E 7HU
tel: 020 7862 8739
fax: 020 7862 8762
sec: 020 7862 8677/8738/8966
website: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk <http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/>
email: [log in to unmask]
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