Two Psychoanalytical Readings of The Little Prince

This is the presentation and analysis of two books written by two psychoanalysts about Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). Marie-Louise von Franz gave a series of twelve lectures during the winter semester 1959-60 at the Jung Institute in Zurich on the subject of the eternal youth type. The first eight lectures consisted in an analysis of Saint- Exupéry’s book, the French pilot and writer being presented as a prototype of The Problem of the Puer Aeternus published in 1970. Eugen Drewermann, a German theologian and psychoanalyst, also gave his own interpretation of The Little Prince in a book published in 1984 without any reference to Franz. After a detailed presentation of each book, the two psychoanalytical interpretations are compared. A quick overview of La Sagesse du Petit Prince (The Wisdom of the Little Prince) by the psychologist Pierre Lassus, published in 2014 shows, by contrast, the depth and perspicacity of the two psychoanalytic readings complementing each other and offering a new perspective on Saint-Exupéry himself and his most famous work.