1.1.1 JUNG'S DEFINITIONAND CHARACTERISATION
As anticipated in the introduction, in “Psychology and Literature” (1930/1950), Jung puts a distinction between psychological and visionary works:
For the sake of clarity I would like to call the one mode of artistic creation psychological, and the other visionary. The psychological mode works with materials drawn from man's conscious life – with crucial experiences, powerful emotions, suffering, passion, the stuff of human fate in general.
All this is assimilated by the psyche of the poet, raised from the commonplace to the level of poetic experience, and expressed with a power of conviction that gives us a greater depth of human insight by making us vividly aware of those everyday happenings which we tend to evade or to overlook because we perceive them only dully or with a feeling of discomfort. The raw material of this kind of creation is derived from the contents of man's consciousness, from his eternally repeated joys and sorrows, but clarified and transfigured by the poet. There is no work left for the psychologist to do […].
The gulf that separates the first from the second part of Faust marks the difference between the psychological and the visionary modes of artistic creation. Here everything is reversed. The experience that furnishes the material for artistic expression is no longer familiar. It is something strange that derives its existence from the hinterland of man's mind, as if it had emerged from the abyss of prehuman ages, or from a superhuman world of contrasting light and darkness. It is a
primordial experience which surpasses man's understanding and to which in his weakness he may easily succumb.1
Within such a “visionary” mode of artistic creation, Goethe is not alone with his Faust II:
Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Dithyramb of Dionysus belong to the same category, as well as Dante's Commedia; Wagner's Ring, Tristan, and Parsifal; Spitteler's Olympian Spring [Olympischer Frühling] (1900-1906); Blake's Poetry and Paintings; the Shepherd of Hermas; Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia; “Jacob Boehme's poetic-philosophic stammerings”; “the magnificent but scurrilous imagery of E. T. A. Hoffman's tale The Golden Bowl”. Furthermore, in “more restricted and succinct form”, this primordial experience is said to constitute the essential content of Rider Haggard's She and Ayesha, of Benoît's L'Atlantide, of Alfred Kubin's Die andere Seite, of Meyrink's Das grüne Gesicht, of Goetz's Das Reich ohne Raum, and of Barlach's Der tote Tag”; though “the list might be greatly extended”.2 Indeed, Jung seems to extend the list by describing other works with similar phrases elsewhere. The most remarkable examples are: Spitteler's Prometheus and Epimetheus [Prometheus und Epimetheus] (1881); Hölderlin's “Song of Fate” [Schicksalslied]
(from Hyperion, 1797/1798; 1789); Vischer's novel Auch Einer (1879). In Psychological Types, Jung analyses Spitteler's metric novel as the representation of “the introverted and extraverted lines of development in one and the same individual, though the poet has embodied it in two independent figures and their typical destinies”.3 A few paragraphs below, while commenting on Prometheus' soul that appears as a feminine entity, “separate from his individual ego”, he states:
And, just as the unconscious world of mythological images speaks indirectly, through the experience of external things, to the man who surrenders wholly to the outside world, so the real world and its demands find their way indirectly to the man who has surrendered wholly to the soul; for no man can escape both realities. If he is intent only on the outer reality, he must live his myth; if he is turned only towards the inner reality, he must dream his outer, so-called real life.4
Prometheus has indeed to experience the “real world”; whereas his brother needs to “live his
1 CW 15, §§ 139-141.
2 Ibid., § 142. Interestingly, a few years earlier, Jung had suggested that the participants in his seminar on analytical psychology would choose and read one of these following texts as examples of the Anima in literature: She, L'Atlantide, Das grüne Gesicht (C. G. Jung, Introduction to Jungian Psychology, Notes of the Seminar on Analytical Psychology given in 1925, Revised Edition edited by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2012, pp. 127-128). Hermas, Nietzsche, Wagner, Dante and Goethe were already gathered together by Jung in 1921, as representing the tradition of “the relativity of the symbol” (CW 6, §§ 408-412).
