ABSTRACT
In the work of one of his earliest biographers, Fritz Wittels (1880-1950), we find the following account of Freud’s delight in tracing a quotation from Goethe:
Late one evening, when I was reading Freud an essay, he suddenly jumped up saying, ‘Let’s see what old Goethe has to say about it’, and took down a copy of the second part of Faust. Noticing the affectionate way in which he handled the volume, and his eagerness to hunt up a quotation which did not seem to me specially apposite, I realised that he stood in a peculiar relationship to Goethe.1
