Carl Jung's interpretation of art

The argument

In his theory of psychology, Jung emphasizes something he calls the collective unconscious, which is where humanity’s “racial memories” and “archetypes” reside. Archetypes are primeval images, ideas, and experiences that come up in every culture. For Jung, great works of literature are illustrations of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. A great author understands the archetypes of the collective unconscious and expresses them with wisdom. Knowledge of archetypes will, Jung argues, invigorate the reader’s psyche and propel him or her along the path of self-realization. Writing that is infused with archetypal figures, patterns, and ideas can help individuals attain self-realization (or self-integration) and thus maintain good mental and emotional states. Literature, and art in general, allows human beings to become consciously aware of archetypes, which are quintessentially unconscious entities. Myths and dreams also allow human beings to become consciously aware of archetypes. Jung identified four archetypes of particular importance: the shadow, the anima/animus, the persona, and the self. Different myths and works of art illustrate these archetypes. Consider the shadow archetype, for example. One’s shadow is the often-unrecognized dark side of one’s personality—the aspect of one’s personality that one wants to hide. An evil figure, such as Satan, illustrates this archetype in literature. The goal of Jungian criticism is to find such archetypes in literature, explain their representation, and examine how such representations illuminate the distinct qualities of each archetype.

Context

Even though Jung is sometimes referred to as a psychoanalyst (since he was a student of Freud), his final account of depth psychology diverges from psychoanalysis. Jungian criticism of literature is wholly different to psychoanalytic criticism of literature.

Premises

Counter-arguments

One argument against Jungian criticism of literature is that literature is much more than a means of representing archetypes. In trying to find archetypal representations and images in a literary work, one can easily neglect its aesthetic and rhetorical greatness. The search for archetypes can cloud one from seeing the work for what it is, which is art. Jungian criticism of literature cannot provide a full interpretation of any literary work; it must be used alongside other forms of literary criticism that focus on the linguistic, aesthetic, and cultural value of the work. Many literary critics argue that there is no Jungian school of literary criticism. The interpretive goal of finding archetypes from the collective unconscious within a story or poem comes from Jung's psychology, but Jung himself was not a literary critic. There are some Jungian literary critics like Bettina Knapp and Edward Eddinger, but not enough to create a school of literary criticism.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The collective unconscious is a postulate rather than a finding, and "racial memories" is a claim about inheritance that no account of heredity supports; recurring images are explicable by shared human experience and by cultural transmission. [Rejecting P2] Reading Satan as the shadow illustrates the method's weakness: almost any figure can be assigned to one of four archetypes, so the scheme accommodates every text and is therefore tested by none. The therapeutic claim — that such reading advances self-realisation — is asserted without evidence. [Rejecting P3] A goal is not a justification. On the counter's account the search for archetypes crowds out a work's language, form and historical situation, and there is scarcely a Jungian school of criticism to speak of, since Jung was not a literary critic — so the premise describes a programme rather than an established practice.