The Passionate Freudian to His Love

The Passionate Freudian to His Love

  by Dorothy Parker

Only name the day, and we'll fly away

In the face of old traditions,

To a sheltered spot, by the world forgot,

Where we'll park our inhibitions.

Come and gaze in eyes where the lovelight lies

As it psychoanalyzes,

And when once you glean what your fantasies mean

Life will hold no more surprises.

When you've told your love what you're thinking of

Things will be much more informal;

Through a sunlit land we'll go hand-in-hand,

Drifting gently back to normal.

While the pale moon gleams, we will dream sweet dreams,

And I'll win your admiration,

For it's only fair to admit I'm there

With a mean interpretation.

In the sunrise glow we will whisper low

Of the scenes our dreams have painted,

And when you're advised what they symbolized

We'll begin to feel acquainted.

So we'll gaily float in a slumber boat

Where subconscious waves dash wildly;

In the stars' soft light, we will say good-night—

And "good-night!" will put it mildly.

Our desires shall be from repressions free—

As it's only right to treat them.

To your ego's whims I will sing sweet hymns,

And ad libido repeat them.

With your hand in mine, idly we'll recline

Amid bowers of neuroses,

While the sun seeks rest in the great red west

We will sit and match psychoses.

So come dwell a while on that distant isle

In the brilliant tropic weather;

Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed,

We'll always be Jung together.

On August 22, 1893, Dorothy Parker was born to J. Henry and Elizabeth Rothschild, at their summer home in West End, New Jersey. Growing up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, her childhood was an unhappy one. Both her mother and step-mother died when she was young; her uncle, Martin Rothschild, went down on the Titanic in 1912; and her father died the following year. Young Dorothy attended a Catholic grammar school, then a finishing school in Morristown, NJ. Her formal education abruptly ended when she was 14.

In 1914, Dorothy sold her first poem to Vanity Fair. At age 22, she took an editorial job at Vogue. She continued to write poems for newspapers and magazines, and in 1917 she joined Vanity Fair, taking over for P.G. Wodehouse as drama critic. That same year she married a stockbroker, Edwin P. Parker. But the marriage was tempestuous, and the couple divorced in 1928.

In 1919, Parker became a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, an informal gathering of writers who lunched at the Algonquin Hotel. The "Vicious Circle" included Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George S Kaufman, and Edna Ferber, and was known for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary. In 1922, Parker published her first short story, "Such a Pretty Little Picture," for Smart Set.

When the New Yorker debuted in 1925, Parker was listed on the editorial board. Over the years, she contributed poetry, fiction and book reviews as the "Constant Reader."

Parker's first collection of poetry, Enough Rope, was published in 1926, and was a bestseller. Her two subsequent collections were Sunset Gun in 1928 and Death and Taxes in 1931. Her collected fiction came out in 1930 as Laments for the Living.

During the 1920s, Parker traveled to Europe several times. She befriended Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, socialites Gerald and Sarah Murphy, and contributed articles to the New Yorker and Life. Dorothy Parker's biting wit made her a legend, but it also masked her lonely struggle with depression and alcoholism and attempted suicide.

In 1929, she won the O. Henry Award for her autobiographical short story "Big Blonde." She produced short fiction in the early 1930s, and also began writing drama reviews for the New Yorker. In 1934, Parker married actor-writer Alan Campbell in New Mexico; the couple relocated to Los Angeles and became a highly paid screenwriting team. They labored for MGM and Paramount on mostly forgettable features, the highlight being an Academy Award nomination for A Star Is Born in 1937. They divorced in 1947, and remarried in 1950.

Parker, who became a socialist in 1927 when she became involved in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, was called before the House on Un-American Activities in 1955. She pleaded the Fifth Amendment.

Parker was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1959 and was a visiting professor at California State College in Los Angeles in 1963. That same year, her husband died of an overdose. On June 6, 1967, Parker was found dead of a heart attack in a New York City hotel at age 73. A firm believer in civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Upon his assassination some months later, the estate was turned over to the NAACP.

Her wit was legendary, especially her one liners.  Here is one of my favorites:

I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.