cultural ideals. This is not everything that some of us would find
and explain the temperament of the artist as man.
that art does, yet even this is a good deal for a "narcotic" to do.
A famous example of the method is the attempt to solve the
"problem" of Hamlet as suggested by Freud and as carried out by
Dr. Ernest Jones, his early and distinguished follower. Dr. Jones's
III
monograph is a work of painstaking scholarship and of really mas
I started by saying that Freud's ideas could tell us something
terly ingenuity. The research undertakes not only the clearing up
about art, but so far I have done little more than try to show that
of the mystery of Hamlet's character, but also the discovery of "the
Freud's very conception of art is inadequate. Perhaps, then, the
clue to much of the deeper workings of Shakespeare's mind." Part
suggestiveness lies in the application of the analytic method to
of the mystery in question is of course why Hamlet, after he had so
specific works of art or to the artist himself? I do not think so,
definitely resolved to do so, did not avenge upon his hated uncle his
and it is only fair to say that Freud himself was aware both of the
father's death. But there is another mystery to the play-what Freud
limits and the limitations of psychoanalysis in art, even though he
calls "the mystery of its effect," its magical appeal that draws so
does not always in practice submit to the former or admit the latter.
much interest toward it. Recalling the many failures to solve the rid
Freud has, for example, no desire to encroach upon the artist's
dle of the play's charm, he wonders if we are to be driven to the conautonomy; he does not wish us to read his monograph on Leonardo clusion "that its magical appeal rests solely upon the impressive
and then say of the "Madonna of the Rocks" that it is a fine example
thoughts in it and the splendor of its language." Freud believes that
of homosexual, autoerotic painting. If he asserts that in investigation
we can find a source of power beyond this.
the "psychiatrist cannot yield to the author," he immediately insists
We remember that Freud has told us that the meaning of a
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dream is its intention, and we may assume that the meaning of a
merely because it is better that it should be true, that is, because it
drama is its intention, too. The Jones research undertakes to dismakes arr a richer thing, but because historical and personal excover what it was that Shakespeare intended to say about Hamlet.
perience show it to be true. Changes in historical context and in
It finds that the intention was wrapped by the author in a dreampersonal mood change the meaning of a work and indicate to us like obscurity because it touched so deeply both his personal life
that artistic understanding is not a question of fact but of value.
and the moral life of the world; what Shakespeare intended to say
Even if the author's intention were, as it cannot be, precisely deis that Hamlet cannot act because he is incapacitated by the guilt terminable, the meaning of a work cannot lie in the author's intenhe feels at his unconscious attachment to his mother. There is, I tion alone. It must also lie in its effect. We can say of a volcanic
think, nothing to be quarreled with in the statement that there is
eruption on an inhabited island that it "means terrible suffering,"
an Oedipus situation in Hamlet; and if psychoanalysis has indeed
but if the island is uninhabited or easily evacuated it means someadded a new point of interest to the play, that is to its credit.1 And, thing else. In short, the audience partly determines the meaning of
just so, there is no reason to quarrel with Freud's conclusion when
the work. But although Freud sees something of this when he says
he undertakes to give us the meaning of King Lear by a tortuous
that in addition to the author's intention we must take into account
tracing of the mythological implications of the theme of the three
the mystery of Hamlet's effect, he nevertheless goes on to speak as
caskets, of the relation of the caskets to the Norns, the Fates, and
if, historically, Hamlet's effect had been single and brought about
the Graces, of the connection of these triadic females with Lear's
solely by the "magical" power of the Oedipus motive to which, undaughters, of the transmogrification of the death goddess into the consciously, we so violently respond. Yet there was, we know, a
love goddess and the identification of Cordelia with both, all to
period when Hamlet was relatively in eclipse, and it has always
the conclusion that the meaning of King Lear is to be found in the
been scandalously true of the French, a people not without filial
tragic refusal of an old man to "renounce love, choose death, and
feeling, that they have been somewhat indifferent to the "magical
make friends with the necessity of dying." There is something both
appeal" of Hamlet.
beautiful and suggestive in this, but it is not the meaning of King
I do not think that anything I have said about the inadequacies
Lear �ny more than the Oedipus motive is the meaning of Hamlet.
of the Freudian method of interpretation limits the number of
It is not here a question of the validity of the evidence, though
ways we can deal with a work of art. Bacon remarked that experithat is of course important. We must rather object to the conclusions ment may twist nature on the rack to wring out its secrets, and
of Freud and Dr. Jones on the ground that their proponents do
criticism may use any instruments upon a work of art to find its
not have an adequate conception of what an artistic meaning is.
meanings. The elements of art are not limited to the world of art.
