3 - The Etym Theory

Summary

Unser Jahrhundert hat 2 Geister hervorgebracht : 1 analytischn: freud; 1 sündthétischn, JOYCE

(ZT 585)

A small detour is necessary to mark the developments Schmidt underwent before Zettel's Traum. In the conclusion to “Berechnungen II,” he projects a new prose model based on the dream. The remark hints at Schmidt's increasing interest in the dream as a literary means of representation and as a subjective demonstration of personal experiences. The small essay “Traumkunstwerke,” also written in 1956, documents Schmidt's fascination with the interrelation of literary texts and dreams. In his discussion of Fouqué, the English critic, poet, and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), and E. T. A. Hoffmann, Schmidt concludes that literature is filled with examples in which dreams had a stimulating effect on writing and speculates whether there are similar examples in contemporary literature. Schmidt's interest in the interrelation between literary texts and dreams culminates in his discovery of Lewis Carroll, who, according to Schmidt, was the first to reflect upon the effects of language within the human psyche. The discovery results in a setback for Schmidt, because Carroll's Sylvie & Bruno (1889) predates Schmidt's new prose model, and thereby, in his eyes, robs it of its innovativeness, especially in the case of the Extended Mind Game.

Schmidt, who just a few years prior to this essay had started to read Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, also refers to “JAMES JOYCE; der sein zweites bedeutendes Buch, <Finnegans Wake> genau nach FREUD'scher Traumtheorie konstruierte.” Again, Schmidt had to realize that Finnegans Wake already represents his planned prose model IV, the dream, including such key elements as condensation, dream distortion, and displacement.