Freud sobre Fausto: sustituciones de la omnipotencia

Abstract

In Freud’s works, literature has an undeniable significance as well as a remarkable “hermeneutical” funtion, specially the great literature of Classicism. Fictional figures such as Goethe’s Faust give expression to general forces inside the subjectivity. This article argues that there is a very influential Faustian-Universe that goes through Freud’s visions and that psychoanalysis is in debt to some extent with Goethe’s masterpiece, for instance, in its reevaluation of the idea of Bildung, that during the “Age of Enlightenment” had to do with an ethical imperative of making one himself. The faustian adventure can be seen like a seek towards that particular kind of “immortality” to be tasted in-this-world that consists of an unending Will of Power (omnipotence) followed by an incessant Wish for Pleasure. But Freud has an important point in common with Goethe: Faust, finally, becomes so entranced by one passing moment that he wishes that things will never change, and this means not only that his life is forfeit to de Devil, but something deeper, namely, that both his expectations for pleasure and wish for omnipotence must stop and have to accept the human idea of Death.