Emerging Goddess R
Emerging Goddess R
Emerging Goddess R
Emerging Goddess
The Creative Process in Art, Science, and Other
Fields
To
Julia
golden muse
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Table of Contents
1 CREATION OF A POEM
2 THE CREATIVE PROCESS AS THE MIRROR IMAGE OF THE DREAM
3THE MIRROR-IMAGE PROCESSES
4 L'ENVOI: PSYCHODYNAMICS OF THE CREATION OF A POEM
5 SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY
6 THE CREATIVE PROCESS
7 JANUSIAN THINKING
8 OPPOSITION AND CREATIVITY
9 JANUSIAN THINKING AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS
10 HOMOSPATIAL THINKING
11 HOMOSPATIAL THINKING AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS
12 TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY
13 GODDESS EMERGENT: CREATIVE PROCESS AND CREATED PRODUCT
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PREFACE
This is a book of findings. It has grown out of work with some very
creative persons and out of a collaborative tracing of an evanescent,
intractable, and unpredictable phenomenon. I have been privileged to have a
sometimes heady, sometimes dazzling, and sometimes worrisome but
interesting experience. In systematic explorations with these persons, or in a
particular experiment or test, the data reported here have been collected and
analyzed. Although all have been research subjects and collaborators, not
patients in therapy, I have promised them confidentiality and anonymity
unless they themselves suggested otherwise. Consequently, I believe that the
data I am reporting here are as free as possible of the common distortions
and omissions induced by concern for public scrutiny. Such a concern must
often be quite acute in celebrated persons, especially persons in the arts
whose public image isand should bedefined by their works. Because of
this confidentiality and anonymity, however, the subjects of my researches
must, by and large, go publicly unacknowledged. The book itself is its own
acknowledgement of their contributions and I hope they will find it a worthy
one.
This is also a book of theory. Here I have undertaken an especially
perilous task, for the theory encompasses matters involving the experience
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The answer, I think, is not that science must dispel this mystery, that
scientific progress always takes precedence over any other value or morality,
but that we are at a point in history where science may be better prepared to
dispel some of the mystery. We are at a point in history where we possess far
more systematic information about psychological approaches and
psychological functioningsmall as it still is in an absolute sensethan any
of the thinkers possessed who approached this topic earlier. Furthermore, we
are at a point in history where science needs to tell us more about creativity
and creative processes because of the goals and approaches we have already
developed. In psychiatry and psychology, we attempt to treat persons we
consider to be ill without any clear notion of what it is to be a psychologically
healthy individual, or group of individuals. We attempt to define and identify
poorly functioning processes without any clear notion of what effective or
better-than-effective processes might be. We try to change behavior or to
ameliorate suffering without knowing whether our alternatives are better.
And, as psychiatrists, or psychologists, or educators or whatever, we have had
little idea of whether we encourage or whether we stifle creativity in the
clinic, or in our schools, or in our homes. We have had little idea of whether
suffering and illness are somehow intrinsic to creative capacity. But now, we
do have some knowledge and tools and with them we can contribute to man's
deep understanding of himself. To the extent that we can help artists,
scientists, and other creators to know themselves and their psychological
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the present have consistently and patiently explained that they do not know
how their achievements came about. They may describe the circumstances,
the steps they undertook, and, in the absence of inspirations, they may
emphasize their hard work at every point of the way. In the case of scientists,
they may explain the fully coherent and interlocking logic of the theory or of
their experimental procedures, but they do not describe the exact type of
thought processes, emotions, and life history factors leading to the creation
that is, the creative process itself. This is not due to some form of wantonness,
lack of sophistication [psychological or otherwise), or even to a lack of
observational power. Neither is it frequently due to a desire to increase the
public's awe and admiration for their accomplishments nor a wish to
contribute to the mythic view about creation nor, as some poets have
confessed as an intention,1 to give an aura of a spontaneous or mystical
quality to their work. Creators, while they are engaged in the creative process,
do not, and generally cannot, pay very much attention to keeping track of
exactly what they think and do, or of the nature and origins of their thoughts
and behavior. When they complete their work, moreover, they themselves are
often awestruck by the immensity of their accomplishment and, standing
back or introspecting, they too adopt the mythic view. In such cases, a view of
the accomplishment as both inexplicable and arising virtually full-grown from
an unknown or outside source seems somehow valid; such a view is at least
more comfortable than fully bearing the otherwise weighty pride and
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responsibility.
To understand creating scientifically, then, requires some means of
viewing or figuratively photographing the goddess as she is emerging. A large
task it is, to be sure, but one that will be the major purpose of this book. The
focus here will be on the creative process in the individual: the thought
processes, the affects, the experiences, and the psychodynamic structure of
the psychological events connected to creating. A good deal of attention will
be paid to the types of creations constituting mankind's great
accomplishments, although definite limitations will be necessary. For one
thing, many such creations are the result of large-scale cultural factors
operating during long periods of history or they arise from the tightly
interlocking work of certain groups, such as the contributions among scores
of scientific investigators over a period of several decades or centuries. These
types of creations cannot be attributed to the particular contribution of a
single individual. On the other hand, even when a creation can be connected
to the thought or work of a single individual, as it can in the arts, many
cultural and historical factors still play an important role. In science,
accumulated knowledge and investigation is so important in any advance that
it is difficult to define and isolate a particular individuals contribution even in
famous cases. In focusing on the creative process in the individual, such
limitations of scope and application will be taken for granted throughout and
only discussed when they have particular bearing or seem to be modifying
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newness with such achievements is high, but it also allows for a consideration
of a fairly wide range of creations. Though some will disagree about this
wider range and challenge the consensus about some examples of creations
and creators included in this book, such is the inevitable outcome of the
complexity of the task.
