Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Even in terms of the rediscovery of Akhenaten and the very distinctive qualities and aspects and artwork, for example, of his reign, that was only in the late 19th century.

We're now in the early 20th.

Egypt mania is still a big thing.

He's writing at this time, and for him to be Jewish at a time when there is so much hostility and violence,

I think it's safe to say that he's looking at the ways in which to be Jewish is not to be shameful.

And I think to link

Jewish faith and particularly its monotheism to the glories, if you like, of ancient Egypt and everything that was seen.

It was seen as so sophisticated by 1920s, 1930s European culture.

It was seen as exciting, as refined.

We still see it as exciting.

Oh, exactly.

And so I think that was probably very appealing.

And also, this is a guy who goes to dinner parties.

He's a very intellectual man.

He socializes.

This is kind of dinner party talk as well.

Absolutely.

So I think there's all sorts of, which is very exciting, by the way, about Virginia Wolfe being your great, great aunt.

I think there's all sorts of reasons why this is a very important work for Freud.

But it also plays into a lot of what he's interested in intellectually and in terms of his understanding of human psychology in the sense that for him, Akhenaten's monotheism, if that's what we're to call it, it's not a label I'm particularly comfortable with, but his kind of version of one God theology, one God religion is...