Philology cross-examines Freud in this sustained critique of psychoanalysis and its foundational notion of the slip. Challenging virtually every account of linguistic error in Freud's work as arbitrary and constrained, Sebastiano Timpanaro advances an alternative picture keyed to the dynamics of `banalization', `disimprovement', and contextual play borrowed from the field of literary criticism. Underscored with a Marxist defence of science against the professed materialism of the psychoanalytic `individual drama', Timpanaro's analysis demands a strong reassessment of the Freudian legacy and a renewed debate over its value for the Left.<BR><BR>`A firework display of erudition. Sebastiano Timpanaro ... is one of the purest and most original minds of the second half of the century.'---Perry Anderson<BR><BR>`An elegantly written work by a cultivated Italian scholar [with] impressive breadth of knowledge.'---Contemporary Psychology