The Diamond Path : a Study of Individuation in the Works of John Keats

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Diamond Path : a Study of Individuation in the Works of John Keats .1{" \t' à .c{Ê The Diamond Path: A Study of Individuation in the Works of John Keats w Maureen B. Roberts Thesis submitted in the Department of English, University of Adelaide, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy luly 1993 This thesis is dedicated to the memory of "one whose name was writ in water", |ohn Keats (October 31.1795 - February 231'827). m^ the depth of the deep, Down, down! Like veiled lightning asleep, Like that spark nursed in embers, The last look Love remembers, Like a diamond which shines On the dark wealth of mines, A spell is treasured but for thee alone. Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound 2.4.81.-88 Table of Contents Chapter One: THE GENERAL AND GREGARIOUS ADVANCE OF INTELLECT: ROMANTICISM AND THE ARCHETYPE L Chapter Two: ETHEREAL CHEMICALS: ALCHEMY AND THE ROMANTIC IMAGINATION 28 Chapter Three: A SPACE OF LIFE BETWEEN: THE MYTHIC PATTERN OF END}A4ION 55 Chapter Fou¡: SPARKS OF THE DIVINITY: KEATS' GNOSTIC VISION OF SOUL-MAKING LO7 Chapter Five: A FINE EXTREME: THE APOLLONIAN.DIONYSIAN POLARITY .144 Chapter Six A DISANOINTING POISON: KEATS'HEALING DREAM OF BEAUTY 193 Chapter Seven: THE GOAL OF CONSCIOUSNESS: THE QUEST FOR UNITY 251 Notes Bibliography Abstrach Romanticism as a particular phase in the evolution of Western consciousness is characterised by a creative reconnection to the collective unconscious as a key aspect of introverted thinking. Individuation as self-realisation involves, as does the Romantic imagination, the struggle to unify recreatively through the balance and synthesis of opposites. After a brief discussion of these ideas, this thesis examines the development of Keats' poetry in terms of a basic pattern of tansformation in which an initially unified state of consciousness is divided, then re-collected as a "higher" unity through a process of maturation. Two important uniting symbols - the diamond orb inEndymion and the square edged stone at the end of The FaIl of Hyperíon - form the two ends of a thread of development along which Keats' poetry is self-creative through its healing of the "dis-ease" of inner division to reform the unified self. This quest for unity is examined through several paradigms of individuation, all of which are harmonious with the basic principles of Romanticism and |ungian thought. These are, in order, the Neoplatonic quest for the One as Truth and Beauty, the alchemical synthesis of opposites to form the Phitosophers' Stone, the Gnostic paradox of the "fortunate falI" into self-division, and the creative tension between the unified Apollonian self and the Dionysian self-divided sufferer who is in principle synonymous with Milton's Satan. Keats accordingly inverts the significance of the Miltonic Christian Fatl by ascribing a positive potential to the Dionysian transitional state of paradox. Within this perspective Keats' philosophy of "Soul-making" expresses the Gnostic striving of the divine "spark" as the latent individuality of the self to ascend through the ambivalent space of individuation to conscious realisation. Through the progressive integration of all these principles, Keats is seen to be an intuitively Gnostic and primarily introverted thinker whose quest for redeeming self-knowledge reflects his own maxim: "That which is creative must create itself." Declaration: This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any University. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously pubtished or written by another Person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. I consent to this thesis being made available for photocopying and loan. Signed Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my supervisors, Michael ]. Tolley and Philip Waldron for their personal support, as well as for their advice, valuable comments, and. constructive criticism of this thesis. Also, I wish to thank Robin Eaden for her help with formatting. Abbreviations used in text and notes: L = The Letters of lohn Keats, 1.8L4-21 CW = The Collected Worlcs of C. G. lung Individual volumes in CW: PT -- Psychological Types SDP = The Structure ønd Dynamics of the Psyche ACU = The Archetypes ønd the Collectk¡e lJ.nconscíous A = Aíon PA = Psychology ønd Alchemv AS = Alchemicøl Studíes MC = Mysterium Coniunctionís SM = The Spírit in Man, Art, and Literature BL = Coleridge, Biographíø Literaríø DP = Shelley, A Defence of Poetry Chapter One: THE GENERAL AND GREGARIOUS ADVANCE OF INTELLECT: ROMANTICISM AND THE ARCHETYPE The enduring resistance of Romanticism to definitive explanations of its central essence reflects its endorsement of a principle transcendent to reason as the foundation of knowledge and being. ]ung, who once drily commented, "Thank God I am Jung, and not a fungian", displays the same reluctance to subjugate intuitive understanding to analysis and systemisation. Flere, then, is the essence of both Romanticism and |ungian psycholog/; at the heart of both is the lived dynamic of the human psyche, the transitional self moving towards a sometimes ideal, always logically elusive goal. The aim of a Jungian approach to Keats, therefore, is not exhaustively to explain, but rather to illuminate the psychological significance of that which, nonetheless, ultimately retains its inherent mystery: the person and that which expresses it, the poet and his works. ]ung's constant subjection to the reality of the psyche, the staunch refusal to privilege logical conceptualisation over the intuitive, symbolic, mythic, and metaphoric resonates with Keats' relentless immersion in the lived moment. For |ung as well as for Keats, "nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced."l I shall devote this opening chapter and much of the next to an apologetic for a holistic approach to Romanticism in which I aim to show how ]ung's basic ideas concerning the unity of knowledge and existence are in principle synonymous with those of the Platonic tradition, Romanticism, alchemy and Gnosticism. The basic premise of a psychodynamic interpretative approach is that certain texts and the poefs works as a whole represent a process of development which aims to reconcile the actual condition with a hypothetical ideal - an ideal which expansively incorporates both personal and universal dimensions. The consequent prospective quality 2 of Romantic poetry in general entails a dialectic which moves toward a state of wholeness in which all opposites, including real and ideal, are harmoniously reconciled. This movement of becoming, in which the self is an entelechy rather than a fixed identity, reveals the creative imagination to be synonymous with an autonomous self-creation in that the imagination is the mediator of artistic and psychic balance; in the words of Keats: "That which is creative must create itself" (L 7:374, to ]. A. Hessey, 8/70/1'878). The experience of a homeostatic, self-creating self, though prevalent in Romantic poetry in general, is as integral to the life and works of Keats as it is fundamental to the |ungian psychology of individuation. Before turning to the main concern of this study - the psychology of individuation implicit in the works of Keats - it will be worthwhile, and in many respects essential as a preliminary rationale, to consider some relevant premises of Romanticism and ]ungian thought, partly in order to counterbalance certain biases which persist as unstated assumptions throughout Romantic criticism in general. It is ]ung's essentially expansionist attitude toward literature, paralleling Romanticism's inherent expansion from the personal toward the universal, that sharply marks off both from reductively personal or structural approaches and reveals certain basic intuitions to be common to both. A ]ungian perspective, in other words, is not the superimposition of an "external" critique upon literature, but rather a reaffirmation of what is explicit or implicit in Romanticism itself: the translucence of the universal in the individual, the interaction of the process of becoming with the ideal permanence of being. Jung's psychological equivalent of the universal, his hypothesis of the collective unconscious, underlies his approach to those forms of literature - of which Romanticism is exemplary - which arise from an imaginative connection to the universal psyche. Integral to the mythic consciousness prevalent in Romanticism is the collective unconscious or "objective psyche", which Jung describes as a level of psychic functioning deeper than the 3 personal unconscious, whose contents and patterns of behaviour are not personally acquired but inborn.2 In other words, the collective unconscious constitutes a universally present, suprapersonal substrate which expresses itself through consistently identifiable themes and symbols grounded in human history. The psychic basis of myth, ]ung's concept of the archetype, as an irrepresentable, formative principle of an instinctual nature, derives from his observation of the repeated occurrence world-wide throughout mythic, religious, and symbolic literature of the same patterns, images, and motifs.3 ]ung's syncretism, then, as with that of the Romantic poets, is grounded in the existence of the archetype as foundational to philosophic, religious, and artistic thought. It is from this archetypal perspective that Keats perceives how "Every department of knowledge" is "calculated towards a great whole." (L'1,:277, to ]. H. Reynolds, 3/5/181,8). A few months earlier in a letter to ). H. Reynolds, following his consideration of the collective