3 CW 6, § 276. According to such an interpretation, Prometheus would represent introversion and Epimetheus extraversion.
4 Ibid., § 280.
myth”. Jung then compares Spitteler's representation of the myth with Goethe's “Prometheus Fragment” (1773), and argues that whereas Spitteler appears to embody an “introverted type”, Goethe “belongs more to the extraverted […] type”. Despite many similarities concerning the two Promethean figures and their peculiar relationship with their “soul[s]”, “one essential difference remains. Goethe's Prometheus is a creator and artist, and Minerva [his soul] inspires his clay images with life. Spitteler's Prometheus is suffering, rather than creative; only his soul is creative, but her work is secret and mysterious”. Differently from Goethe's, Spitteler's Pandora represents the
“equivalent” of the amount of Prometheus' libido withdrawn from the outer world; she is a product of the unconscious to balance Prometheus' introversion. The jewel “she wants to give to mankind to ease their sufferings” is “an unconscious mirror-image that symbolizes the real work of the soul of Prometheus”, “it is a God-redeemer, a renewal of the sun”. Indeed, it “symbolizes a renewal of God, a new God, but this takes place in the divine sphere, i.e., in the unconscious”. As Epimetheus represents “the relation to the world”, the “rational attitude and orientation to objects”, Pandora's gift cannot find its place among humans, who are “incapable of appreciating the true value and significant of the jewel”. Promethean and Epimethean sides therefore appear “dissociated”, and the rebirth of the God can happen only at the end of the story, when the “enantiodromia” leads Epimetheus to negotiate with Behemoth and allow him to take away the divine children:
“psychologically, this means that the collective, undifferentiated attitude to the world stifles a man's highest values and becomes a destructive force, whose influence increases until the Promethean side, the ideal and abstract attitude, places itself at the service of the soul's jewel and, like a true Prometheus, kindles for the world a new fire”.5 Still in the same section, Jung compares Spitteler's work with Parsifal, Zarathustra, Faust II. In all these works, “the solution of the problem […] is religious. It is therefore not surprising that Spitteler too is drawn towards a religion setting”, even though here “the specifically religious problem loses in depth, though gaining in mythological richness and archaism”. Differently from Nietzsche and Goethe, Spitteler does not seem to be conscious of “the meaning of the symbol” in his work; Zarathustra and Faust, therefore, appear
“far more satisfying aesthetically than Spitteler's Prometheus, though the latter, as a more or less faithful reflection of actual processes of the collective unconscious, has a deeper truth”. A different and deeper level of awareness will be achieved by Spitteler in his later Olympian Spring [Olympischer Frühling] (1906-1909), where “the renewal of God” will play the main role.6 Lastly, in order to show how important it is to accept the uniting symbol – represented in Spitteler's novel by the third son of God, Messias – Jung cites from Blake's poem “The Marriage of Heaven and
5 CW 6, §§ 288-311. See also §§ 434-435.
6 Ibid., §§ 324-326.
Hell”, which “summarizes to simplify the fundamental ideas of Spitteler”: “These two classes of men are always upon earth … the Prolific and the Devouring … Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two”.7
Another possible “visionary” author is Hölderlin, who was already quoted in Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido, in order to endorse Jung in his representation of libido regression. Among all his poems, “Song of Fate” seemed to represent the most significant example of “divine heavenly bliss” [göttlich-infantile Seligkeit]. At that time, however, what interested Jung were the psychic consequences of too a deep introversion of libido, and the first stanza of Hölderlin's poem was interpreted as a symbol for such a danger. It reads, indeed: “You move up there in the light / On easeful ground, blessed Geniuses! / Bright divine airs / Touch you lightly [/ As the player's fingers Her holy strings]”. In his 1952 version, Jung develops the symbolic meaning of Hölderlin's poem in terms of “renewal”. This time, he quotes from the second stanza: “Fateless, like the sleeping / Infant, breathe the heavenly ones, / Chastely guarded / In modest bud; their spirits / Blossom eternally, / And the quiet eyes / Gaze out in placid / Eternal Serenity”, and comments that “it is enviable prerogative of the gods to enjoy everlasting infancy”. According to the poem, “Hölderlin was never able to forget this first and greatest happiness whose haunting presence estranged him from real life”.8 in 1950, in “A Study in the Process of Individuation”, Jung compares the drawing of a mandala with Hölderlin's poem and writes, right before reporting its verses:
The numerous wavy lines or layers in the mandala could be interpreted as representing the formation of layers of skin giving protection against outside influences. […] In our mandala the cortices are boundary lines marking off the inner unity and protecting it against the outer blackness with its disintegrating influences, personified by the serpent. The same motif is expressed by the petals of the lotus and by the skins of the onion: the outer layers are withered and desiccated, but they protect the softer, inner layers. The lotus seat of the Homs-child, of the Indian divinities, and of the Buddha must be understood in this sense. Hölderlin makes use of the same image [...].9
