ABSTRACT
Within the general field of intellectual history there has long been agreement that it is extremely difficult to establish the ways in which one thinker has an influence on another. To the extent, for example, that any genius like Freud has to create a world anew, it becomes hard for such a figure to acknowledge genuine precursors in the history of ideas. Therefore, the relationship between Freud and an obvious predecessor like Nietzsche has to remain obscure. 1 The literary critic Harold Bloom has proposed that there is a general “anxiety” of influence, inhibiting any writer from acknowledging those to whom debts are owed.