Another limitation pertains to method. In order to get a complete view
of the goddess emerging, the specific factors in the creative process, one
might want perhaps to be there while the process is unfolding. Though this is
clearly impossible with creations of the past, those that are said to "stand the
test of time," one might conceive of some device, an apparatus of wires and
tapes perhaps, that would allow such investigation with contemporary
creators. On the basis that such direct observation would unduly influence the
process being observed, not to mention the grotesquerie of a strapped up and
plugged in creator, that particular method was not employed. Nevertheless,
all the methods usedinterviews, manuscript reconstructions, experiments,
and analysis of primary source documentary evidencehave been geared
toward getting as close to the unfolding process as possible. The photograph
of the emerging goddess is therefore a composite one, developed from bits
and pieces from different methods and perspectives. In the case that begins
this volume, however, I attempt to present a detailed and extensive
documentary motion picture of a particular instance of her birth.
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disorder among creative people has been puzzling. As creations are very
highly valued, and as creative activity seems to be a highly productive and
psychologically adaptive aspect of personality functioning, how can these
disorders be explained? For the creative person himself, working sometimes
unrecognized and in opposition to society, how can he know whether his
difficulties, or even his point of view, result from illness? While I would not
presume, nor would it be medically meaningful, to provide an answer that
would apply to each individual case, the understanding of the creative
process emerging from the pages to follow has direct bearing on the matter.
The creative process, as the evidence will show, is itself a healthy, adaptive
personality function. Psychological disturbance, therefore, bears a
complicated relationship to creativity, a relationship in which social factors
play a role, though not necessarily a decisive one.
Investigatory Approach
Another problem stemming from the variable acceptance and
recognition of creativity pertains to the investigatory approach to the
phenomenon. When empirical research, such as this study, is based on
evidence derived primarily from contemporary creators, there is the risk that
some currently unrecognized but highly creative person may be totally
missed or overlooked. There is also the risk of overemphasizing creative
modes appropriate only to the contemporary scene. I attempt in part to
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overcome the latter risk and difficulty by presenting material from the work
and thought of creators from diverse periods of history throughout this book.
To some extent, this overcomes the implications of the former risk as well,
because the creators cited include some who were recognized in their time
and some who were not. The cardinal means used to overcome the pitfall of
overlooking contemporary creative persons, however, have been the specific
criteria used for selection of my research subjects.
The major evidence upon which this book is based was derived from
numerous series of research psychiatric interviews. These interviews were
carried out with subjects who were selected as being highly creative in the
arts (literary and otherwise) and in science. Specifically designed to focus on
the creative process as directly as possible, the interviews were regularly
scheduled on a weekly or biweekly basis, were very intensive, and were
carried out, in most cases, over an extended period of time. For the collection
of data reported in this study, I have carried out over 1,690 hours of
interviews with these research subjects, in several eases continuing regularly
scheduled interviews over a period of three or four years. Selection of the
subjects was based on a dual criterion which consisted of the following:
recognition as creative by society and recognition as creative by peers.
The selection procedure involved the specific designation by a literary
critic, eminent scientist, or other qualified person (not myself) of persons
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who were highly creative in their fields. In most cases, such persons had
already received one or more major artistic or scientific award or honor:
Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award; Bollingen Poetry Prize,Gold Medal for Poetry; designation as Poet of the Library of Congress;
membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National
Institute for Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
National Academy of the Sciences, or the Royal Society of London. In a
separate determination, I obtained assessments of these same persons by
their artist or scientist peers. Hence, two independent ratings of highly
creative persons were used. Many prominent and recognized creators were
subjects in this researchmany of the most outstanding American writers
especially and several of the leading American scientists. Of the two criteria
used for selection, assessment by peers was given greater weight, however,
so that several subjects who were not major award winners were included. As
a result, several creators, as yet unrecognized by society at large, were also
studied.
Overall, fifty-seven highly creative men and women have been subjects
in this interview research. Because they are guaranteed confidentiality at the
outset and because of the sensitive and confidential nature of some of the
material discussed in the interviews and reported here, their names cannot
be given. Two other types of subjects have also been studied in a manner
similar to that used with the outstandingly creative persons. One type of
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referring to multiple meanings, but the term does not include a necessary or
intrinsic relationship among these meanings. Although art products convey
multiple meanings or multiple levels of experience, and this is surely a factor
in their appeal, multiple meanings and levels in art are not merely randomly
connected with each other. Ambiguity alone may be diffuse and chaotic. An
ambiguous event, phrase, or form may be obscure rather than new and
valuable. Even if the definition of ambiguity is modified to denote multiple
related meanings, tolerance for such ambiguity would not necessarily be
directly involved in creating. Producing ambiguity or multiple related
meanings is not the same as tolerating such phenomena, the latter being only
a receptive attitude. The specific types of thinking as shall be described in this
book are necessary to produce creations. While the general type of flexibility
of thought and perception involved in tolerance for ambiguity may in some
broad way be related to creativity, flexibility of any type must still include
specific factors producing new and valuable connections. As a personality
trait or attitude, constant tolerance for ambiguity can even be countercreative. For some phases in the creative process an orientation to precision
and an intolerance for ambiguity and diffusion are vital.
The lack of specificity and of a necessary connection to creativity also
differentiates Mednick's theory of remote associates from the findings to
follow. Mednick proposed that creative thinking was based on the
combination of elements that were remotely associated with one another. As
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he put it, "The more mutually remote the elements of the new combination,
the more creative the process or solution."11 The mechanisms he described
for producing such combinations were the associational ones of serendipity
(accidental contiguity of elements), similarity, and mediation. Rather than an
associational meeting of contiguous, similar, or indirectly connected and
mediated mental elements, the processes to be described here are active,
directed forms of cognition in which the creator intentionally and in distinct
ways brings particular types of elements together. Elements are juxtaposed,
brought together, and/or integrated rather than being merely added or
combined. Other sharp differences also obtain. Mednick's definition of
remoteness is based on infrequent connection on word association tests, and
his Remote Associates Test for Creativity assesses the ability to connect such
rarely associated words. Rather than remoteness and rare association,
distinct antitheses and oppositions as well as strong similarities and
connections are involved in the creative operations presented in this book.