7 Ibid., § 460.
8 CW 5, §§ 619-620 (WSL, p. 377; Jung cites only the first four lines of the stanza); italic ours. “Song of Fate” reads:
“Ihr wandelt droben im Licht / Auf weichem Boden, selige Genien! / Glänzende Götterlüfte / Rühren euch leicht, / Wie die Finger der Künstlerin Heilige Saiten. / / Schicksallos, wie der schlafende / Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen; / Keusch bewahrt In bescheidener Knospe, / Blühet ewig / Ihnen der Geist, / Und die seligen Augen / Blicken in stiller Ewiger Klarheit. / / Doch uns ist gegeben, / Auf keiner Stätte zu ruhn, / Es schwinden, es / fallen Die leidenden Menschen / Blindlings von einer / Stunde zur andern, / Wie Wasser von Klippe / Zu Klippe / geworfen, Jahr lang ins Ungewisse hinab”. (F. Hölderlin, “Schicksalslied”, in: F. Hölderlin, Hyperion oder Der Eremit in Griechenland, in: Sämtliche Werke, Stuttgart 1957, p. 143; the first stanza is translated in: F. Hölderlin, Hyperion and Selected Poems, edited by Eric L. Santner, Continuum, New York 1990).
9 CW 9, 1, § 576 (translation modified).
In Psychological Types, Jung takes Hölderlin's “Patmos” as an example of “redeeming symbol”:
“Near is God / And hard to apprehend. / But where danger is, there / Arises salvation also”. As shown in the poem, even an excess of divine might be dangerous; the symbol therefore arises as
“the saving factor”, the element “which embraces both conscious and unconscious and unites them”.10 Furthermore, in 1932, the poet is associated with Nietzsche, Goethe and Joyce, for his prophetical capacity towards Modernism.11
The last author to be considered as part of the same category is Friedrich Theodor Vischer. Jung writes in Psychological Types:
His [the introverted type's] ideal is a lonely island where nothing moves except what he permits to move. Vischer's novel, Auch Einer, affords deep insight into this side of the introverted psychology, and also into the underlying symbolism of the collective unconscious.12
Among these “visionary” works, a few of them deserve particular attention, since they appear to be compared by Jung with Zarathustra pretty much consistently. These are: Faust II; “Song of Fate” (hence Hyperion); Olympian Spring and Prometheus and Epimetheus; Auch Einer. For instance, the “destructive element in the Epimethean attitude” is compared by Jung with Nietzsche's
“Ass Festival in Zarathustra” in Psychological Types.13 However, it is in his seminar on Zarathustra, that Jung highlights such proximity quite significantly. So he argues that “there are quite certainly primordial experiences in Faust, but others are taken from his wide mystical reading” and “only by analysing [Olympian Spring] as we are analysing Zarathustra, could we make out which is the genuine experience and which is elaboration”, referring to a comparison with Prometheus and Epimetheus.14 On 5 June 1935, the “Bush soul” – of which Nietzsche's relation to Zarathustra would be an example – is compared to Auch Einer motto, namely “Die Tücke des Objekts”.15 A similar comparison had already been made on 30 January 1935, in regard to Zarathustra chapter “Backworldsmen”, and Nietzsche's criticism to disregard for body: “You will then observe that the German philosopher tells about the die Tücke des Objekts. And the more you curse them, the more you see speech figures which insinuate life into them”.16 While analysing “On
10 CW 6, § 446
11 “'Ulysses': A Monologue”, CW 15, § 178.
12 CW 6, § 627.
13 CW 6, § 312. See also § 322.
14 SNZ I, p. 224 (7 November 1934).
15 Ibid., p. 528.
16 Ibid., p. 352. See Za I, 3, KSA 4, 37. “Beyond the sphere of their body and this earth they now fancied themselves transported, these ungrateful ones. But to what did they owe the convulsion and rapture of their transport? To their body and this earth” (translation by Thomas Common). Zarathustra as an experience was already associated with
the Happy Islands”, Jung compares Zarathustra's animals with Prometheus', and establishes that as the tiger represents the latter's Anima, so the lioness embodies Zarathustra's. Moreover, he adds that
“In Prometheus the lion is the will to power, and the dog is the sentimentality, the weakness, the craving for love and tenderness”.17 In the following session, he compares Nietzsche's representation of the “Happy Island” to a mandala “in which the god expresses himself”, exactly as in Hölderlin's
“Song of Fate”, that he quotes in this occasion as well.18 Lastly, on 7 December 1938, Jung compares Joyce's and Spitteler's experiences to Nietzsche's, even if these authors appears to him as if they tried to deny the unconscious in their works.19
As already argued in regard to Jung's impression reported in Memories, Dreams, Reflexions, what seems to keep Zarathustra and Faust II together is their capacity to reveal their authors as prophets. Leaving the unconscious component aside, it is truly remarkable that a few significant peculiarities occur in all these “visionary” works. In the next sections of this chapter, the focus will be on such works, aiming to draw stylistic similarities, common ground and mediations.
