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Romanticism, according to Thomas Mann, was "the most revolutionary and most radical" movement of the "[[German ]] spirit." Along with [[Judaism ]] and the [[Enlightenment]], it was one of Sigmund [[Freud]]'s main sources of inspiration. The [[culture ]] of the age of Johann Wolfgang von [[Goethe ]] infused his [[childhood ]] and youth, but also the [[whole ]] of the nineteenth century, which was steeped in post-romantic elements such as [[Darwinism ]] and the resurgence, in [[Germany]], of <i>Naturphilosophie</i>, forgotten at the end of the century (Ellenberger, 1974). Freud's [[knowledge ]] of certain romantic works of [[literature ]] is attested by their [[presence ]] in his [[library ]] and by the 130 citations of [[them ]] that appear in his writings.If Freud was ambivalent with [[regard ]] to romanticism, this may have to do with his disillusionment, during his youth, with the pan-Germanism (part of the post-romantic trend) of student circles in [[Vienna ]] when he arrived at the [[university ]] in 1873 and joined the [[Reading ]] Circle of Viennese Students, whose "Wagnerism" soon veered toward [[nationalism ]] and [[anti-Semitism ]] (MacGrath, 1974).On the [[other ]] hand, all of the themes for which romantic [[science ]] and [[medicine ]] had laid the groundwork were to be found in [[psychoanalysis ]] a century later: [[dreams ]] and their "[[psychic ]] [[value]]," [[instinct]], [[repression]], the lifting of which is the source of "the [[uncanny]]" (Friedrich von [[Schelling]])—the <i>[[unheimlich]]</i> [[being ]] a central [[concept ]] in both romanticism and psychoanalysis, Friedrich Schleiermacher's secularized [[interpretations]], which he even applied to [[speech]], and of course <i>[[Witz]]</i>, that alloy of [[Jewish ]] [[thought ]] and romantic irony theorized by Jean [[Paul ]] and August Wilhelm von Schegel, on whom Freud relied, along with Heinrich Heine, whose [[work ]] he cited numerous [[times ]] in his writings. A "defrocked romantic," Heine was also Freud's [[model ]] as an [[atheist ]] Jew, a "brother in unbelief" to [[Spinoza]], one of the romantics' sources. They gave [[Eros ]] and [[sexuality ]] an essential [[place]], and, by elevating the individual ego, took on the conquest of inner [[freedom]]. We should also [[recall ]] the "conquistador" status of Freud himself and the open, "interminable" [[form ]] of his work.Freud's teacher Ernst Brücke had trained him in experimental [[physiology ]] in a spirit of physico-chemical reductionism, which, in its opposition to the <i>Naturphilosophie</i> of his own teacher, Johannes von Müller, nevertheless allowed a romantic heritage to filter through in Freud's work. It was brought forth by his [[self]]-analysis—in the [[tradition ]] of the knowledge of self of the romantic <i>Bildung</i>—with Wilhelm [[Fliess]], an adept of romantic [[biology ]] who transmitted to him, notably, the [[idea ]] of [[primal ]] bisexuality. Freud then practiced hypnosis—the heritage of [[animal ]] magnetism—to create, through a radical transformation, the [[psychoanalytic ]] [[cure]]. At the same [[time]], he drew upon the post-romantics of his own time to support his work: the theosophist Gustav Fechner, from whom he borrowed the [[concepts ]] of [[topography ]] and the [[pleasure ]] [[principle]], Theodor Lipps, for the [[unconscious]], and Karl Scherner for dreams. At the time of the shift in his [[thinking ]] in the 1920s, with the [[dualism ]] of the [[instincts]], Freud can be seen as returning to the "primal antithesis of the [[world]]" of <i>Naturphilosophie</i>, and he later took part in an essential [[discussion ]] with Romain Rolland, "the last of the great [[French ]] romantics."In "A Short Account of [[Psycho]]-[[Analysis]]" (1924f) Freud alluded to romanticism as an element in the [[prehistory ]] of psychoanalysis, while Ludwig Binswanger pointed out Freud's faithfulness to the concept of [[nature ]] as "[[mythical ]] [[essence]]," and Thomas Mann assessed psychoanalysis as a romanticism turned [[scientific]].

# Ellenberger, Henri. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious: The [[history ]] and evolution of [[dynamic ]] [[psychiatry]]. New York: Basic Books.# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1924f). A short account of psycho-analysis. SE, 19: 189-209.