The Letter, Issue 43, Spring 2010, Pages 107 - 110
Preface to The Awakening of Spring[1]
Jacques Lacan
In this introduction to a play by Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) which deals with the awakening of sexuality in three adolescents: Moritz, Melchior and Wendla, Lacan argues that it anticipates Freud’s and even his own – “There is no sexual relationship” – treatment of the real of sex. Is the Father who appears here as a masked Man merely another name for the white Goddess, lost in the night of time? The non-dupes err.
Keywords: Wedekind; sexual awakening; The man; The woman; proper names So then we have a dramatist tackling in 1891 the business of what is involved for boys is in making love with girls, stressing that they would never dream of it without the awakening of their dreams.
It is remarkable that this is staged as such: in other words to demonstrate in it that it is not satisfying for all, and even to the point of admitting that if it fails, it is for each and every one.