1.1.2 RETURN TO MYTHOLOGY
At a first glance, such “visionary” works do not seem to share significant common features concerning their style. Indeed, Faust and Olympian Spring are metric poems; Hyperion and Prometheus are free verse poems – the former is even written in the form of an epistolary novel –;
Auch Einer belongs to the genre of novels more broadly; Zarathustra presents a mixed style, which cannot unequivocally fit into one precise category. However, since Jung could grasp a certain similarity in all these works, it is arguable to wonder whether there is something to be noticed in them, apart from their presumable reflecting “the hinterland of man's mind, as if it had emerged from the abyss of prehuman ages”.20 In fact, a few recurrent motifs in their style deserve to be highlighted; above all they all present highly symbolic patterns, particularly recalling the Bible and ancient Greek mythology. Mythology in general seems to be the most significant element in all of these “visionary” works.21
Vischer's Auch Einer in Memories, Dreams Reflexions, where Jung expressed his fear of going through a destiny similar to Nietzsche's by stating that “I feared I might be forced to recognize that I too was another such strange bird [daß ich wie Nietzsche 'Auch Einer' war]” (MDR, p. 102).
17 SNZ II, pp. 871 (26 February 1936).
18 Ibid., p. 887 (4 March 1936): “So the god of the underworld, or the water world, which is the collective unconscious, brings up that Happy Island upon which the god is seated; on that flower he can be nursed. You may remember, perhaps, that the German poet Hölderlin uses exactly the same image of the god”.
19 Ibid., pp. 1445-1446. As the editor points out, Jung is likely to refer to Spitteler's reaction to his Psychological Types. The writer had indeed responded to Jung's analysis by stating that his characters were merely fictional figures and did not symbolise anything more.
20 CW 15, § 141.
21 A peculiarity also concerns the authors' relation with these texts: Faust, Hyperion, Zarathustra IV were never
In Faust II,22 along with the protagonist's political rise, his cognitive development is represented. This is moved by the feminine ideal, which is depicted by Goethe through the most traditional Greek mythological figures, such as the mothers or Helena. Besides, significant biblical motifs are also recurrent: Mephistopheles embodies a hellish figure who played with Faust's knowledge avidity by betting with God against Faust's salvation. The whole work evokes angels and devils recurrently, and the very last scene of the book describes a traditional fight between celestial and hellish potencies, contending for Faust's soul. As pointed out by Burton Feldman, the utilisation of mythology in Goethe's Faust differentiates from “subsequent romantic use of the myth”, for the fact that he neither dissolves nor subordinates “Nordic, Pagan and Christian myths”
one on behalf of the other; rather, Goethe “seeks a balance between these contrasting and often contradictory mythic elements that later writers either deliberately destroy or lose”. As advocators of one of the opposite tendencies, namely of retaining “older myths” but subordinating “them decisively to Christian and modern purposes”, the author mentions Wagner, Novalis and Hölderlin, indeed.23 In this sense, it can be stated that Hyperion represents the modern quest of the lost Greek society – utterly unattainable for the moderns –, and the conflict provoked by such search in the German reality of the late 18th century. The plot describes a young Greek, possessing a classic education, who decides to fight against the Turkish army during the very first attempts to achieve independence – during the so-called “Orlov Revolt” (1770), more specifically. The aim of the protagonist is to bring back Greece cultural and religious atmosphere, motivated by his passion for history and legends from his country. The story is spaced out by a journey to Europe with a relatively short break in Germany, and the structure of the novel is composed of letters from Hyperion to Bellarmin, his closest friend, as well as a few letters to Diotima, the woman he is in love with. The temporal structure is a circular one, and Greek and German experiences merge consistently throughout the novel. As argued by Feldman, “Hölderlin […] takes literally what romantic mythologists from Herder on taught but never practiced so intensely: that myth must be livingly experienced to be understood, and that regaining such mythic depth and life may help redeem modern man”. In the poem, such motif comes together with one of Hölderlin's more mature issues, i.e. “waiting for divine appearance”, still a romantic and Christian theme, but re-elaborated
considered ready to be shared with readers; Goethe, in particular, kept working on his work till his very last days.
22 Goethe worked on Faust throughout the period 1772-1832, that is to say, from his first elaborations of Urfaust until his death. His first publication of Faust, a Fragment [Faust, ein Fragment] (1790) was followed by the first edition of Faust I, in 1808, to which a second edition followed in years 1828-1829.
23 B. Feldman, The Rise of Modern Mythology, 1680-1860, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1972, p. 262.
Another modern re-elaboration of myth is represented, according to the scholar, by poets such as Wordsworth,
Another modern re-elaboration of myth is represented, according to the scholar, by poets such as Wordsworth,