Steven Marcus
FREUD 'S THREE ESSAYS ON
THE THEORY OF SEXUALITY
In 1905 , Freud published a small paper-covered book,
Three Essays on the Theory
0/
Sexuality.
Today it is by common con–
sent regarded , along with
The Interpretation o/Dreams ,
as Freud's
most fundamental and original work.
Freud himself was aware of its importance, and one of his ways of
registering that awareness was by returning to this text repeatedly
during the next twenty years in order
to
revise, correct, amend, alter,
clarify, and add
to
its substance. As a result, the text of the
Three Essays
is something of a palimpsest . Moreover, it is a peculiar kind of pal–
impsest. Not only is the visible surface or layer of writing difficult ,
sometimes obscure, and frequently problematical, but as we, so
to
say ,
peel away the surface and retrieve the hidden earlier layers, versions, or
formulations, the difficulty, obscurity, and problematicality tend to
deepen . Indeed ifone consults the first German edition of 1905 or the
first English translation made by A.A. Brill in 1910 from the second
German edii:ion , it is difficult
to
know what an original generation of
readers could have made out of the formidable darknesses that involve
so many parts of this work .
From the outset , one of the overt aims of this work was to declare
the end of a historical innocence . In its disclosure to the world of the
universality and normality of infantile and childhood sexuality in all its
polymorphously perverse impulsiveness, the
Three Essays
was bringing
to
a close that epoch of cultural innocence in which infancy and child–
hood were regarded as themselves innocent, as special preserves of our
NOTE: This is an abbreviated version of an introduction
to
a new edition of the
Three EJJayJ on the Theory of
Sexuality .
to
be published next spring.
