Issue 43 (Spring 2010) Pages – 107-110

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.

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…..