Arthur Koestler's theory of bisociation refers not only to thought
processes but very broadly to any biological, psychological, or social
phenomenon.12 Bisociation consists of the coming together or association of
two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference. Koestler
considers creation to be a matter of a single act rather than a process, and his
theory, like Mednick's, is based on the principle of association of elements or
entire frames of reference. Rather than the several opposite or antithetical
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content, but like all artists their attempts at a particular goal are not always
effective. The creative thought processes described here, however, function in
a structural, way to produce effective art rather than only art with particular
types of content, be it oppositional, antithetical, or dreamlike. Consequently,
these thought processes operate to produce successful surrealist creations,
just as they produce successful creations of other types.
Creativity is such an important phenomenon and so many thinkers have
explored it that any claim for exhaustively unique findings would be
presumptuous. Philosophers, artists, critics, and others concerned with
aesthetics especially have, in their deep and penetrating studies of art,
touched on aspects of what will be reported here. Some will see echoes of
Blake's and Coleridge's formulations about the importance of form and of
opposites16 and of Kenneth Burke's "perspectives by incongruity"17 in the
material to follow. Others, because of my focus on opposites, will emphasize
connections with Eastern philosophies; because of my use of the names of the
Roman god Janus or of the Greek goddess Athena in my terms and references
about creativity, they might insist on the deep wisdom incorporated in GrecoRoman mythology.18 I would not deny the very broad and general relatedness
of these sources nor, in my emphasis on distinctions from other positions,
deny all validity to them. None of the findings were inspired by or at all
derived from these sources or positions, however. They came originally from
empirical studies of creators engaged in creating. I was not even familiar with
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Notes
1 A. E. Housman, "I think it best not to make any alterations ... as it makes the public fancy one is
inspired," from a letter to Grant Richards, July 24, 1898, quoted in: G. Richards, Housman
(London: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 22.
2 Throughout this book, the term "process" refers to an organized series of actions or events directed
to some end, in distinction particularly to isolated acts or behaviors. Processes are
functions of some type of system. The creative process is distinct from the creative
person or agent as well as the created product. The creative process is a function of the
creative agent and it results in the created product.
3 Broadly, intrinsic value is the type attributed to works of art, while instrumental value is the type
connected to pragmatic usefulness and science. See C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge
and Valuation (LaSalle, 111.: Open Court Publishing, 1946), for further elaboration and
discussion of these terms.
4 Sheer productivity is also to be distinguished from creativity. One may, for instance, produce
numerous books, journal articles, or paintings and few, if any, would be either new or
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more than minimally valuable. Although prolific producers are sometimes called
creative, prolixity is better classified as a type of achievement than a form of creativity.
5 Seneca, Tranquility of Mind, trans. W. B. Langsdorf (New York: Putnam's, 1900), pp. 90-91. As
Aristotle's remark is not retrievable in the original, the statement is usually quoted in
Seneca's Latin rendition: Nullum existat magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit
(Seneca, Dialoquorum Libri IX-X. [Turin: C. B. Peravia, 1948], p. 37).
6 There are some recent well-known examples, among poets especially, but the list would include: the
artists Hieronymus Bosch, Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Albrecht Diirer; the
scientists James Faraday, Isaac Newton, Tycho Brahe,- the composers Robert Schumann,
Hugo Wolf, Camille Saint-Saens; the writers Johann Holderlin, August Strindberg, Arthur
Rimbaud, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Lamb, Guy de Maupassant, Theodore Roethke, Ezra
Pound, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Hart Crane, Sylvia Plath, Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll
(Charles Dodgson), William Blake, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Baudelaire,- and the
philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. For bibliographic references
on these persons (particularly artists), see A. Rothenberg, and B. Greenberg, The Index of
Scientific Writings on Creativity: Creative Men and Women (Hamden, Conn.: Archon
Books, 1974). To those who would spontaneously argue with this list, I would emphasize
that the fact of psychosis need in no way detract from the greatness or significance of
each of these person's works.
7 As with any type of human function, it is difficult to separate out a clear-cut process solely directed
toward creation. Many behaviors and functions overlap. For analytic purposes, however,
I shall throughout this book discuss the creative process as though it were an ongoing
and separate phenomenon. Postulated overlappings are, of course, considered in
methodologies adopted and in conclusions.
8 A. Rothenberg, Poetry and Psychotherapy: Kinships and Contrasts," in Poetry the Healer, ed. J. Leedy
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1973), pp. 91- 126.
9 See esp. A. Rothenberg, and C. R. Hausman, The Creativity Question (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 1976). For a comprehensive bibliography of scientific research on creativity, see
Rothenberg and Greenberg, Index: Creative Men and Women, and also A. Rothenberg, and
B. Greenberg, The Index of Scientific Writings on Creativity: General, 1566-1974 (Hamden,
Conn.: Archon Books, 1976).
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communication. It is also of some interest that the Greek goddess Athena, and her Roman
counterpart, Minerva, were each goddess of wisdom, a factor surely related to creativity,
in their respective cultures. Furthermore, both Janus and Athena (or Minerva) also
functioned primarily as protectors in time of war: Janus was also god and protector of
doorways and Athena was also the protector of fortresses. This could suggest an implicit
connection between wisdom or creativity and protection against destruction and
violence.
