SK-B [ to JM: pretty “pair o’
ducks” is a well-worn verbal trick. Spoken quickly it comes out as the Gilbert
& Sullivan “pretty paradox.” [...] Can we clarify this thanatos (classical
and modern Greek for ‘death’) affair? [...] If any English texts (Freudian or
otherwise) include the words ‘death’ or ‘Death,’ the modern Greek translator is
likely to use ‘thanatos’ or ‘Thanatos.’ BUT according to my big Collins, Freud
borrowed the Greek Thanatos as a technical term for a “universal death
instinct.” How do Greek translators cope with this?
JM: Aeneas misjudged Palinurus and didn't give him, at
first, the proper burial he deserved.
Please, don't you misjudge me, of all peoples.
I'm unfamiliar with anglophone native well-worn
verbal tricks. I now seldom listen to G&Sullivan (but I love them and
there's an interesting Asimov abut G&S in parallel worlds, a
Tom Leherer's delightful satire too...).
I realized quite recently that jokes, even metaphors,
are often culturally determined (take the kenningar). It seems that
abstractions are not always spiritualized in our mind and they carry a
material lastrum that pulls them back downwards into the concrete and
the literal ( literal, litteral and litter).
..........................
You shouldn't trust your "big Collins," only. It
may mislead you. Find a second opinion.
I haven't heard about Freud being translated into
Greek but, in that case, the word thanatus would arise. As a part of the
simples Greek sentences that indicates something related to
death.What I meant to inform you is that FREUD
NEVER NAMED THE DEATH INSTINCT, 'THANATUS' IN HIS ORIGINAL
WRITINGS.
Freud wrote about "libido", "Eros", Life
instincts. He wrote about Aggressive drives. He wrote about Death instincts. Not one reference to Thanatus is to be found.
I tried to check in German using my
humble Fischer Verlag (Psychologie) volumes, but they carry no Index. You
may find this information, yourself, should you take the trouble to go directly
to Freud. In English, translated by James Strachey.
Go to GENERAL SUBJECT INDEX, on volume XXIV ( The
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Standard Edition, London, the
Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis), you may try other Indexes
offered in the same volume ( Index of Proper names, analogies, symbols
in Freud). No Thanatus. Other myth-terminologies were not originally created by
him ( the term "Narcisism", or example, or "Libido". Besides, "Cathexis",
"Id/Ego/Superego" were introduced by Strachey for freudian " Besetzung",
"Es/Ich/ Ueberich". Even "Es" was, originally, a term employed by Georg
Groddeck).
Nabokov certainly read Freud, most probably in German.
Freud's translated books appeared quite late in
France.