ABSTRACT
The power of interpretation resides more often in its form than in its substance. This chapter traces the "dreaming function" of the work of interpretation by means of the fragments from J. Brodsky's piece and others that communicate with it; fragments each of which illuminates a different dimension of interpretation. Interpretation refracts a person's identity, not his anonymity. The difference between interpretation and over-interpretation never resides in the more or less exact content of the interpretation as such. Perhaps the difference between the language of over-interpretation and the language of interpretation at its best is the same difference between stamp and watermark. Psychoanalytic sailing, so to speak, involves an increased sense of the other's presence as sharing a joint voyage but on the other hand can also do harm. Over-interpretation reduces the transgression, while interpretation at its best not only depends on it—but is, itself, an act of transgression.
