Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/82



English-speaking psychologists have as yet paid relatively little attention to the study of genius and of artistic creativeness, at least so far as the method of analysing in detail the life-history of individual men of genius is concerned. In Germany, stimulated by Moebius' example, many workers have obtained valuable results by following this biographical line of investigation. Within the past few years this study has been infused with fresh interest by the luminous writings of Professor Freud, who has laid bare some of the fundamental mechanisms by which artistic and poetic creativeness proceeds. He has shewn that the main characteristics of these mechanisms are common to many apparently dissimilar mental processes, such as dreams, wit, psycho-neurotic symptoms, etc. and further that all these processes bear an intimate relation to fantasy, to the realisation of non-conscious wishes, to psychological "repression" (Verdrāngūng), to the re-awakening of childhood memories, and to the psycho-sexual life of the subject. His analysis of Jensen's novel Gradiva will serve as a model to all future studies of the kind.

It is generally recognised that although great writers and poets have frequently made the most penetrating generalisations in practical psychology, the world has always been slow to profit by their discoveries. Of the various reasons for this fact one may here be mentioned, for it is cognate to the present argument. It is that the artist is often not distinctly aware of the real meaning of what he is seeking to express, and is never aware of its source. The difficulty experienced by the artist in arriving at the precise meaning of the creation to which he is labouring to give birth has been brilliantly demonstrated by Bernard Shaw in the case of Ibsen and Wagner. The artist