Online Fundraising Talk: John Milton & Sigmund Freud

22 Mar 2023 6-7.30pm

Overview

In this special online fundraising event, the Freud Museum and Milton’s Cottage welcome renowned psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips who will interview Professor Joe Moshenska.

In 1907, when the published Hugo Heller asked Sigmund Freud to list ‘ten good books’, Freud noted in his reply that he had not been asked ‘for my “favourite books”, among which I would not have forgotten Milton’s Paradise Lost.’ What do we make of Freud’s affinity for this great seventeenth century poem and its author?

Joe Moshenska, author and Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, and Adam Phillips, psychoanalyst and author, will discuss the resonances between these figures from a number of perspectives: the moments in Freud’s writings where Milton’s name appears, and how these speak to Freud’s anglophilia and ambivalent relationship with his own Jewishness; the history of psychoanalytic interpretations of Milton’s personality and his writings; and the way in which the work of both men seems to veer between an aspiration to total certainty and a relentless insistence that no knowing is ever final.

 All registrants will receive their webinar link to join via Zoom. All attendees will also receive access to the recording, available to watch back for 1 month.

Ticket pricing: Suggested donation £10-£25. Proceeds from this event will be split evenly between the Freud Museum and Milton’s Cottage, two historic houses which receive no regular government funding. We endeavour to make our events available to all, but we hope you can support our two independent museums as generously as possible.
 

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