Freud located the death-drive first in the psyche of the individual and later in the tendency of whole civilisations. An instinct that is ancient – and, although ultimately organic, not reducible to biology – compels or propels the individual and the civilisation into the arms of death. The instinct is internal rather than imposed – suicidal, for short. Unconsciously, we solicit and pursue our own death. It is this inalienable instinct which, in tandem with the instinct of Eros – the instinct for life, for energy, for bonding, for procreation – is definitive of the species as such, and holds such weight with Freud because it offers the master key to understanding human life and behaviour.

The theory of the death-drive is extraordinary – controversial, counter-intuitive and even by Freud's admission highly speculative – and much of the text that follows worries at Freud's assumptions, arguments and conclusions. In this sense I add modestly to the already large literature on the subject. But my focus is not on the life of human beings per se: it is on literature, painting, sculpture and photography. Now, readers of Freud well know that he thought much in print about Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci and Hellenic sculpture, among other things, so the project of ‘applying Freud to literature and art’ is hardly new (and many have tried since).