Recommended publications
  • Enantiodromia 1
    Enantiodromia 1 Anna Mlasowsky University of Washington A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Fine Arts University of Washington 2016 Committee: Ellen Garvens Doug Jeck Scott Lawrimore Jamie Walker Program Authorized to Offer Degree: School of Art 1 ©Copyright 2016 Anna Mlasowsky 2 University of Washington Abstract Enantiodromia Anna Mlasowsky Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Doug Jeck School of Art Multiplicity 2 and the bridging of opposing realities is a central theme in my work. This multiplicity speaks to a physical disconnection between places as well as to a mental state of disassociation. Through process I enable likewise contradiction and unification. I use materials to reconcile the opposite ends of a spectrum of transformation. Documentation allows me to extract and distill the essence of an action performed in my studio. I use the body in the same way I use materials. I watch its influence on a space, situation and condition and force it to enter interim stages somewhere between pleasure and pain. The resulting pieces capture a metaphysical quest into metamorphic zones that show our interconnectivity to all reality, visible and invisible. The Body 3 In my practice moments of anxiety, discomfort, fear and risk have found a central place. While frightening, they have also been pleasurable. Control through restraint and direction seems to be an allowance for unrestricted and fearless pleasure. In “The Well” (fall 2015, fig. 1) a body is slowly submerging into an undefined depth of water. While submerged in water, the body becomes the only known, the only orientation and place.
    [Show full text]
  • Heraclitus - Some Translations and Notes by David Myatt
    Heraclitus - Some Translations and Notes by David Myatt Heraclitus Some Translations and Notes Contents Translations of Some Fragments Attributed to Heraclitus Some Notes on Πόλεμος and Δίκη in Heraclitus B80 Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 112 Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 123 Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 53 The Abstraction of Change as Opposites and Dialectic The Principle of Δίκα Translations of Some Fragments Attributed to Heraclitus Preface As explained in the notes that originally accompanied the translations, I have deliberately transliterated (instead of translated) πόλεμος, and left δίκη as δίκη - because both πόλεμος and δίκη should be regarded like ψυχή (psyche/Psyche) as terms or as principles in their own right (hence the capitalization), and thus imply, suggest, and require, interpretation and explanation, something especially true, in my opinion, regarding δίκη. To render such Greek terms blandly by English terms such as 'war' and 'justice' - which have their own now particular meaning(s) - is in my view erroneous and somewhat lackadaisical. δίκη for instance could be, depending on context: the custom(s) of a folk, judgement (or Judgement personified), the natural and the necessary balance, the correct/customary/ancestral way, and so on. 1 of 19 Heraclitus - Some Translations and Notes by David Myatt The notes to the translations are included below. David Myatt 2012 ce Fragment 1 (Partial) τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδ᾽ ἐόντος ἀεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι καὶ πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ πρῶτον Although this naming and expression, which I explain, exists – human beings tend to ignore it, both before and after they have become aware of it. Fragment 39 ἐν Πριήνηι Βίας ἐγένετο ὁ Τευτάμεω, οὗ πλείων λόγος ἢ τῶν ἄλλων In Priene was born someone named and recalled as most worthy – Bias, that son of Teutamas Fragment 53 Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι, πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς μὲν δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους.
