Rom J Psychoanal 2023, 16(2):127-132
DOI: 10.26336/rjp-2023-0019
Abstract: In order to illustrate the repetition compulsion, “this eternal return of the same”, Freud evoked Torquato Tasso’s poem, La Gerusalemme liberata19, and the fact that Tancred kills Clorinda, at war, unaware that under the enemy’s armor right in front of him was the woman he loved. After her burial, Tancred enters a magic forest, he slashes with his sword a tall tree; but blood streams from the cut and the voice of Clorinda, whose soul was imprisoned in the tree, is heard complaining that he has wounded his beloved once again (Freud, 1920, p. 21; Tasso, 1581, canto XIII).