But, on the face of it, it appears less objectionable than the meaningless concept of unconscious yet mental activity. OLAF STAPLEDON.

UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL, England.

LITERARY CRITICISM AND THE STUDY OF

THE UNCONSCIOUS

HE problem that I propose to discuss in this article

TH

lies on the borderland common to students of literature, of psychology and of philosophy. I shall approach it by a consideration of the relevant parts of Mr. Thorburn's discussion in his recent book: Art and the Unconscious.1 I shall also make use of the book by Professor Prescott: The Poetic Mind. Professor Prescott in his preface sets forth his intention of studying the operation of the poet's mind, by the methods of the student of literature who lacks psychological training. He will collect and correlate the sayings of the poets themselves as to the workings of their own minds. He will leave it to psychologists to make the best final use of the material collected. Mr. Thorburn writes as a philosopher, considering the problem of art and its value in relation to general philosophical theory, but approaching it in the light of recent psychological studies. He takes the whole field of art as his province, and, relying upon the unity of the artist's attitude through all its different manifestations, chooses examples from whatever sphere of art may best illustrate his argument. He believes that in the new methods which have been applied by Freud, Jung and others, to the study of the unconscious forces of mind, there may be found clues to a deeper under

1John M. Thorburn, Art and the Unconscious, A Psychological Approach to a Problem of Philosophy, Kegan Paul, 1925.

2Frederick Clarke Prescott, The Poetic Mind, Macmillan, 1922.

standing of the nature and value of all forms of artistic expression.

The wide range and interest of the questions considered by Mr. Thorburn, and the fact that so little work has yet been done along these lines, makes it seem profitable to take up some of his problems in more restricted fashion. I shall here consider the question with which Mr. Thorburn opens his discussion-the question as to how far the study of the unconscious, through dreams and otherwise, can throw light upon the nature of poetry and all forms of imaginative literature.

My enquiry will be governed by the same presupposition which is suggested by Mr. Thorburn when he urges that the art critic misses the deepest, most interesting and most real thing about poetry and the arts, if he is unable to relate the arts to life. To relate art to life implies that we must be able in some degree "to trace the psychological path along which the artist passes from his own experience of men and women and nature to his creative work as artist." (p. 20). The belief that the critic of literature needs such psychological insight may be challenged on various grounds. It has been challenged in a witty and delightful little essay by E. M. Forster, on the ground that any consideration of the personality of an author must be a distraction from his work, if his work is true literature. Literature comes from the depths below personality. To enquire about the personality means gossip as to the author's mode of life and private opinions, that have nothing to do with the art he creates. The answer to this objection can perhaps be made more adequately at a later stage of this discussion. At present I refer to it only for the sake of defining more clearly the manner in which I am assuming that psychology may aid literary criticism. Certainly I agree, and so would Mr. Thorburn, with Mr. Forster's Anonymity: An Enquiry, The Hogarth Press, 1925.

contention that the work of art comes from a deeper level than that of the surface personality, concerning which biographers may collect gossip. Yet I think the study of poetry must convince us that what happens even at that deeper level is not independent of the experience and distinctive strivings of the individual, and of the age in which he lives. Mr. Thorburn speaks of poetry as expressing a "vital attitude," (p. 20) and it is this attitude, or outlook upon life, which we come to know through the work itself, that we may try to understand further in relation to the history of the poet and of his time. If the study of the unconscious by the new analytical methods can help us to understand anything more of the workings of the mind at its deeper levels-of the way in which "vital attitudes" are conditioned and expressed—we believe that such knowledge must be of value to literary criticism.

In his initial presentation of the analogy between art and dream Mr. Thorburn considers first the relation between the dream and the ideas of waking life. A man has certain conscious thoughts and aims; he falls asleep, and when he wakes his accustomed thoughts again present themselves, but in contrast to them he recalls that in the interval of sleep strange images have occupied his mind— images perhaps of events and scenes of childhood, or of things monstrous and bizarre, seemingly irrelevant to his waking thoughts. Have these images any discoverable relation to the ideas and purposes of waking life? To answer this question we rely upon some process of interpretation involving concentration upon the impressions of the dream and search for the associations of its several parts. Different students of the dream, relying upon different presuppositions, have arrived at varying conclusions as the result of such search. Mr. Thorburn accepts the presuppositions of Dr. Jung, and has found evidence in his own experience

of the value of his methods. There is a wonder and sense of conviction that arises in the mind of one who has analysed a dream of his own, and felt its queer images become intelligible, yielding up secrets of his own life, displaying as in a picture thoughts and motives that he had only glimpsed in the obscure experiences of action. The technique that has helped a man to such a vision becomes for him no longer mere matter of argument, but a serviceable instrument of his understanding of himself. It is upon the basis of such experience that Mr. Thorburn formulates the relation which he believes exists between the dream and the ideas of waking life.

One is disposed to demand of any writer who bases conclusions upon dream analysis, that he should present some illustration of his method from his own experiences. Mr. Thorburn gives illustration only in somewhat general terms. The attempted interpretation of a single dream is seldom convincing when it cannot be related to that whole tissue of thought and feeling, and to the distinctive modes of representation, that appear as one interpreted dream is com-pared with others. In spite of this difficulty, I wish to describe here a dream of my own with some attempt at its analysis. But before doing so I will indicate, on the basis of Mr. Thorburn's discussion, the conclusions concerning the analogy between poetry and dream which I propose to examine with the help of examples.

Mr. Thorburn refers first to the character most obviously common to the dream and to the work of dramatic poet or novelist-the occurrence of figures that seem to act from their own spontaneity. The "denizens of the dream" are "centres of vitality whose self-motion is not to be controlled by the dreamer." (p. 13) The characters by means of which the playwright, or novelist, works out his intention will, "if he be a real poet," "present themselves with a certain degree of spontaneity." (p. 27) This analogy be