    [Show full text]
  • Jung on Astrology
    Jung on Astrology Jung on Astrology brings together C. G. Jung’s thoughts on astrology in a single volume for the fi rst time, signifi cantly adding to our understanding of his work. Jung’s Collected Works , seminars, and letters contain numerous discussions of this ancient divinatory system, and Jung himself used astrological horoscopes as a diagnostic tool in his analytic practice. Understood in terms of his own psychology as a symbolic representation of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, Jung found in astrology a wealth of spiritual and psychological meaning and suggested it represents the “sum of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.” The selections and editorial introductions by Safron Rossi and Keiron Le Grice address topics that were of critical importance to Jung – such as the archetypal symbolism in astrology, the precession of the equinoxes and astrological ages, astrology as a form of synchronicity and acausal correspondence, the qualitative nature of time, and the experience of astrological fate – allowing readers to assess astrology’s place within the larger corpus of Jung’s work and its value as a source of symbolic meaning for our time. The book will be of great interest to analytical psychologists, Jungian psy- chotherapists, and academics and students of depth psychology and Jungian and post-Jungian studies, as well as to astrologers and therapists of other orientations, especially transpersonal. Safron Rossi, PhD, is a Professor of mythology and depth psychology in the Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialization at Pacifi ca Graduate Institute, Cali- fornia. For many years she was curator of the Joseph Campbell and James Hillman manuscript collections.
    [Show full text]
  • Enantiodromia-The-Sinister-Abyssal
    Anton Long - Enantiodromia: Sinister Abyssal Nexion Enantiodromia The Sinister Abyssal Nexion Introduction - The Seven Fold Way and Traditional Nexions in Context 1 The Abyss 2 The Methods and Tradition of The Seven Fold Way 3 Individuality and The Abyss 4 Notes On The Transition Between Internal Adept and The Abyss 5 The Rite of The Abyss Introduction The Seven Fold Way and Traditional Nexions in Context This work brings together a few brief articles and notes, written by me, concerning a particular part of The Seven Fold Way - the Sinister Abyssal Nexion, and the transition from Internal Adept to Master/LadyMaster. The following of the Seven Fold Way by individuals - from Neophyte to Internal Adept, and beyond and as described in texts such as The Complete Guide to the Seven-Fold Way (v 2.01, dated 121 yf) -- was the traditional method used by the initiatory nexions of the Order of Nine Angles (ONA) in order to move toward one of our esoteric aims, that of producing a new type of human being, a type prefigured in our Masters/LadyMasters and a type collectively known by the term Homo Galacticus. This traditional method has been, until recently, the one chosen by the majority of those individuals recruited into the ONA and by those who, inspired by the ONA, have opted to work on their own in pursuit of both their own esoteric advancement and in pursuit of the aims, objectives, and goals, of the ONA. However, the ONA is now far more than traditional initiatory nexions following the Seven Fold Way, evolving as it has to become a Kollective of Tribes, Dreccs, Niners, Sinister-Empaths, Balobians, and others.
    [Show full text]
  • Jung and Phenomenology
    Jung and Phenomenology Jung and Phenomenology is a classic text in the field of Jungian scholarship. Originally published in 1991, it continues to be essential to conversations regarding the foundations of Jungian thought. This Classic Edition of the book includes a new introduction by the author. Jung described his own approach as phenomenological, particularly as it contrasted with Freud’s psychoanalysis and with medical psychiatry. However, Jung’s understanding of phenomenology was inconsistent, and he writes with an epistemological eclecticism that leaves him often at cross purposes with himself. In Jung and Phenomenology, Brooke systematically addresses the central ideas of Jung’s thought. The major developments in the post-Jungian tradition are extensively integrated into the conversation, as are clinical issues, meaning that the book marks a synthesis of insights in the contemporary Jungian field. His reading and interpretation of Jung are guided by the question of what it is that Jung is trying to show but which tends to be obscured by his formulations. Examining the meaning of Jung’s theoretical ideas in concrete existential terms, Jung and Phenomenology is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, and students interested in the Jungian tradition and existential phenomenology. Roger Brooke is Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University, USA, where he has also been Director of Clinical Training. His theoretical and clinical work draws deeply from the Jungian, psychoanalytic, and phenomenological traditions. He is also the editor of Pathways into the Jungian World (Routledge, 1999). Routledge Mental Health Classic Edition The Routledge Mental Health Classic Edition series celebrates Routledge’s commitment to excellence within the field of mental health.