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1
CREATION OF A POEM
I will attempt to illustrate the psychological processes involved in
creativity through the analysis of the creation of a specific poem. The poem
was written by a subject of mine and presented to me during a research
interview, one interview in the course of a long series. The subject is a major
American poet and, for my investigation, he has proved to be cooperative and
insightful to an extraordinarily high degree. At the time the poem was
written, I had worked with him for more than three years and so I knew him
quite well at that point. The schedule had been two-hour weekly and
biweekly appointments. At the beginning of each session, the poet presented
to me the manuscript material of the work he had done since the last
appointment and we then discussed this material. During the course of our
meetings he had written and shown me many poems, from first draft to last,
but the one I will discuss is the one I believe we learned the most about. This
is partly because I had begun tape-recording our sessions some months
before and therefore have an unusually detailed and accurate account of our
discussion of this particular poem, and partly because we had been meeting
for so long and knew and trusted each other so well that this discussion
became especially deep and illuminating. But, most important of all, an event
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occurred during the writing of this poem which I had been waiting for all
along: the subject reported a dream occurring shortly after he began the
poem, a dream that offered information elucidating some of the psychological
processes involved in the poem's creation.
Long before this, dream analysis had become a central focus of our
discussions. The subject had, on his own, decided to keep a careful record of
his dreams and a large portion of our weekly or biweekly sessions was
devoted to trying to understand the relationship of his dreams with his
poetry. The reasons for this mutual focusing on dreams and poetry will
become clear in the discussion to follow. The point I want to emphasize now
is that we had both become quite used to dream analysis in the sessions and, I
believe, quite skilled in the practice of analyzing his dreams. Although our
discussion of dreams had all along done much to elucidate various aspects of
his poetic creation in progress, never before had he been able to describe the
thoughts associated with the inception of a poem in minute detail and never
before had he recorded a dream occurring shortly after beginning a poem.
Here is the final version of the poem presented to me:
In Monument Valley1
One spring twilight, during a lull in the war,
At Shoup's farm south of Troy, I last rode horseback.
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are known, we may end up deciding that the poem started in the poet's
childhood. Biologists might insist it began in the poet's genes and Jungians
might heatedly argue for its origin in the Collective Unconscious. I would like
first to make my goals more modest than those implied by such far-sweeping
theoretical positions. I shall recount some of the information the poet gave me
about the specific material in the poem and some other pertinent data; I shall
then go further from there.
During an extended visit to the southwestern United States, the poet
and a male friend made a visit to Monument Valley, Arizona. Named from the
unusual natural rock formations resembling monuments or statues of
humans and animals, this valley is located in the Colorado Plateau, east of the
Grand Canyon and Rainbow Bridge, a bleak, arid region. Many of the rock
formations have been given names, among which are Elephant Rock and Two
Sisters. Although the two friends attempted to have a picnic while viewing the
monuments, the wind, as is often the case in that sandstone desert site, blew
stinging sand into their faces and food. It was an unpleasant experience and,
as they were about to gather up and leave, a small bedraggled dark brown
horse"tiny and shrunken," he saidappeared on the scene. The horse was
alone, unsaddled, and it moved toward them. The poet's friend, who had had
a good deal of experience with horses and felt strongly about them, was
immediately moved. He was excited by the horse's presence and by the
strange and sudden way it appeared. The poet, preoccupied and bothered by
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the sand, was less immediately impressed but, partly because of the dramatic
qualities of the circumstance and his friend's reaction, he thought to himself
that someday he might write a poem about the experience.
Although he wrote many poems after that, he actually gave little or no
further thought to the horse until, one morning approximately a week prior to
one of our interview sessions, the horse came to his mind and he wrote the
following lines:
Hot pumice blew Through Monument Valley.
The Elephant Rock ached The Three Sisters wailed.
It was not the place for a picnic
We ate in the car's shade, hunched over, at top speed
Looking up, there was our guest, our ghost.
At death's door
Slender, tottering, liquid-eyed . . . .
Strikingly, these first few lines are virtually a simple description of the
scene. Except for the poetic references to the aching of Elephant Rock and the
wailing of the Three Sisters, they are a dim shadow of the final poem he
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This second version still bears little resemblance to the final completed
poem. The clich "at death's door" from the first version has been enlivened
by a direct comparison to the door of the car. The offering of an apple core, an
idea retained in the final poem, has introduced some possible metaphysical
overtonesan allusion to apples in the Garden of Eden as contrasted with the
allusion to death. This version is, however, still primarily descriptive and the
language structure somewhat prosaic. But the organizing ideasome would
say the inspirationis now present: the horse will be the emblematic beast
for the age.
After writing these lines, the poet stopped working on the poem for that
day. In his notebook, there had been one further line after the above which he
had crossed out soon after writing it. This line was: "Years have passed since
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that day." Thus, he had begun to think about introducing a lapse of time into
the descriptive sequence, but for the moment he did not develop it. As we
know from the final poem, he eventually reversed the time sequence of this
latter ideathe experience at Monument Valley is the present event and his
experience of riding a horse himself is antecedentbut the notion of passage
of time was clearly present at this early phase.
Having the poem in this partially germinated and dynamic phase, the
poet went about his various social and professional activities for the rest of
the day. He knew he was not going to be able to get back to work on the poem
for a while because he was expecting a visitor and had plans to spend the next
several days in a large city nearby. But, during sleep that night, he had the
following two dreams (I quote his own description):
Dream 1. J.T. [pseudonym initials of the poet's male friend] and I are on a
trip or a visit. We come to a soccer field and feel like playing, even though
one must pay to do so. If we start at once, we shall have two hours worth
for a few dollars apiece. But the other players delay. Next, indoors, we are
shown a room with two day beds. Miriam [pseudonym for a female friend]
enters and begins compulsively to make up my bedrather, to tear it
apart under the guise of making it. I keep asking her not to, and finally am
angry. She falls back in a swoon, dressed only in underclothes. Other
people enter slowly: J.T. in a sweatshirt and a boring old couple I am stuck
with throughout the party. I have made my own bed by then.
