ABSTRACT
"Creative Writers and Day-dreaming" can be considered a further reflection on Sigmund Freud's contemporaneous psychoanalytic study of Wilhelm Jensen's novella Gradiva. "Delusions and Dreams in Jensen's Gradiva" is the first published psychoanalytic study of a work of fiction. Previously, Freud had commented on Oedipus Rex and Hamlet in The Interpretation of Dreams, and in his correspondence with Fliess he had considered Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's short story "Die Richterin," but the Gradiva study was the first systematic account in depth, and Freud was clearly impressed with how readily the imaginative work lent itself to psychoanalytic interpretation. Thus, a few months later, when called upon to offer a lecture in the rooms of the Viennese publisher and bookseller Hugo Heller, he had an opportunity to organize his thoughts about the psychoanalytic contribution to literature. Freud twice in his paper refers specifically to "daydreaming," and he indeed does make a distinction.
