The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of English

Carl Gustav Jung, "On the Relation of
Analytical Psychology to Poetry"

What does Jung see as the relationship between science and art? What limits does he see in the ability of psychoanalytic techniques to explain literature?

How does he use Plato's parable of the cave to make his point? Which of the critics we have read would have agreed/disagreed with him?

Why does his title refer to "poetry" rather than to literature in general? With which aspects of poetry does he seem most concerned?

How does Jung define symbls? (993) How is this different from the term as used by Freud? By T. S. Eliot or Cleanth Brooks?

What does he regard as an essential feature of a work of literature? (994)

What two kinds of artistic creation does he identify? What does he mean by introverted art and extraverted art? (995-996) What is responsible for the latter form of artistic creation?

What are implications of the statement that the creative process is a "living thing implanted in the human psyche"? (997) What traits does he identify with this form of art, born of an autonomous complex? (997, 998)

Would this have been an accurate description of some of the epoch's poetry and art?

Is the poet fully in control of/aware of his/her work? (997)

What effects does he ascribe to symbols? Why do they produce something other than pure aesthetic enjoyment, in his view? (998) Do you agree?

What effects do autonomous complexes have on those who experience them? (999-1000)

What does Jung mean by the term "collective unconscous," and what is its relation to the personal unconscious? (1000) What evidence, if any, exists for the operation of a collective unconscious?

What result is achieved by the reappearance of "the manifold figures of the mythological pantheon"? (1001)

Are these images from the primordial world necessarily benign, and why? (1001, 1002)

What regulatory or balancing function does art provide? (1002) Is this consistent with present-day views of why we are interested in the art of the past?

What types of literature would a Jungian seek, and what forms of analysis would be most suitably imposed on them?

Can you see implications for Jung's valorization of myth in the political realm?

How do Jung's ideas reflect turn-of-the-century European culture? Are there aspects of myth or history which may be repressed in this form of analysis?

How may Jung's ideas on the archetype have been useful for (mid-century) literary criticism? Do they provide a corrective to other critical assumptions of the time? What may be their limitations?

page numbers are from the Norton

 


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