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Quote :The Aeneid, as quoted in Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. [If I cannot bend the heavens above, I will move Hell.]
Freud took this declaration from a character in Virgil's Aeneid and used it as the epigraph to his unprecedented study, The Interpretation of Dreams. The line appeared in the original Latin as a sort of motto, on the title page of Freud's text. It stood alone as a bold statement of Freud's belief in his own ability to change the world.
But not the world as it appeared in the cold, clear light of day. Instead, the world that Freud wanted to "move" was the underworld: "Acheron," in the line from Virgil, refers to a river surrounding Hades.
So Freud's use of this epigraph indicated that he was leaving behind the safer and better-known territories of the conscious mind and into the shady world of dreams. And, perhaps even more boldly, into the dark realms of the unconscious.
Dun dun dun.
And there are even more meanings to dig into here. On another level, this epigraph illustrates what a literate guy that Freud was. He had read his Virgil. Furthermore, Freud's choice to cite the Aeneid can be understood as an indication that psychoanalysis and literature are inseparable.
Freud was always reading poetry, even when he wanted to claim that this psychoanalysis business was clearly and absolutely a science. And this epigraph to The Interpretation of Dreams really worked as a rallying cry—a promise and a threat that a lot of things were about to change.
Whether you love or hate it, take or leave it, there's no denying that psychoanalysis has moved the underworld. It's made us feel how the mind moves beneath our conscious thoughts, while shifting our understandings of both literature and culture.