Dream 2. I've taken a position in a large comfortable house. I am to be the
companion of a very old womanat least 100. After many preliminaries I
am led (by my mother among others,- but we treat each other like polite
strangers) through halls and upstairs to arrive at the invalid's apartments.
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I expect her to be bedridden but in honor of the occasion she has risen to
meet me at the dooran ancient dwarf with my grandmother's face, head
smiling and enlarged, in a blue dress. My mother, with a practiced
movement, takes the old creature onto her shoulders. I touch her hands.
They are horribly small, a baby'sno, hands made by a plastic surgeon
the last joints missing from the fingers, and little false nails attached. We
sit down to suppershe in her chair, I on the end of a chaise longue. Her
teeth have little secondary fangs attached, which enable her to eat. People
are watching. It is clear that we are going to be delighted with each other.
In an unused electric heater is mounted a bad copy of a copy of a portrait,
coarsely colored and printed, of R.L. [pseudonym initials of an old family
friend]. There's some question of destroying it.
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playing, must start at once, and, disappointingly, the other players delay. Next,
the female friend Miriam is represented in the dream as entering the door of
the room just as the horse is represented in the poem as appearing at the
door of the car. While the poet and his friend had not been indoors, nor had
they retreated to the inside of their car when the horse appeared, the animal's
sudden appearance at the door of their car had been the telling aspect of the
experience.
In its overall outline, the manifest content3 of the first dream and the
experience described in the poetic fragments written that day had much in
common. As the first fragments of the poem went no further than the horse's
appearance, there is little further analogy with the remainder of the dream.
Miriam in the dream goes on to behave in a servile and perhaps a beastlike
fashion, and her mistrustfully tearing up an already made bed"under the
guise of making it"along with her swoon, a swoon incorporating both a
sense of weakness and a seductive or needy type of behavior, are somewhat
analogous to the horse's distrustfulness along with starvation. More direct
and definite analogies obtain, however, between the remainder of this first
dream and the final version of the last section of the poem written several
days later.
Before going into these analogies, I want to point out that dream 2 also
has overt structural similarities to the poem. This dream also begins with a
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Valley. Both had been guests at J.T.'s house at the time and, though she then
had left some time before the two friends had gone to Monument Valley, her
currently expected visit was surely the immediate factor reviving that
experience in the poet's mind. He insisted, however, that he was not
consciously thinking about Miriam, or her intended visit, when he began the
poem.
As for his associations to dream 2, he immediately referred to some
conversations he and I had had about the burdens imposed on offspring by
parents, a connection suggested to him by the image of his mother taking his
grandmother onto her back. He elaborated this theme with remembrances
and anecdotes about his mother caring for his grandmother during a good
part of the latter's terminal illness.
Then, he began to talk about his own relationship to his grandmother
and remembered a period in his life, after his parents divorced, when he lived
alone with his mother, his grandmother, and his grandmother's sister. The
grandmother's sister had not been an actual member of the household but, on
occasion, she visited for long periods. It was a time of his life, he said, that was
relatively happy and serene. Although he had often had the task of staying at
home and amusing his grandmother by playing cards with her, or going out
with her to lunch, he felt that the attention he received from one, two, and
often three women during this period more than compensated for any
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burdens. He related such feelings directly to feelings in the dream, saying that
despite his being hired to take care of the old lady in the dream, he enjoyed
being made much of by the women. Spontaneously, he added that the idea of
destroying the photograph of the old family friend in the dream would mean
the removal of his words"the minimal male presence in the house," his
only competition for the women. Within the dream itself, he said laughingly,
the photograph was to he destroyed on "aesthetic grounds."
After giving his associations, he went on to analyze further the
meanings of these dreams himself.5 He felt that the situation in dream 2
provided the underlying reason for his rejection of Miriam in dream l.6 Dream
2 indicated his relationship with important women in his life. Everything was
pleasant on the surface, but women often could be terrible burdens with their
own little weapons (the grandmother's fangs). In dream 1, Mariam attempted,
under the pretense of helpfulness, to make a bed that did not need fixing. She
attacked the bed in a "feverish" way and was consequently destructive and
burdensome rather than helpful. At the end of that dream, therefore, he went
ahead and made his own bed. And that meant the same as the figurative
expression "to make one's bed"he would go his own way.
Dream Analysis
From his own dream analysis, therefore, there are definite substantive
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connections between the final poem and the dream. The poem ends with the
lines "About the ancient bond between her kind and mine/Little more to
speak of can be done." The relationship with the horse and her kind is
renounced, much as his relationship with Miriam is renounced in the dream.
He goes it alone in the poem, driving off in his car, much as he makes his own
bed in the dream.
Considering the many parallels between the dream and the poetic
fragment, it is hardly likely that these substantive connections between the
final poem and the dream are accidental. The mental events are clearly
related to one another in a less than haphazard way and, with all the
information from the poet himself at our disposal, we may hope to
understand some of the lawful aspects of this relationship.
For one thing, it appears that dream 1 helped to provide a solution to an
aesthetic problem raised by the writing of the poetic fragment during the day.
