Olivier Bochettaz Mthodologie Littrature Final Paper

The Influence of the Unconscious on Artistic Creation

[...]le grand vnement du sicle fut sans conteste la dcouverte progressive de la personnalit inconsciente et de son dynamisme. [...] Sous la forme dinspiration, linconscient ne pouvait gner la critique littraire. Mais tout changea lorsqu la fin du XXe sicle un certain nombre de travaux scientifiques, et en particulier ceux de Bernheim, Janet, Freud et Jung, donnrent la notion dinconscient un contenu non plus mystrieux mais dfini, non plus surnaturel, mais naturel et quelquefois pathologique. Une crise tait invitable [...], la critique littraire devait-elle intgrer cette nouvelle conception de linconscient dans sa propre psychologie ? 1 If one is trying to grasp the nature and the function of art, and especially in the field of literature, the relationship between the creative act and the unconscious activity of the human mind has to be considered. The evolution of the understanding of human psychology through the modern researches in psychiatry and psychoanalysis cannot be avoided any longer by literary critique. Any kind of research has to advance with its time. To contribute to the evolution of human knowledge, modern researches have to include the intellectual preoccupations of their time. And the exploration of the activity of the unconscious is one of the most challenging and fascinating of these preoccupations. Since literature is probably the most adapted lens through which one can observe this unconscious activity, we will try, through this work, to go into this particular relationship that connects writing - and art in general - to the unconscious.

Charles Mauron, Des mtaphores obsdantes aux mythes personnels, p.15.

This paper will attempt to highlight the fact that literary critique, in order to stay in communication and in collaboration with its time, needs to integrate into its researches the modern knowledge of human psychology. To express this necessity and to realize the importance of the psycho(patho)logical aspects of writing, I will firstly synthesize Introduction lessence de la mythologie, an essay written by Carl Gustav Jung and Charles Krnyi. This book attempts to show how analytical psychology, as a literary tool, can reveal in an intuitive and coherent manner the essential (psychological) structures of literary symbolism. Then, once we will have grasped how influential the unconscious activity of the mind is on artistic creation, through this psychoanalytical approach of the founding myths, I will briefly introduce the psychocritical method of Charles Mauron - defined in his book Des mtaphores obsdantes au mythe personnel in order to give an example of the efforts made by literary critique to incorporate the modern knowledge of psychology in its discourse.

Synthesis of Introduction lessence de la mythologie by C.G. Jung & C. Krnyi

The authors describe the book as une mthode pour une connaissance des lments essentiels de la mythologie , or more precisely, more humbly, as une tentative de recherche prparant une science de la mythologie 2. This essay analyzes in a scientific, rational way, the relation between mythology and its origins (collective and particular). It explores the original contexts from which myths emerge, through the idea that the archetypes of mythology have a psychological origin, that they are embodiments of essentially unconscious data. To succeed in this attempt the authors clearly combine literature with psychoanalysis; they ground their method of literary analysis in the field of analytical psychology, which has been developed by Jung. By tracing the psychologically-unconscious origins of myths, they attempt to describe in detail
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Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.8.

the dynamic relationship between mythological themes and psychological archetypes. Myths, as we will see later, would be enrooted in a collective unconscious; the essence of mythology would be a psychical stratum shared by all humans, and so the art of mythology, finally, would be a mode of expression of the human unconscious, an artistic concretization of the irrational and fantasist depths of the human soul. According to this theory, mythology would be, fundamentally, an attempt to organize poetically the archetypal images that the human unconscious produces irrationally through the imagination. If we pushed this theory to its extreme, we could even say that language itself is but a tool for the consciousness to articulate symbolically its unconscious roots, and that the thinking-process in words is preceded by a thinking-process in images (archetypal, collective; individual, personal). The goal of mythology, of writing, and even of language finally, could be to help man comprehend and master his unconscious impulses, by articulating those impulses in a symbolic-system that enables the consciousness to understand the irrational and imaged language of the unconscious. So according to the book, myths would be created to train consciousness to tame and comprehend its unconscious impulses, its unconscious roots, by opening up a dimension into which conscious and unconscious data are having a dialogue through images, through allegorical, mythical representations of the real.