There is no single meaning to any work of art; this is true not
They reach into life, and whatever extraneous knowledge of them
we gain-for example, by research into the historical context of the
1 However, A. C. Bradley, in his discussion of Hamlet (Shal(espearean Tragedy),
work-may quicken our feelings for the work itself and even enter
states clearly the intense sexual disgust which Hamlet feels and which, for Bradley,
helps accou�t for his uncertain purpose; and Bradley was anticipated in this view by
legitimately int<? those feelings. Then, too, anything we may learn
Loning. It is well known, and Dover Wilson has lately emphasized the point, that
to an Elizabethan audience Hamlet's mother was not merely tasteless, as to a
about the artist himself may be enriching and legitimate. But one
modern audience she seems, in hurrying to marry Claudius, but actually adulterous
research into the mind of the artist is simply not practicable, howin marrying him at all because he was, as her brother-in-law, within the forbidden degrees.
ever legitimate it may theoretically be. That is, the investigation of
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his unconscious intention as it exists apart from the work itself.
Criticism understands that the artist's statement
b · f Dr Jones's accei)tance of the peculiar position which, he
as1s o
·
. .
of his conscious
intenti
b I.
Hamlet occupies in the Shakespeare canon. And 1t is
e ieves,
on, though it is sometimes useful, cannot finally determine
on this quite inadmissible judgment that Dr. Jones bases his
up
meaning. How much less can we know of his unconscious inh
h' g h.
w h
1C w ·11
argument: "It may be expected there/ ore t at anyt 10
�
tenti
.
on considered as something apart from the whole work? Surely
give us the key to the inner meaning of the
very little that can be called c
. play will necessartlr
onclusive or scientific. For, as Freud
give us the clue to muc� of the deeper workings of Shakespeare s
himself points out, we are not in a position to question the artist; we
.
mind." (The italics are mrne.)
must apply the technique of dream analysis to his symbols, but, as
I sh
Freud
ould be sorry if it appeared that I am trying to say that
says with some heat, those people do not understand his
sychoanalysis can have nothing to do with literature. I am sure
theory who think that a dream may be interpreted without the
rhat the opposite is so. For example, the whole notion of rich
dreamer's free association with the multitudinous details of his
ambiguity in literature, of the interplay between the apparent meandream.
ing :ind the latent-not "hidden"-meani�g, h�s been
We have so far ign
.reinforced by
ored the aspect of the method which finds the
the Freudian concepts, perhaps even received its first impetus from
solution to the "mystery" of such a play as Hamlet in the temperathem. Of late years, the more perceptive psychoanalysts have surment of Shakespeare himself and then illuminates the mystery of rendered the early pretensions of their teachers to deal "scientif
Shakespeare's temperament by means of the solved mystery of the
ically" with literature. That is all to the good, and when a study as
play. Here it will be amusing to remember that by 1935 Freud had
modest and precise as Dr. Franz Alexander's essay on Henry IV
become converted to the theory that it was not Shakespeare of
comes along, an essay which pretends not to "solve" but only to
Stratford but the Earl of Oxford who wrote the plays, thus invalidatilluminate the subject, we have something worth having. Dr. Alexing the important bit of evidence that Shakespeare's father died ander undertakes nothing more than to say that in the development
shortly before the composition of Hamlet. This is destructive
of Prince Hal we see the classic struggle of the ego to come to
enough to Dr. Jones's argument, but the evidence from which Dr.
