1 [First published as “Psychologie und Dichtung” in Philosophie der Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin, 1930), ed. by Emil Ermatinger; expanded and revised in Gestaltungen des Unbewussten (Zurich, 1950). The original version was translated by Eugene Jolas as “Psychology and Poetry,” transition: An International Quarterly for Creative Experiment, no. 19/20 (June, 1930); also translated by W. S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes, in Modern Man in Search of a Soul (London and New York, 1933).
A typescript of an introduction was found among Jung’s posthumous papers; it is first published here, in translation. Evidently Jung used the introduction when he read the essay as a lecture, though nothing certain is known of such an occasion. Cf. p. 132, par. (1).—EDITORS.]
2 [The designation “psychological” is somewhat confusing in this context because, as the subsequent discussion makes clear, the “visionary” mode deals equally with “psychological” material. Moreover, “psychological” is used in still another sense in pars. 136–37, where the “psychological novel” is contrasted with the “non-psychological novel.”
[The term “personalistic” suggests itself as coming closer to defining the material in question, which derives from “the sphere of conscious human experience—from the psychic foreground of life” (par. 140). The term “personalistic” occurs elsewhere in Jung’s writings, e.g., in The Practice of Psychotherapy, pars. 212 and 281, n. 34. Both times it characterizes a particular kind of psychology. The second instance is the more significant in that “personalistic” is contrasted with “archetypal,” and this would appear to be precisely the distinction intended between the two kinds of psychological material and the two modes of artistic creation.—EDITORS.]
3 Cf. my essay “Wotan,” pars. 375ff.
4 Recently interpreted along the lines of analytical psychology by Linda Fierz-David, in The Dream of Poliphilo.
5 Some samples of Boehme may be found in my Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 214ff., and in “A Study in the Process of Individuation,” pars. 533ff., 578ff.
6 Cf. the detailed study by Aniela Jaffé in Gestaltungen des Unbewussten.
7 One has only to think of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is a work of the greatest significance in spite or perhaps because of its nihilistic tendencies.
8 Confessions (trans. Sheed), p. 158.
9 Isaiah 33:14.
10 Die Stammeslehren der Dschagga, edited by Bruno Gutmann, comprises no less than three volumes and runs to 1975 pages!
11 Letter to Albert Brenner. [In 1855. See Dru trans. of Burckhardt’s letters, p. 116, and Jung, Symbols of Transformation, par. 45, n. 45.—EDITORS.]
12 Written in 1929.
13 The Dream of Poliphilo, pp. 234ff.
14 Ibid., p. 27.
15 I am referring to the first version, written in prose.
16 Cf. Psychological Types, pars. 321ff.
17 See his essays on Jensen’s Gradiva (Standard Edition, IX), and on Leonardo da Vinci (XI).
18 Psyche, ed. Ludwig Klages, p. 158.
19 Eckermann’s dream, in which he saw Faust and Mephistopheles falling to earth in the form of a double meteor, recalls the motif of the Dioscuri (cf. the motif of the two friends in my essay “Concerning Rebirth,” pp. 135ff.), and this sheds light on an essential characteristic of Goethe’s psyche. An especially subtle point here is Eckermann’s remark that the swift and horned figure of Mephisto reminded him of Mercurius. This observation is in full accord with the alchemical nature of Goethe’s masterpiece. (I have to thank my colleague W. Kranefeldt for refreshing my memory of Eckermann’s Conversations.)
20 Cf. C. Kerényi, Asklepios, pp. 78f.