SOURCE: Swales, Martin. “Morals and Psycho-Analysis.” In Arthur Schnitzler: A Critical Study, pp. 118-49. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1971.

In the following essay/excerpt, Swales observes that Dream Story explores the tensions between moral consciousness and human psychology within the context of Freudian psychoanalytic theory.

Paracelsus is a significant statement of Schnitzler's relationship to psycho-analysis in that it recognizes the value of the insights it gives—and at the same time relativizes that value in terms of a reticent and yet passionate moral intention. The same is true of the work which in my view constitutes Schnitzler's deepest illumination of the problem—Traumnovelle.

Central to Traumnovelle is the dialectical relationship between the actuality of Fridolin's and Albertine's marriage and the possibility of other experiences and adventures within their being.¹ The story begins and ends with the reality of their married life together. Yet this reality is threatened...