ABSTRACT

Many commentators have referred to the importance of the letters written by Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fleiss, and in particular the letter of 6 December 1896. Of the different permutations that translation acquires within it perhaps the most significant in this instance is the following: ‘Die Versagung der Ubersetzung, das ist das, was klinisch “Verdrangung” heisst.’ In passing, the unavoidability of translation should be stated in advance. Jean Laplanche, in a article, ‘Specificite des problemes terminologiques dans la traduction de Freud,’ translates the opening segment of the sentence as ‘un refusement de traduction.’ Freud’s writing loses all of its vigour and even its meaning in the majority of French translations and even in the English translation of the Standard Edition, because the translators are only interested in rendering the overall meaning of a sentence defined by its syntax without concerning themselves with word placement and repetitions.