Freud and Musil - or - psychoanalist against the will

Abstract

This article approaches the ambivalent relations between Musil and Freud. It proceeds in three sections. The first analises the spontaneous psychoanalytical intuitions Musil exposes in his first novel, The confusions of young Törless. The psychological insights of the novelist accompany and also anticipate the discoveries of the father of psychoanalysis. The second section exposes the seminal studies of Corino and Henninger (among other authors) who see Musil's reserved attitude towards Freud as a symptomatic resistence and interpret the unconscious determination of his work. The third exposes other reasons (aesthetic and theoretical arguments) which explain the author's reluctance, without excluding the resistencetheory. Musil has a vast scientific and mathematical, philosophical and aesthetic framework of references which differs from psychoanalysis. It emerges in his project which underpins the novels Nupcias (Musil's second work after Törless).