normal adjustment, beginning with the rebellion against the father,
Jones draws conclusions about literature fails on grounds more relegoing on to the conquest of the super-ego (Hotspur, with his vant to literature itself. For when Dr. Jones, by means of his analysis
rigid notions of honor and glory), then to the conquest of the
of Hamlet, takes us into "the deeper workings of Shakespeare's
id (Falstaff, with his anarchic self-indulgence), then to the identimind," he does so with a perfect confidence that he knows what fication with the father ( the crown scene) and the assumption of
Hamlet is and what its relation to Shakespeare is. It is, he tells us,
mature responsibility. An analysis of this sort is not momentous
Shakespeare's "chief masterpiece," so far superior to all his other
and not exclusive of other meanings; perhaps it does no more than
works that it may be placed on "an entirely separate level." And
point up and formulate what we all have already seen. It has the
then, having established his ground on an entirely subjective literary
tact to accept the play and does not, like Dr. Jones's study of Ham
judgment, Dr. Jones goes on to tell us that Hamlet "probably ex
let, search for a "hidden motive" and a "deeper working," which
presses the core of Shakespeare's philosophy and outlook as no
implies that there is a reality to which the play stands in the relation
other work of his does." That is, all the contradictory or complicatthat a dream stands to the wish· that generates it and from which ing or modifying testimony of the other plays is dismissed on the
it is separable; it is this reality, this "deeper working," which, ac-
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cording to Dr. Jones, produced the play. But Hamlet is not merely
forced to use it in the very shaping of his own science, as when he
the product of Shakespeare's thought, it is the very instrument of his
s eaks of the topography of the mind and tells us with a kind of
thought, and if meaning is intention, Shakespeare did not intend
lefiant apology that the metaphors of space relationship which he
the Oedipus motive or anything less than Hamlet; if meaning is
is using are really most inexact since the mind is not a thing of
effect then it is Hamlet which affects us, not the Oedipus motive.
space at all, but that there is no other way of conceiving the difficult
Coriolanus also deals, and very terribly, with the Oedipus motive,
idea except by metaphor. In the eighteenth century Vico spoke of
but the effect of the one drama is very different from the effect of
the metaphorical, imagistic language of the early stages of culture;
the other.
it was left to Freud to discover how, in a scientific age, we still feel
and think in figurative formations, and to create, what psycho
IV
analysis is, a science of tropes, of metaphor and its variants, synecdoche and metonomy.
If, then, we can accept neither Freud's conception of the place
Freud showed, too, how the mind, in one of its parts, could work
of art in life nor his application of the analytical method, what is
without logic, yet not without that directing purpose, that control
it that he contributes to our understanding of art or to its practice?
of intent from which, perhaps it might be said, logic springs. For
In my opinion, what he contributes outweighs his errors; it is of
the unconscious mind works without the syntactical conjunctions
the greatest importance, and it lies in no specific statement that he
which are logic's essence. It recognizes no because, no therefore, no
makes about art but is, rather, implicit in his whole conception of
but;
such ideas as similarity, agreement, and community are exthe mind.
pressed in dreams imagistically by compressing the elements into
For, of all mental systems, the Freudian psychology is the one
a unity. The unconscious mind in its struggle with the conscious
which makes poetry indigenous to the very constitution of the
always turns from the general to the concrete and finds the tangible
mind. Indeed, the mind, as Freud sees it, is in the greater part of
trifle more congenial than the large abstraction. Freud discovered
its tendency exactly a poetry-making organ. This puts the case too
in the very organization of the mind those mechanisms by which
strongly, no doubt, for it seems to make the working of the unart makes its effects, such devices as the condensation of meanconscious mind equivalent to poetry itself, forgetting that between ings and the displacement of accent.
the unconscious mind and the finished poem there supervene the
All this is perhaps obvious enough and, though I should like to
social intention and the formal control of the conscious mind. Yet
develop it in proportion both to its importance and to the space I
the statement has at least the virtue of counterbalancing the belief,
have given to disagreement with Freud, I will not press it further.
so commonly expressed or implied, that the very opposite is true, and
For there are two oeher elements in Freud's thought which, in conthat poetry is a kind of beneficent aberration of the mind's right clusion, I should like to introduce as of great weight in their bearcourse.
ing on art.
Freud has not merely naturalized poetry; he has discovered its
0£ these, one is a specific idea which, in the middle of his career
status as a pioneer setder, and he sees it as a method of thought.
(1920), Freud put forward in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Prin
Often enough he tries to show how, as a method of thought, it is
ciple. The essay itself is a speculative attempt to solve a perplexing
unreliable and ineffective for conquering reality; yet he himself is
problem in clinical analysis, but its relevance to literature is inescap-
. .
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