Father and Son: Freud Revisits his Oedipus Complex in Moses and Monotheism

In this paper, I propose to understand Freud on his own terms and within his social, intellectual and psychological context. It is my hope that such an understanding will contribute in turn to our understanding of some of the sources of the creative process. Were it not for his fame, Freud's views on religion, history and art, would at best be but a footnote to these subjects. My contention is that Freud's writings on these subjects can contribute more to our understanding of Freud, the person, than they do to some of the subjects he is writing about. Toward this end I will focus on two of Freud's works, written more than 30 years apart, his early Moses of Michelangelo and his late-life work Moses and Monotheism, which reflect the considerable changes in Freud's thinking.