    [Show full text]
  • Chaos and Psychology
    Chaos and psychology In a wonderful book “Putting a New Spin on Groups: The Science of Chaos” by Bud A. McClure, there is an insightful discussion on the application of chaos theory to Jungian Psychology. Sigmund Freud “Several articles appeared identifying parallels between aspects of chaos theory and Jungian Psychology, none better than Butz, who integrated ideas from chaos theory with the psychodynamic developmental theories of Freud, Erickson, and Jung to clarify and extend Jung's concept of the self. Butz defined chaos, in human experience, as overwhelming anxiety. This anxiety, which acts as a preconscious gestation period, foreshadows potential psychic growth. Like the periods artists bear before the leap of creative insight occurs, these cycles of intense distress are necessary for psychological growth. Erik Erickson www.capitalideasonline.com Page - 1 Chaos and psychology Butz utilized Erickson’s developmental model to make his point that turbulence and anxiety are necessary conditions of, in this case, psychosocial evolvement. In Erickson's model, each of the seven stages of development is seen as a crisis point: basic trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus role confusion, intimacy versus isolation, and generativity versus stagnation.At each stage or crisis point, the individual seeks resolution of the basic dialectic between individual and cultural needs. The conflict, turbulence, and resolution are the reorganizing ingredients that propel the individual toward ego integrity. As Butz pointed out, although Erickson's model is linear, through the lens of chaos theory, its power increases. Carl Jung Jung’s relationship between self and ego Jung's theory of development centered on the middle and later stages of life.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Spectre of the Other'
    International Association for Jungian Studies International Conference ‘Spectre of the Other’ Centre for the Book Cape Town, South Africa July 27-30, 2017 Conference Co-Sponsors • Center for Applied Jungian Studies (CAJS) • South African Association of Analytical Psychology (SAAJA) ‘The Spectre of the Other’ CONFERENCE THEMES 1-Postcolonial 5-Women 2-Cultural/Political 6-Somatic 3- Jungian Psychology 7-Dreams 4-Africa: the Continent/ 8-Shadow Nature/Healing 9-Literary/Myth 10-Dreams/Visitations/ Collective Unconscious CONFERENCE EVENTS – 5.30 PM Thursday, July 27: Wine and Cheese Reception; hosted by South African Association of Analytical Psychology (SAAJA) and IAJS – 12.30-1.30 PM Friday, July 28: IAJS Annual Membership Meeting led by IAJS Co-Chairs Elizabeth Brodersen and Michael Glock and the IAJS Executive Committee – 7.00 PM Friday, July 28: Film: The Mirror, and Discussion; facilitated by Helena Bassil-Morozow; hosted by Centre for Applied Jungian Studies (CAJS) – 6.00 PM Saturday, July 29: Gala Dinner and Dance at The Pepper Club, Cape Town (Cost $50) Thursday Auditorium Room 2: Registration 7:30-8:30 AM Room 3 27/7 Daily Themes: 1-Postcolonial; 2-Cultural/Political; 3- Jungian Psychology; 4-Africa: the Continent/Nature/Healing; 5-Women; 6- Theme Somatic; 7-Dreams; 8-Shadow; 9-Literary/Myth; 10-Dreams/Visitations/Collective Unconscious 8.30 – 8.30- 8.50 Welcome to the Conference in the Auditorium 10.45 Welcome from Stephen Farah and Marybeth Carter, Conference –Co-Chairs Welcome from Liz Brodersen and Michael Glock, IAJS Co-Chairs 8.50- 9.10 AM Ritual Opening of Conference Space (Doors will be closed during the ritual.