To not alter or scientify mythology too much, as Jung and Krnyi underline in the book, or Mircea Eliade in his own, one should always keep in mind the primary function of myths among primitive societies, for it is in these cultures, and only in these, that lies the original vitality of mythology. Any myth is enrooted in a primitive culture; it is within primitive societies that mythology is fully alive, it is where its real nature and primary function can be observed. So to approach rightly this original function of mythology, Jung firstly analyzes the psychological impact of the reception of myths by the primitive consciousness. He observes that this primitive consciousness called tat prconscient (pre-conscious state) ninvente pas de mythes, elle les vit.3. This
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Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.124.

crepuscular consciousness enables non-civilized humans to have an intuitive relationship with mythology, they can experience spontaneously the

psychological and religious power contained in the mythic images. According to Jung, the preconscious state is different than the civilized state of consciousness at least in three ways: absence of will, of concentration, and of attention. Primitive individuals would live in a state of reduced consciousness, an inner world into which the unconscious dominates over the conscious. He affirms that they dont think, but that thinking happens in them. Lhomme primitif ne peut pas prtendre quil pense ; la pense se fait en lui.4. To Jung, this aspect of the primitive consciousness would explain the obnubilation, the cultural fascination for the supra-sensible world among non-civilized individuals, and even their awe of the magical forces of the universes. For the primitive individual, dans ltat crpusculaire de sa conscience, il est souvent presque impossible de reconnatre sil a seulement rv quelque chose ou si elle sest rellement produite. La manifestation automatique de linconscient, avec ses archtypes, empite continuellement sur la conscience ; le monde mythique des anctres [...] constitue une ralit quivalente la nature matrielle, si toutefois elle ne lui est pas suprieure. [...]Les mythes sont, lorigine, [...] rien moins que des allgories dvnements physiques.5. According to this passage, the primitive consciousness does not separate the spiritual dimension of reality from its material dimension ; the two constitute one indissolvable dynamic vision of reality. Within a primitive individual, the products of the unconscious activity of the imagination are constantly stepping into the sensible perception of reality. And to Jung, these products are rather images. Indeed, to him the unconscious would express itself through images in the mind, generated by the faculty of imagination. Some of these images are, according to Jung, universal, archetypal; they correspond to certains aspects constitutifs de lme humaine en gnral, [...] elles sont hrditaires [...] elles trouvent incontestablement leur analogie la plus proche dans les types mythologiques. 6. He concludes that those archetypal mental images, created by the unconscious activity of the
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Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.123. Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.124. 6 Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.125.

imagination, could be the source of inspiration of all myth. He affirms this, but notes also the importance of the migrations of symbols, and of what he calls the indigenous recreation in the composition of myths; aspects of this Art that hinder the exploration of the unconscious roots of myths...

Within any individual, primitive or not, the mental images synthesized by the unconscious through the imagination can become conscious. It is generally when the attention and the concentration of the consciousness is reduced (fatigue, sleep dreams, hypnagogic images) that the images produced by the unconscious penetrate the conscious mental space. linhibition manant de la concentration de la conscience cesse dagir sur les contenus inconscients et, comme travers des portes drobes, la matire jusque-l inconsciente pntre dans lespace conscient. 7. Since the state of consciousness of the primitive individual has no capacity for concentration and attention, according to Jungs theories, the products of his unconscious are dominating over his conscious awareness of reality. So, as the images produced by the unconscious are part of the primitive individuals ordinary perception of reality, and as some of these images are archetypal and have a mythological quality, when a primitive individual hears a myth, it speaks directly to him, it is not some distant codified tale or symbolicsystem, but he can understand its moral value spontaneously, and experience fully and intuitively its spiritual quality. The primitive individual literally lives myths. Ltat rduit de la conscience et labsence de concentration et dattention [...] correspondent assez prcisment ltat de conscience primitive dans lequel on peut le prsumer se trouve lorigine de la formation des mythes. 8. It seems that to experience mythology fully, to experience it as it was originally meant to be experienced, one needs a reduced state of consciousness, a primitive state into which reason is not imposing its boundaries to imagination, a state into which, therefore, the images received from the myths are able to correspond freely with the images produced by the unconscious activity of the imagination, because there is no supervision by the rationalizing intellect. It is a state of

