Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensens »Gradiva«

by Sigmund Freud

"Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensens »Gradiva«" by Sigmund Freud is an essay written in 1907 that applies psychoanalysis to Wilhelm Jensen's novel Gradiva. Freud examines how the protagonist, a young archaeologist named Norbert Hanold, unconsciously transforms his repressed childhood love into an obsession with a Roman relief depicting a walking woman. Through encounters in Pompeii, the archaeologist's delusions intertwine with reality until his former sweetheart herself becomes the agent of his cure, revealing what Freud called "cure by seduction" or "cure by love."