From what the poet said about his thoughts about the poem, and from what
he had actually written that day, we know he did not have the final lines of the
poem in mind when he went to sleep. Only much later, while fully awake in
the daytime, did they occur to him. Hence, there was a psychological
continuity between his dreams and his later waking thoughts. The precise
nature of this continuity is, I would insist, largely unconscious for the poet
himself. It is possible, of course, that the poet had been consciously influenced
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by his dreams and/or his interpretation of their meaning during the writing
of the final lines of the poem. Many poets do try to use their dreams in such a
conscious way when they create poetry. But even if this were sothe poet
distinctly said that he was not thinking of Miriam or of the dream when
writing the poem, but he could have forgotten by the time we talked about it
there would still be an unconscious factor or set of factors linking the
involuntary dream in a continuity to his voluntary decision to use the dream
or its interpretation in the poem. No one would maintain, I am sure, that
poetic decisions are dictated totally by conscious considerations.
To understand the nature of this continuity beyond merely saying that it
is unconscious, let us look further at the psychological meaning of the dreams.
Here, we are on surer ground than the still treacherous sands of the poem
itself because psychoanalysis has established that the psychological function
of dreams is the fulfillment of wishes.7 Can we then establish a basic wish or
wishes expressed in these dreams? Is the poet's insightful interpretation
complete when he suggests that the psychological meaning of the dreams is
the same as the statement of the final line of the poem, he will make his own
bed and go his own way? It is important to ask this, because if "going his own
way" were the basic wish expressed in both the dreams, the question about
the nature of the continuity between dream and poem would be answered at
the start. If the dreams merely functioned as a disguised expression of the
poet's wish to be on his own or, more deeply, a wish to be free of bonds and
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another portion of the same dream and the poet's associations to it.
Quoting directly from the poet's description of his dreams, "In an
unused electric heater is mounted a bad copy of a copy of a portrait, coarsely
colored and printed, of R.L. There's some question of destroying it." This, the
poet suggested, indicated a minimal male presence in the housea substitute
for the artificial heat of the electric heater who was the poet's only
competition. R.L. himself was an old family friend (a little older than the
poet's mother) whose wife had died. The poet's own father had died some
years after divoring his mother. Since his mother had remarried a man who
also had died, this eligible widower had currently become a potential
competitor for the poet's mother, a possible third husband. His picture was a
"bad copy of a copy of a portrait," suggesting that, as a potential husband for
the poet's mother, he was both a poor replica of the poet's own father (the
real painting or "a portrait") and a symbol for the father himself. The "copy of
a copy" construction also suggests other interpretations in terms of three
levels of relatedness. Three male generations are suggested and therefore a
two-generations-removed grandfather as competition for the poet's
grandmother could inferentially be included, although there were no specific
associations regarding this. With respect to his grandmother and the picture,
then, this much is clear: the poet enjoys taking on the burden of his invalid
grandmother because he has both women to himself. He has replaced all
males in these women's lives, including (symbolically) his father, his recently
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deceased stepfather, R.L., and perhaps his grandfather, who are all relegated
to an unused electric heater and will probably be destroyed. The primary or
basic wish fulfillment, therefore, is the attainment of the major role in his
mother's and grandmother's lives with all its burdensin order to receive
the deep pleasure of being the major focus of their attention.
With this in mind, we can reconstruct the primary psychological
meaning of the two dreams as follows: dream 2 represents the fulfillment of
the forbidden oedipal wish, replacement of the father and sole possession of
the mother (as well as the grandmother who is both a love object in her own
right and, in all probability, a representation of the mother herself in
advanced years). As the poet suggested, the situation in dream 2 leads to the
outcome in dream 1. The realization of the oedipal wish in dream 2 is
associated with guilt, and in dream 1 he has to pay the piper. He and his
friend come to a soccer field (the only sport he enjoyed in school, he told me)
but they must pay for the enjoyment. They plan to play but are prevented
from doing so by the other players. Next, Miriam, who is a friend of the poet's
mother and, as he said, shares features of his mother's personality, assumes a
maternal helping role by making his bed but eventually becomes destructive
and sexually seductive in a manipulative way. Then he experiences only the
burden of such a relationship. The "boring old couple" he is stuck with
throughout the party very likely represent the poet's own parents
unidentified old couples in dreams frequently represent the dreamer's
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that point to give the horse in the poem a rider but did nothing further about
that for the remainder of that day. In fact, he did not begin working on the
idea of the rider until the next day, and he only developed it in a version
resembling the first stanza of the final poem several days later. Though the
idea of the horse and rider dominates the whole first portion of the poem (i.e.,
the first two stanzas), it was, as we now see, conceived well after the second
portion.
What is the significance of that particular thought connecting the house
with a rider on the day after starting the poem and having the dreams?
Ultimately, this idea had an important influence on the entire structure of the
poem. But in addition to revealing a crucial step in the development of the
poem, his telling me about this thought alerted me to the importance of the
second of the two dreams. When he mentioned the rider idea, I felt a flash of
illumination. Suddenly I realized that, in the second dream, the poets mother
was carrying her own mother on her hack, just as a horse carries a rider.
Could this have been an accidental connection? I hardly thought so.
First, the poet thought of the rider the morning after the dream and went on
to incorporate the idea in a major way into the final poem. Second, he himself
felt that the dream concerning his mother and grandmother was the primary
one in an emotional sense. Consequently, the wishes and concerns of that
second dreamthe parent- child relationship represented by the mother
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carrying her mother on her backmust have been the major underlying
focus of his dreams and of his unconscious mental processes. The analogy
between the dream image and a major idea used in the poem, the arresting
image of the mother carrying her mother on her back in conjunction with the
idea of a horse carrying a rider, suggested to me that these underlying
concerns about the burdens and gratifications of the parent-child relationship
might also be a significant underlying emotional issue relating to the overall
creation of the poem.