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Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.126. Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.126.

awareness into which one is not interpreting the myth he reads or hears, but just lets it express itself unconsciously in him. According to Krnyi, to enjoy fully the energy and the knowledge contained in a myth, one should not take into account any considration thorique, aucun jugement [...] Il ne devrait pas non plus tre question de sources. Il faudrait y recourir soi-mme, puiser leau frache qui en coule, et la boire afin quelle se rpande en nous et fasse vibrer nos dons secrets [...] 9. As it is illustrated in this idealist passage of Charles Krnyi, to live a myth in the primitive sense of the term and to enjoy fully its psychological and religious power, an innocent, intuitive, emotional, and even naive approach of the myth is needed. Is it still possible for the civilized mind to have such a contact with mythology ?

Mr. Krnyi observes that la vraie mythologie nous est devenue si totalement trangre, quavant dy goter nous demandons nous arrter et rflchir. [...] Nous avons perdu le contact immdiat avec les grandes ralits du monde spirituel - dont fait partie tout ce qui est vraie mythologie et cest prcisment la science [...] qui est la cause de cette perte. 10. So this is science, or the cultural strengthening of reason within human consciousness, that has progressively closed the imaginative door giving access to the spiritual dimension of reality, and enclosed modern civilized men into a materialist and utilitarian vision of reality. This is this very encagement of consciousness within the boundaries of reason, this constant desire of rationalizing the unknown and of enclosing it into the domain of the known, of the conscious, that refrains the modern civilized individual to have an immediate and intuitive contact with mythology, and with art in general. So, even though the reduced consciousness seems attractive regarding the human relationship with art, Charles Krnyi reminds us that nous ne pouvons nous priver de la libration du mensonge que nous offre la vraie science , and that we have to ask science de nous restituer la possibilit dentrer en relations immdiates avec les objets de la science. 11. So rather than rejecting completely the scientific method and knowledge, Jung and
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Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.13. Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.14. 11 Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.14.
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Krnyi affirm that we can use them wisely, in an helpful and non-systematic way. Before all, science can be used to draw its own limits: it cannot rationalize the imaginary activity of the unconscious, it cannot measure the infinite, the immaterial, the metaphysic; in other words, we can scientifically prove that science cannot explain anything that is artistic. So science can make us understand, by a simple proof by contradiction, a reductio ad absurdum, that art in general cannot be explained (in any objective way) but only be lived, experienced, felt spontaneously, subjectively. Art explains itself, defends itself : art for arts sake. Mythology being an independent art, un art adhrent et inhrent la posie. [...] un art qui se manifeste par son modelage mme [poetic] et dune matire spciale se modelant elle-mme [spiritual reality], les deux indissolublement unis dans une seule et mme manifestation. 12, one has to accept that a myth expresses itself spontanenously, that it has a direct unconscious action within the mind. There is no need to explain a myth to experience its effects . Actually, any attempt to explain or rationalize a myth is an attempt to separate its form from its substance, in order to analyze and understand them separately. But a myth, to express fully its substance, and to convey fully its essence to the mind of the reader/hearer, needs its particular poetic form. Form and substance are indissolvable in mythology; if the semantic nucleus is destroyed, the essence of the myth is altered. Mme la meilleure tentative dexplication nest rien dautre quune traduction plus ou moins russie en une langue qui se sert dautres images. Dans la meilleure ventualit, on poursuit le rve du mythe en lui donnant un revtement moderne. Et tout ce quune explication ou interprtation lui fait subir, on linflige sa propre me. [...] larchtype [mythologique] est un organe psychique, prsent chez chacun : une mauvaise explication quivaut une attitude hostile lgard de cet organe, ce qui provoque une lsion, mais celui qui en souffre cest le mauvais interprte. 13 Again, Jung and Krnyi insist on the fact that scientific knowledge must be used wisely, and scientific method cautiously. Even though science is a dangerous tool for the study of art, the modern civilized individual seem to need science to re-

