[The genesis of the foregoing paper is of interest, in that conflicting explanations have been published. The version that is believed to be authentic is given first:
(1) In par. 171, Jung stated that he wrote the article because a publisher asked him “what I thought about [Joyce], or rather about Ulysses.” This was Dr. Daniel Brody, formerly head of Rhein-Verlag (Zurich), which published a German translation of Ulysses in 1927 (2nd and 3rd edns., 1930). Dr. Brody has recounted that, in 1930, he attended a lecture by Jung in Munich on “the psychology of the author.” (This was probably an earlier version of the preceding paper, “Psychology and Literature.”) Speaking with Jung later, Dr. Brody said that he felt Jung was referring to Joyce, without mentioning his name. Jung denied this but said that he was indeed interested in Joyce and had read part of Ulysses. Dr. Brody responded that the Rhein-Verlag was preparing to publish a literary review, and he would welcome an article on Joyce by Jung for the first issue. Jung agreed, and about a month later he delivered the article to Dr. Brody, who discovered that Jung had dealt with Joyce and Ulysses mainly from a clinical point of view and, so it seemed, harshly. He sent the article to Joyce, who cabled him, “Niedrigerhängen,” meaning “Hang it lower” or, figuratively, “Show it up by printing it.” (Joyce was quoting Frederick the Great, who upon seeing a placard attacking him directed that it be hung lower for all to behold.) Friends of Joyce, including Stuart Gilbert, advised Brody not to publish the article, though Jung at first insisted on its publication. In the meantime, political tensions had developed in Germany, so that the Rhein-Verlag decided to abandon the projected literary review, and Dr. Brody therefore returned the article to Jung. Later, Jung revised the essay (modifying its severity) and published it in 1932 in the Europäische Revue. The original version has never come to light.
The foregoing summary is based partially on recent communications from Dr. Brody to the Editors and partially on the contents of a letter from Professor Richard Ellmann, who obtained a similar account from Dr. Brody. Professor Ellmann has stated that he will deal with the subject in a new edition of his biography of Joyce.
(2) In the first edition of his James Joyce (1959; p. 641), Professor Ellmann wrote that Brody asked Jung for a preface to the third edition (late 1930) of the German translation of Ulysses. Patricia Hutchins, in James Joyce’s World (1957; p. 182), quotes Jung in an interview: “In the thirties I was asked to write an introduction to the German edition of Ulysses, but as such it was not a success. Later I published it in one of my books. My interest was not literary but professional.… The book was a most valuable document from my point of view.…”
(3) In a letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver, Sept. 27, 1930, from Paris, Joyce wrote: “The Rheinverlag wrote to Jung for a preface to the German edition of Gilbert’s book. He replied with a very long and hostile attack … which they are much upset about, but I want them to use it.…” (Letters, ed. Stuart Gilbert, p. 294). Rhein-Verlag published a German edition of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: A Study, as Das Rätsel Ulysses, in 1932. Mr. Gilbert stated, in a letter to the Editors: “I fear my memories of Jung’s Ulysses essay remain vague, but … I feel fairly sure that Jung was asked to write the piece for my Rätsel and not for any German edition of Ulysses.” Professor Ellmann has subsequently commented, in a letter: “I suspect that at some point in the negotiations with Jung the possibility of using the article also as a preface to Gilbert’s book may well have arisen, either at Brody’s suggestion or at Joyce’s.”
*
Jung sent Joyce a copy of the revised version of his essay, with the following letter (cf. Ellmann, James Joyce, p. 642):
Küsnacht-Zürich
Seestrasse 228
September 27th, 1932.
James Joyce Esq.
Hotel Elite,
Zürich
Dear Sir,
Your Ulysses has presented the world such an upsetting psychological problem that repeatedly I have been called in as a supposed authority on psychological matters.
Ulysses proved to be an exceedingly hard nut and it has forced my mind not only to most unusual efforts, but also to rather extravagant peregrinations (speaking from the standpoint of a scientist). Your book as a whole has given me no end of trouble and I was brooding over it for about three years until I succeeded to put myself into it. But I must tell you that I’m profoundly grateful to yourself as well as to your gigantic opus, because I learned a great deal from it. I shall probably never be quite sure whether I did enjoy it, because it meant too much grinding of nerves and of grey matter. I also don’t know whether you will enjoy what I have written about Ulysses because I couldn’t help telling the world how much I was bored, how I grumbled, how I cursed and how I admired. The 40 pages of non stop run in the end is a string of veritable psychological peaches. I suppose the devil’s grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman, I didn’t.
Well I just try to recommend my little essay to you, as an amusing attempt of a perfect stranger who went astray in the labyrinth of your Ulysses and happened to get out of it again by sheer good luck. At all events you may gather from my article what Ulysses has done to a supposedly balanced psychologist.
With the expression of my deepest appreciation, I remain, dear Sir,
Yours faithfully
C. G. Jung
Jung’s copy of Ulysses (cf. above, p. 109, n. 1) contains on its flyleaf the following inscription in Joyce’s hand: “To Dr C. G. Jung, with grateful appreciation of his aid and counsel. James Joyce. Xmas 1934, Zurich.” The copy is evidently the one that Jung owned when he wrote the essay, as some of the passages quoted therein have been marked in pencil.
—EDITORS.]