    [Show full text]
  • Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 16: Practice of Psychotherapy
    B O L L I N G E N S E R I E S X X THE COLLECTED WORKS OF C. G. JUNG VOLUME 16 EDITORS SIR HERBERT READ MICHAEL FORDHAM, M.D., M.R.C.P. GERHARD ADLER, PH.D. WILLIAM MCGUIRE, executive editor 2 PRACTICE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY ESSAYS ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRANSFERENCE AND OTHER SUBJECTS C. G. JUNG SECOND EDITION TRANSLATED BY R. F. C. HULL B O L L I N G E N S E R I E S X X 3 COPYRIGHT 1954 BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION INC., NEW YORK, N.Y. COPYRIGHT © RENEWED 1982 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW MATERIAL COPYRIGHT © 1966 BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, N.J. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND AUGMENTED, 1966 Second printing, 1970 Third printing, with corrections, 1975 Fourth printing, 1977 First Princeton / Bollingen Paperback printing, 1985 THIS EDITION IS BEING PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS AND IN ENGLAND BY ROUTLEDGE AND KEGAN PAUL, LTD. IN THE AMERICAN EDITION, ALL THE VOLUMES COMPRISING THE COLLECTED WORKS CONSTITUTE NUMBER XX IN BOLLINGEN SERIES. THE PRESENT VOLUME IS NUMBER 16 OF THE COLLECTED WORKS AND WAS THIRD TO APPEAR. ISBN 0-691-09767-4 ISBN 0-691-01870-7 (PBK.) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 75–156 MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A. 4 EDITORIAL NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION Since this volume was one of the first to appear in the Collected Works, its second edition calls for considerable revision. As with each new edition of these volumes, the reference materials (footnotes and bibliography) have been corrected and brought up to date, taking into account the subsequent publication of nearly all of Jung’s works in this English edition.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Jungian Terms
    Glossary of Jungian Terms Active Imagination: A technique of concentrating on dream or fantasy images by lowering the level of conscious activity. This allows the images to develop according to their own logic and furnishes a means of exposing unconscious contents. Affect: Emotion. A primary force exercised by the unconscious over which the individual has little control. Amplification: A process of interpretation, important in the analysis of dreams, it depends upon finding the appropriate context for images by searching for parallels in other dreams or in myths. Images in films can be amplified by cross-reference to other images whether in the same film or in comparable sources. Androgyne: (Also hermaphrodite.) An imago having the sexual characteris­ tics of both male and female in equal measure. In its perfected form it represents the linkage of anima and animus in a syzygy that reflects the balancing of opposite elements in the differentiated self. Anima and Animus: The contrasexual archetypes. The first, experienced by men, represents the hidden feminine aspects of their personalities; and the second (present in the dreams of women) symbolises the concealed masculine in them. They mediate between the ego and the unconscious, and thus are opposites to the persona. See also syzygy. Apperception: A process whereby a new psychic content is recognised so that it becomes clear. Directed apperceptive processes, like thinking, depend on rational, conscious activity; undirected apperception, such as dreaming and fantasising, is irrational. Archetypal Images: The images which clothe the archetypes and enable the conscious mind to know unconscious contents. Often recognisable by their numinosity or magical charge.