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Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.15-16. Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi, Introduction lessence de la mythologie, p.120

open the doors that have been closed within him, he needs science to understand the true nature and primary function of mythology, and of art in general. Modern man needs to use his reason, his intellect, to remember that myths are a direct echo of the unconscious activity of his own imagination, and that they even are, in a larger sense, a parallel dimension of the collective unconscious (shared by all men) as they dramatize and personify the psychological archetypes of the human soul. Through this rational realization, one understands that to live a myth in a primitive manner, and to enjoy entirely its psychological power, one has to consciously imprint the myth in him, with the highest possible degree of attention during the reading/listening, and then one must let the myth free to express itself spontaneously, unconsciously, in him, without trying to explain it. So one should not, according to Jung, think about the myths, but one should let the myths think within him. This way only they will correspond with the contents of the individuals unconscious and act directly within this sphere, filling with mythological light his pathological abysses.

So according to this book, the images that produces the unconscious activity of the imagination play a fundamental role in the creative act. It even seems that the conscious will to understand the unconscious, the non-conscious, is the impulse motivating any artistic creation. Indeed, as the unconscious does not speak the rational language of the conscious, as the unconscious expresses itself in the mind through images, irrationally organized by the imagination, man has established a medium (the least rational and systematic possible) to allow a dialogue between the sphere of the conscious and those nebulous (unconscious) zones that mysteriously structure his consciousness ; this medium is art. Indeed, the inspired creative act seems to be the only way for an individual to allow his unconscious to express itself freely, the only way to let the images dwelling into his mind get out. Thanks to this psychoanalytical vision of art found in this essay, we can establish new perspectives of study in the domain of literary analysis. Indeed, as Barthes insisted before me, the author of a text cannot be entirely in control of his work, he cannot evaluate fully its scope, neither master fully its substance. The essence expressed in an artwork is autonomous and self-

realizing into the minds of the audience. An artwork belongs to the audience, it is elastic, adapting, changing, its influence is different on every individual. An artwork dynamically exchanges its unconscious data with the unconscious data of the individual in contact with it, and this is mainly through this correspondence of unconscious data, allegorically expressed, that an artwork acts on its audience.

The psychocritical method of Charles Mauron

Le savoir psychopathologique nest pas l pour dire le vrai du processus crateur, mais pour soutenir la comprhension du fonctionnement psychique loeuvre et den rvler certains aspects qui valent aussi bien pour le crateur que pour le clinicien. Du sens est donn la dmarche cratrice qui, en retour, enrichit et claire les concepts de la psychopathologie. 14

As this quote from Les enjeux psychopathologiques de lacte crateur underlines, psychological knowledge and literary knowledge nourish each other. Each domain can be the tool of the other ; psychology and literature can be used in a complementary way, they can strengthen each other. Agreeing with this idea, Charles Mauron writes in Des mtaphores obsdantes au mythe personnel : la prsence constatable dans plusieurs textes du mme auteur de rseaux fixes dassociations, dont on peut largement douter quils soient voulus. 15 Those fix networks of association are individual, independent from the will of the artist ; they are reflections of the unconscious personality (individual unconscious psychic data) of the artist that are unleashed, and injected into the artwork during the creative act. Charles Mauron clearly distinguishes this individual unconscious expressing itself through fix networks of association - from another set of unconscious data that we could now call collective (now that we have introduced Jungs theories), and that expresses

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Bernard Chouvier& Anne Brun, Les enjeux psychopathologiques de lacte crateur, p.7-10. Charles Mauron, Des mtaphores obsdantes au mythe personnel, p.11.

