of truth about mental and emotional power. The idea of didactic
what we have said about the ambiguous relation of the neurosis to
suffering expresses a valuation of experience and of steadfastness.
reality, that the whole economy of the neurosis is based exactly on
The idea of natural compensation for the sacrifice of some faculty
this idea of the quid pro quo of sacrificial pain: the neurotic person
also says something that can be rationally defended: one cannot be
unconsciously subscribes to a system whereby he gives up some
and do everything and the wholehearted absorption in any enterpleasure or power, or inflicts pain on himself in order to secure some prise, art for example, means that we must give up other possibilities,
other power or some other pleasure.
even parts of ourselves. And there is even a certain validity to the
---- -- - -- - -
'
160
THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION
Art and Neurosis
------------·-··-·--·-----..
•-••-••--•-•-••-•-•--•-n-••-•--••-••-••-••-••-•-••-•--••-••
belief that the individual has a fund of undifferentiated energy
biographies are those of writers. The writer is more aware of what
which presses the harder upon what outlets are available to it when
happens to him or goes on in him and often finds it necessary or
it has been deprived of the normal number.
useful to be articulate about his inner states, and prides himself on
Then, in further defense of the belief that artistic power is contelling the truth. Thus, only a man as devoted to the truth of the nected with neurosis, we can say that there is no doubt that what
emotions as Henry James was would have informed the world,
we call mental illness may be the source of psychic knowledge.
despite his characteristic reticence, of an accident so intimate as his.
Some neurotic people, because they are more apprehensive than
We must not of course suppose that a writer's statements about his
normal people, are able to see more of certain parts of reality and to
intimate life are equivalent to true statements about his unconsee them with more intensity. And many neurotic or psychotic pascious, which, by definition, he doesn't consciously know; but they tients are in certain respects in closer touch with the actualities of
may be useful clues to the nature of an entity about which we can
the unconscious than are normal people. Further, the expression of
make statements of more or less cogency, although never statements
a neurotic or psychotic conception of reality is likely to be more inof certainty; or they at least give us what is surely related to a tense than a normal one.
knowledge of his unconscious-that is, an insight into his person
Yet when we have said all this, it is still wrong, I believe, to find
ality .3
the root of the artist's power and the source of his genius in neu
But while the validity of dealing with the writer's intellectual
rosis. To the idea that literary power and genius spring from pain
life in psychoanalytical terms is taken for granted, the psychoand neurotic sacrifice there are two major objections. The first has analytical explanation of the intellectual life of scientists is generally
to do with the assumed uniqueness of the artist as a subject of
speaking not countenanced. The old myth of the mad scientist,
psychoanalytical explanation. The second has to do with the true
with the exception of an occasional mad psychiatrist, no longer
meaning of power and genius.
exists. The social position of science requires that it should cease,
One reason why writers are considered to be more available than
which leads us to remark that those partisans of art who insist on
other people to psychoanalytical explanation is that they tell us
explaining artistic genius by means of psychic imbalance are in
what is going on inside them. Even when they do not make an
effect capitulating to the dominant mores which hold that the memactual diagnosis of their malaises or describe "symptoms," we must bers of the respectable professions are, however dull they may be,
bear it in mind that it is their profession to deal with fantasy in
free from neurosis. Scientists, to continue with them as the best
some form or other. It is in the nature of the writer's job that he
example of the respectable professions, do not usually give us the
exhibit his unconscious. He may disguise it in various ways, but
disguise is not concealment. Indeed, it may be said that the more a
SI am by no means in agreement with the statements of Dr. Edmund Bergler
about "the .. psychology of the writer, but I think that Dr. Bergler has done good
writer takes pains with his work to remove it from the personal
service in warning us against taking at their face value a writer's statements about
and subjective, the more-and not the less-he will express his true
himself, the more especially when they are "frank." Thus, to take Dr. Bcrgler's
notable example, it is usual for biographers to accept Stendhal's statements about
unconscious, although not what passes with most for the unconhis open sexual feelings for his mother when he was a little boy, feelings which scious.
went with an intense hatred of his father. But Dr. Bergler believes that Stendhal
unconsciously used his consciousness of his love of his mother and of his hatred of
Further, the writer is likely to be a great hand at personal letters,
his father to mask an unconscious love of his father, which frightened him. ("Psychoanalysis of Writers and of Literary Productivity" in Psychoanalysis and the
diaries, and autobiographies: indeed, almost the only good auto-
Social Sciences, vol. 1.)
THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION
--··-·--·-·--·--·--·-··-·-----·-·-·-··-·-··-··-,--·----·-·-··-··
Art and Neurosis
--·------·-·-··-·-·----··-··-·-··-·-·-··-·-·-·--··
clues to their personalities which writers habitually give. But no
I choose but the classic examples. If we make the neurosis-power
one who has ever lived observantly among scientists will claim that
equivalence at all, we must make it in every field of endeavor.
they are without an unconscious or even that they are free from
Logician, economist, botanist, physicist, theologian-no profession
neurosis. How often, indeed, it is apparent that the devotion to
may be so respectable or so remote or so rational as to be exempt
science, if it cannot be called a neurotic manifestation, at least can
from the psychological interpretation.5
be understood as going very cozily with neurotic elements in the
Further, not only power but also failure or limitation must be
temperament, such as, for example, a marked compulsiveness. Of
accounted for by the theory of neurosis, and not merely failure or
scientists as a group we can say that they are less concerned with
limitation in life but even failure or limitation in art. Thus it is
the manifestations of personality, their own or others', than are
often said that the warp of Dostoevski's mind accounts for the
writers as a group. But this relative indifference is scarcely a sign of
brilliance
of his psychological insights. But it is never said that the
normality-indeed, if we choose to regard it with the same sort of
same warp of Dostoevski's mind also accounted for his deficiency
eye with which the characteristics of writers are regarded, we might
in insight. Freud, who greatly admired Dostoevski, although he did
say the indifference to matters of personality is in itself a suspicious
not like him, observed that "his insight was entirely restricted to
evasion.
the workings of the abnormal psyche. Consider his astounding help-
It is the basic assumption of psychoanalysis that the acts of every
0 In his interesting essay, "Writers and Madness" (Partisan Review, Januaryperson are influenced by the forces of the unconscious. Scientists, February 1947), William Barrett has taken issue with this point and has insisted
that a clear distinction is to be made between the relation that exists between the
bankers, lawyers, or surgeons, by reason of the traditions of their
scientist and his work and the relation that exists between the artist and his work.
professions, practice concealment and conformity; but it is difficult
The differen
n the claims of the ego. The artist's ego
.ce, as I understand it, is i
.
.
makes a claim upon the world which 1s personal in a way that the scientist's is
to believe that an investigation according to psychoanalytical prinnot, for the scientist, although he does indeed want prestige and thus "responds to ciples would fail to show that the strains and imbalances of their
one of the deepest urges of his ego, it is only that his prestige may come to attend
his person through the public world of other men; and it is not in the end his own
psyches are not of the same frequency as those of writers, and of
being that is exhibited or his own voice that is heard in the learned report to the
similar kind. I do not mean that everybody has the same troubles
Academy." Actually, however, as is suggested by the sense which mathematicians
have of the style of mathematical thought, the creation of the abstract thinker is as
and identical psyches, but only that there is no special category for
deeply involved as the artist's-see An Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the
Mathe
writers. 4
�atica/ Field by Jacques Hadamard, Princeton University Press, 1945-and
he qmte as much as the artist seeks to impose himself, to express himself. I am of If this is so, and if we still want to relate the writer's power to
cours� �ot maintaining that the processes of scientific thought are the same as those
of ar
his neurosis, we must be willing to relate all intellectual power to
!1sti� thought, or even that the scientist's creation is involved with his total personality m the same way that the artist's is-I am maintaining only that the scineurosis. We must find the roots of Newton's power in his emo
entist's creation is as deeply implicated with his total personality as is the artist's.
This point of view seems to be supported by Freud's monograph on Leonardo.
tional extravagances, and the roots of Darwin's power in his sorely
�ne of the problems that Freud sets himself is to discover why an artist of the
neurotic temperament, and the roots of Pascal's mathematical genius
highest endowment should have devoted himself more and more to scientific investigation, with the result that he was unable to complete his artistic enterprises. The in the impulses which drove him to extreme religious masochism-p�rticular reason_s for this that Freud assigns need not be gone into here; all that I
:,v1sh to su�gest 1s that Freud understands these reasons to be the working out of an
mner conflict, the attempt to deal with the difficulties that have their roots in the
4 Dr. Bergler believes that there is a particular neurosis of writers, based on an
most primitive situations. Leonardo's scientific investigations were as necessary and
oral masochism which makes them the enemy of the respectable world, courting
"compelled" and_ they constituted as much of a claim on the whole personality as
poverty and persecution. But a later development of Dr. Bergler's theory of oral
anythmg the artist undertakes; and so far from being carried out for the sake of
masochism makes it the basic neurosis, not only of writers but of everyone who is
public prestige, they were largely private and personal, and were thought by the
neurotic.
public of his time to be something very like insanity.