    [Show full text]
  • Saturn in C. G. Jung's Liber Primus
    Saturn in C. G. Jung’s Liber Primus An Astrological Meditation SAFRON ROSSI Our psyche is set up in accord with the structure of the universe, and what happens in the macrocosm likewise happens in the infinitesimal and most subjective reaches of the psyche. —C. G. Jung Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961/1989, 335) Saturn is the most maligned and feared god, for with him comes consciousness of age, sickness, incapacity, and the inevitability of endings. Saturn is also the taskmaster, disciplinarian, and teacher whose gifts come rather like curses, leaden with the weight of suffering and guilt. Yet it is Saturn who brings mastery, wisdom, patience, a sense of legacy and history, wealth through endurance, authority and sovereignty, the diamond body that emerges from coal, the gold transmuted from lead. The fullness of this archetypal pulse and psychological presence is one of the energies that lies at the heart of C. G. Jung’s Liber Primus, the first book of The Red Book (2009). When read archetypally as illustrative of his integration of the Saturn archetype, Liber Primus reveals aspects of Jung’s experience as well as certain qualities of Saturn. Before the publication of The Red Book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961/1989) was the main portal into Jung’s personal mythology. The Red Book reveals the process of the crafting of his personal myth by recovery of his soul through active participation with his unconscious in deep conscious reflection. Taking the eruptive thoughts and fantasies he was experiencing and working with them through active imagination, Jung was able to digest and, in turn, cultivate the images and symbols that were arising from the unconscious.
    [Show full text]
  • On Jung and Lévi-Strauss Unconscious: a Brief Comparison Giuseppe Iurato
    On Jung and Lévi-Strauss unconscious: A brief comparison Giuseppe Iurato To cite this version: Giuseppe Iurato. On Jung and Lévi-Strauss unconscious: A brief comparison. 2013. hal-00840195 HAL Id: hal-00840195 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00840195 Preprint submitted on 1 Jul 2013 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. On Jung and Lévi-Strauss unconscious: A brief comparison Giuseppe Iurato University of Palermo, IT E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. Retracing the main common aspects between the anthropological thought and the psychoanalytic one, in this paper we will further discuss about the main common points be- tween the notions of unconscious according to Carl Gustav Jung and Claude Lévi-Strauss, tak- ing into account the Erich Neumann thought. On the basis of very simple elementary logic con- siderations centered around the basic notion of separation of opposites, what will be said might turn out to be useful for some speculations upon possible origins of the rational thought, hence for the origins of consciousness. Keywords and phrases: analytical psychology, structural anthropology, unconscious, arche- type, classical logic, opposites. «In the beginning, all the things were together; then, it came the mind (ó υοὓζ) and set them in order» Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ (Diogenes Lærtius, Vite dei Filosofi, II, Chap.
    [Show full text]
  • King Lear and the Red Book
    Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies, Vol. 16, 2021 24 The Work of Redemption: King Lear and The Red Book Matthew A. Fike Abstract. The Red Book by C. G. Jung remains an unexplored analogy for William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Jungian critics of the play have mainly emphasized Lear’s extraverted rationality versus his need to foster introversion and love. Jung’s visionary experiences suggest an additional pattern: a departure from an initial state of psychological dysfunction, an encounter with unconscious forces, and a return that reflects inner progress. Within this tripartite structure, the two works share many themes and image patterns; but whereas Jung achieves genuine individuation, Lear’s progress is more akin to enantiodromia than to the ideal that The Red Book proposes—a balance or unity of opposites in the creation of a new third state of being. Keywords: Jung, Shakespeare, King Lear, The Red Book, individuation, enantiodromia Introduction Johannes Fabricius argues in Shakespeare’s Hidden World: A Study of His Unconscious that Shakespeare’s plays are about individuation, the process of making the unconscious conscious and moving toward the wholeness of the Self (9, 11). Although the study does not mention King Lear, a key statement does apply: “If errors are unconsciously motivated, the single error and its specific nature may provide an illuminating avenue to the unconscious” (13). In Lear’s hamartia (the quantification of love in the division of the kingdom), ego mistakes persona for the Self, and the shadow erupts. Although other scholars explore the resulting psycho-dynamics, The Red Book—C. G.
    [Show full text]