itself through archetypal mythical figures. According to his thesis the relationship between the individual unconscious and the collective unconscious is illustrated in a mythological text through the dramatic relationship between the mythical figures, which is consciously elaborated by the artist. So, to succeed in developing his psychocritical method of literary analysis, Charles Mauron has to acknowledge the discoveries of Jung on the collective unconscious. But, as we will see later, he rather follows his own way, seeing limitations in Jungian analytic psychology. Even though we find in Charles Maurons theory this Jungian idea of art as a middle ground, as an imaged dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious, the author nevertheless expresses serious doubts about the fact that the archetypes of the unconscious are the very pillars of any artistic creation. Pour ma part, sans nier le rle vident des facteurs collectifs en art, je tiens la cration pour personnelle. 16 he affirms. So to him, the artist has more conscious control over his creation than for Jung. That is why he proposes, in his book, an open debate between psychological knowledge and literary methodology. His ultimate goal is to study, in a psychocritical way, the sempiternal questions of inspiration and influence among literature. He explores, through psychoanalytical knowledge mostly, the relationship between literary creation and unconscious influences (collective and individual), in order to determine which portion of an artistic creation is individual, personal, and which portion is collective, archetypal. Trying to establish a simple system of literary analysis to integrate the complex psychological dimension of writing, he builds the psychocritical method. Though holding Jungians collective

unconscious/archetypes theory in high regards, Charles Mauron in his method clearly distances himself from this theory, and rather highlights the role of the individual unconscious in artistic creation. To defend this idea he structures his method of literary analysis in four phases : - Identify metaphors and symbols within different works of a same artist. - Juxtapose the works, the metaphors, the symbols. - Draw fix metaphorical networks, recurrent themes, symbolic obsessions. - Put in parallel those networks with the life of the author,
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Charles Mauron, Des mtaphores obsdantes au mythe personnel, p.200.

and define the personal myth of the author. Even if I give here a simplified version of the method of Charles Mauron, we can still see the importance of the psychoanalytical dimension in his system. If one plunges more frankly into his work, and analyzes it from the inside, one can see that the author chews over the whole psychological researches of his time in order to articulate his psychocritical method ; Bachelard, Blum, Freud, Janet, Jung ; all the major theories in the domain of psychiatry and psychoanalysis are considered, studied, compared, and applied to the domain of literary analysis.

Conclusion : Whether we agree or not with the methods and the conclusions of psychoanalysis and psychiatry, the knowledge that these two scientific disciplines have established in the field of human psychology is unavoidable. This knowledge has to be used as a tool in literary analysis. Today, the concept of the unconscious, collective or individual, cannot be separated from the creative act. Any type of literary criticism must take into account the researches on the unconscious that have fascinated the XXth century, and that still do so today. It is now a fact that the imagination, the fundamental faculty in the creative act, has an unconscious activity that produces individual and archetypal images within the mind. It is a reality, it is a characteristic, an unavoidable quality of the human mind. We cannot be blind anymore, we cannot stay away from the role of the unconscious in the creative act. In the line of Roland Barthes, literary criticism has to accept the fact that the artist is not all-powerful, almighty ; he does not control neither the scope nor the mode of representation of his creation ; he is himself a medium, a voice between the domain of the conscious and the sphere of the unconscious. The artist simply tries, through the creative act, to establish a dialogue between these two aspects of his consciousness, he tries to establish a metaphorical dialogue that enables the unconscious (irrational images) to communicate with the conscious (rational language). Today, any art critique, any research on the creative act, any study on literature, must use the modern understanding of the unconscious as a fundament, or at least as a tool, to evolve and progress in parallel with its time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charles Mauron Des mtaphores obsdantes au mythe personnel. Introduction la Psychocritique. Paris : Ed. Librairie Jos Corti, 1962.

Carl Gustav Jung & Charles Krenyi Introduction lessence de la mythologie Paris : Ed. Payot & Rivages, 2001

Carl Gustav Jung Dialectique du Moi et de linconscient Paris : Ed. Gallimard, 1964.

Bernard Chouvier & Anne Brun Les enjeux psychopathologiques de lacte crateur Bruxelles : Ed. De Boeck, 2011.

Marc Jimenez Quest-ce que lesthtique ? Paris : Ed. Gallimard, 1997