The remaining history of the writing of the poem bore out my
supposition further. Later in the day following the dreams, the poet worked
on the lines he had written the day before and began to incorporate the idea
of a horse with a rider. In the final version of that day, he tried the following
lines after the phrase pertaining to the offering of an apple core:
A gentle broken horse
For all he knew it could have been I who first
Broke him, rode him, abandoned him
When I went off to study or to war.
When he returned the next day to his writing, he decided to shift the
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whole idea of himself as rider to the beginning of the poem. Starting anew, he
wrote the following:
We live mostly in the past or in the future
These lines begin in one and end in the other
It was the first or second summer after the war
That I last found myself on horseback.
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The horse, which had been clearly male from the beginning and had
remained male throughout several rewritings of the poem, was at this point
suddenly switched to female! Anda matter that carried a good deal of
weight for this poetthe word used for the female horse is, of course, "mare,"
the English word that is pronounced exactly like the French word mere,
meaning mother.
Poets are commonly highly sensitized to words having overtones and
connections to languages other than their own. This poet was especially so:
he spoke several languages fluently and intentionally included multilingual
overtones in his poetry. He referred to them as "tenth-level associations."10 In
this case, however, he was not immediately aware of the connection between
"mare" and mere. When I asked him why he had switched the horse's sex, he
said that he had begun to have an erotic feeling about his relationship to the
horse while writing those lines and a change of sex seemed appropriate. He
added that he had not known the sex of the real horse he had seen in the
desert, but had described the poetic horse as male in earlier versions without
much deliberation. This alteration of a major characteristic of the horse, the
primary subject of the poem, and the poet's unconscious use of a word
linguistically connoting the idea of mother further emphasize a connection to
the parent-child, or more specifically, the mother-child relationship. As the
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poet was initially unaware of the bilingual overtones of the word "mare,"
when ordinarily he would have been acutely so, the supposition of an
underlying major concern with this relationship is considerably supported.11
Further events also had a bearing on this matter. One of the conscious
influences on the creation of the first two stanzas of the poem, the poet told
me, was a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, a poet he very much admires. Bishop's
poem was about a mechanical horse with a little ballet dancer on top.12
Always very fond of that poem, he had marveled at how lightly she had used
this figure of a horse and rider; he felt there were overtones in philosophy
the relationship of the soul to the body.
Although it was difficult for the poet to ascertain exactly when the
Bishop poem came into his mind, except that it was clearly after he had the
conception of a horse and rider, Elizabeth Bishop herself appeared in one of
his dreams during the period when he was working on the Monument Valley
poem. The dream occurred six days after he began the poem, andan
important piece of evidence connecting it to the poem's creationthe next
morning he returned after a three-day hiatus to write another version of the
poem in his notebook. In this version, he moved the first two stanzas closer to
their final formulation:
One spring dusk before I went to war
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a case for the horse as a clearly recognizable symbol for the poet's mother in
the finished poem. To argue that from reading this poem, he would have to
propose a general principle that female horses are always mother symbols, a
highly doubtful assumption. The poem does not convey wish fulfillment to a
reader and, as I will spell out extensively later, neither does it primarily
express fulfillment of the creator's wish.
Probably the most important distinction between the role of wish
fulfillment in this poem and its general role in dreams is that the particular
manifestation of wish fulfillment in this poem contributed to coherency and
aesthetic value. In dreams, wish fulfillment characteristically produces the
reverse effect. As psychoanalysis has clearly demonstrated, over and over
again, wish fulfillment in the dream requires disruption and incoherence in
manifest content, the very disruption and incoherency characterizing the
entire experience of dreaming.15 The addition of the first two stanzas in the
poem, the stanzas embodying the poet's wish fulfillment, clearly contributed
to the coherency of the poem and, I think no one would disagree, increased its
aesthetic value.
Now that I have said this, however, I must return to a device I used
earlier in this chapter and promised to discuss again later. Although I first
discussed the dreams without referring to the content of the poem, there is
now a new state of affairs. I have, in the interest of presenting evidence and
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directly than any of the images in the poet's dreams. In fact, this latter point
goes immediately to the heart of the matter: the image in the poem embodies
the content of the wish more directly than the images of the dreams because
of a major difference between the creative process and dreaming. This
difference, a crucial one for understanding creativity, is that the creative
process functions to reverse censorship, while dreams depend on it. The
issues raised by the discerning critic do not invalidate our discussion of
differences between the creative process and the dream, but these issues help
to specify the nature of the differences further. Considering the dreams apart
from both the poet's thoughts during the creation of the poem and the images
in the poem itself, comparing dreams and creative process as independent
psychological phenomena rather than overlapping routes of expression,
reveals both striking similarity and striking difference, reciprocity as well as
complementarity. Processes bear a marked resemblance to each other but
they function in reverse. The image of the grandmother on the mother's back
in the dream, the parent riding on the offspring, and the rider on the horse's
back in the poem, the offspring on the parent, are reflecting ones: the creative
process is the mirror image of the dream.
The mirror-image or enantiomorphic relationship between the dreams
and the creation of the poem obtains in many ways at once. The horse and
rider image in the poem is a homologous, and thereby a closer and a more
direct, representation of the poet's wish for nurturance and care than the
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images in the dreams because the creative process turned backward and
reversed an aspect of the censorship operation in constructing these dreams.
The dream distortion was in part unraveled and the underlying wished-for
structure of the relationship adopted. Also, the poet thought of the horse and
rider image following a dream depicting his grandmother on his mother's
back, but in the poem he reversed positions and reversed the offspringparent relationship. Dream thoughts led to poetic thoughts, but the
representation was reversed. Dreams and the creative process were
functionally reciprocal and complementary, and there was reversal and
reflection of similar content and imagery between dream and poem. There
was also reversal and reflection of temporal sequence. The first of the two
dreams occurring prior to the creation of the horse and rider image
pertained, both structurally and emotionally, to the final stanzas of the poem.