- - --- ---- ----�- =
THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION
.. ..
________________
Art and Neurosis
._..
,_..._.._.
,-·---··--
-u •• ··-·-·-··-·-··-·-·-.. -··-·-··--·-·-··-··-·-·-·-·--·
lessness before the phenomenon of love; he really only understands
might be injured as Henry James was, and even respond within
either crude, instinctive desire or masochistic submission or love
himself to the injury as James is said to have done, and yet not have
from pity." 6 This, we must note, is not merely Freud's comment
on the extent of the province which Dostoevski chose for his own,
The reference to the artist's neurosis tells us something about the
but on his failure to understand what, given the province of his
material on which the artist exercises his powers, and even somechoice, he might be expected to understand.
thing about his reasons for bringing his powers into play, but it
And since neurosis can account not only for intellectual success
does not tell us anything about the source of his powers, it makes
and for failure or limitation but also for mediocrity, we have most
no causal connection between them and the neurosis. And if we
of society involved in neurosis. To this I have no objection-I think
look into the matter, we see that there is in fact no causal connecmost of society is indeed involved in neurosis. But with neurosis tion between them. For, still granting that the poet is uniquely
accounting for so much, it cannot be made exclusively to account for
neurotic, what is surely not neurotic, what indeed suggests nothing
one man's literary power.
but health, is his power of using his neuroticism. He shapes his
We have now to consider what is meant by genius when its source
fantasies, he gives them social form and reference. Charles Lamb's
is identified as the sacrifice and pain of neurosis.
way of putting this cannot be improved. Lamb is denying that genius
In the case of Henry James, the reference to the neurosis of his
is allied to insanity; for "insanity" the modern reader may substipersonal life does indeed tell us something about the latent intentute "neurosis." "The ground of the mistake," he says, "is, that tion of his work and thus about the reason for some large part of its
men, finding in the raptures of the higher poetry a condition of
interest for us. But if genius and its source are what we are dealing
exaltation, to which they have no parallel in their own experience,
with, we must observe that the reference to neurosis tells us nothbesides the spurious resemblance of it in dreams and fevers, impute ing about James's passion, energy, and devotion, nothing about his
a state of dreaminess a
nd fever to the poet. But the true poet dreams
architectonic skill, nothing about the other themes that were imbeing awake. He is not possessed by his subject but has dominion portant to him which are not connected with his unconscious conover it .... Where he seems most to recede from humanity, he will cern with castration. We cannot, that is, make the writer's inner
be found the truest to it. From beyond the scope of nature if he
life exactly equivalent to his power of expressing it. Let us grant
summon possible existences, he subjugates them to the law of her
for the sake of argument that the literary genius, as distinguished
consistency. He is beautifully loyal to that sovereign directress,
from other men, is the victim of a "mutilation " and that his fantasies
when he appears most to betray and desert her. ... Herein the
are neurotic.7 It does not then follow as the inevitable next step
great and the little wits are differenced; that if the latter wander
that his ability to express these fantasies and to impress us with them
ever so little from nature or natural existence, they lose themselves
is neurotic, for that ability is what we mean by his genius. Anyone
and their readers .... They do not create, which implies shaping
and consistency. Their imaginations are not active-for to be active
6 From a letter quoted in Theodor Reik's From Thirty Years With Freud, p. 175.
7 I am using the word fantasy, unless modified, in a neutral sense. A fantasy, in
is to call something into act and form-but passive as men in sick
this sense, may be distinguished from the representation of something that actually
dreams."
exists, but it is not opposed to "reality" and not an "escape" from reality. Thus
the idea of a rational society, or the image of a good house to be built, as well as
The activity of the artist, we must remember, may be approxithe story of something that could never really happen, is a fantasy. There may be mated by many who are themselves not artists. Thus, the expres-neurotic or non-neurotic fantasies.
166
THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION
·-··-··-··-·-··--·-··-·-··-··-··-·-··-··-·-··-··-··-·-··-··-··-..
Art and Neurosis
-·-··-··-·-··-··-·-··-··-·-··-··-··-··-··-··-·-··-··-··-··-··-·-··