The second of the two dreams bore a structural resemblance to the final
stanzas but emotionally pertained to what became the earlier ones. Dreams
and creation mirrored each other in this poem, and dreams and the creative
process universally bear a mirror-image relationship.
In the succeeding chapters of this book, I will describe two specific
thought processes operating in creativity; I will explain in detail how these
particular thought processes operated in the creation of "In Monument
Valley" and how they operate in various types of creative processes, ranging
from poetry, art, and music to science and intellectual endeavors. I will
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anticipate the full discussion now simply by saying that the psychological
properties of these particular thought processes help account for the mirrorimage relationship between dreams and the creative process I have just
described. The properties of these thought processes account for such effects
as the emergence of the horse and rider image with its close approximation to
the poet's underlying wish. The structural aspects of these processes
demonstrate the mirror-image relationship between dreams and the creative
process even more precisely than I have already suggested; the thought
processes themselves are mirror images of processes operating in dreams.
That the poetic image of the horse and rider is not an explicit or overt
statement of the poet's wish and is therefore similar to the symbolic element
in dreams is, as I said, a correct observation. Following this aspect of the
discerning critic's challenge can perhaps now make clearer what I mean by
mirror image. The poetic image is not an explicit statement of the poet's wish;
it is representational or symbolic. If poetry characteristically contained such
explicit statements, we would hardly ever find it interesting or aesthetically
valuable. One of the characteristic features of art of all types is that the artist,
unlike the neurotic or the psychotic, does not impose his wishes and needs
directly upon his audience. He does not simply confess, nor does he make the
demands of pure and explicit confession upon us. Primarily, he gives us
something emotional as well as conceptual. With respect to "In Monument
Valley," I believe that the shifting of the wish-fulfillment aspect into the first
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two stanzas had a good deal to do with its becoming a far better poem in its
totality than was suggested by the early fragments alone. Not only was the
personal wish embedded into an overall symbolic statement with universal
significance, but a dynamic emotional sequence was produced.
The main point about the symbolic nature of the poetic horse and rider
image is that there are definite similarities between dreaming and the
creative process. Indeed, mirror images bear precisely such a relationship to
each other: they are similar but reversed. Similar to dreaming, the creative
process molds and structures deeply unconscious material and it produces
affect laden and vivid images, symbols, and new connections. But it also
functions to reverse the censorship, images, and other aspects of dreams,- the
results embody the creator's unconscious contents more closely and more
directly than do dream constructions.16 From this relationship of similarity
and reversal between creative process and dreams has come the concept of
the mirror image.
Notes
1 This poem is protected by copyright and is reprinted by permission; the author's name is withheld
upon request.
2 In view of a long literary tradition relating humans and animals, this idea may not at first seem
strikingly original. A fuller understanding of its implications and structure, spelled out in
chap. 3, however, should demonstrate its originality.
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3 The use of the term "manifest content" follows Freud's distinction between the experienced and
reported, or manifest, elements in the dream and the underlying meaning, or latent
content, of these elements.
4 Note also a more tacit connection: the grandmother's hands are blunted with the last joints missing
from the fingers and therefore they are constructed like the single-joint ends of a horse's
leg, ending in the hoofs.
5 The subject and I had worked together for some time when these dreams occurred and he had
become skilled in analyzing his own dreams. Although I believe our work together
contributed to his impressive self-analysis, an analysis I consider to be accurate as far as
it goes, I must add that the subject himself had always shown extraordinary capacity and
insight with respect to dream analysis. While such capacity seemed to be related to his
poetic gift and his proficiency with symbols and images, I would not generalize about it. I
would not considerthere is no evidence from my work with other poetsthat this
capacity for dream analysis is necessarily related to poetic creativity.
6 See S. Freud, "The first short dream is often the conclusion of a second longer dreamthe first is the
'dependent clause' and the second, the 'principal clause' " ("The Interpretation of
Dreams," 1900, [London, 1964], 4:315).
7 Findings in recent sleep research have suggested other psychological and biological functions of
dreams as well, but the wish-fulfillment function has not been at all disproven. Recent
theories of dreaming as a discharge or restorative function, in fact, support a wishfulfillment function. See chap. 2 below for further discussion.
8 See further discussion of psychological analysis of art in the following chapter and passim.
9 This thought and image will be described further in chap. 3.
10 An example from the completed poem "In Monument Valley" is the phrase "Hell's Gate." He pointed
out to me that it related to the German word hell, meaning "light." See chap. 3 for other
connections with the word "hell."
11 In another work I have discussed, and presented evidence for, the emotional importance of literary
revisions (see A. Rothenberg, "The Iceman Changeth: Toward an Empirical Approach to
Creativity," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 17 [1969] :549607).
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Further discussion and data pertaining to this issue will be presented here (see chaps. 4,
11, and 13).
12 E. Bishop, "Cirque d'Hiver," in The Complete Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), p. 34.
13 Note the possibility that the city of Troy mentioned in the poem, which the poet specifically meant
to have a double reference to both the ancient seaside site of the Trojan war and the
North American, northern hemisphere city of New York State, therefore has the dual
characteristics of being both on the seaside and in the north, as does the place in the
dream.
14 Elizabeth Bishop was, at the time of this dream, living in Brazil. Hence, there is a further indication
of a direct connection between Bishop and the grandmother.
15 That is, before Freud provided a key to the understanding of the incoherency (see chap. 2).
16 This should not be construed to apply merely to the so-called confessional poetry of poets such as
Lowell, Plath, Berryman, Hughes, and Sexton. While some critics have pointed out that
the work of these poets seems to be particularly concerned with unconscious material
related to dreams, I am not referring to such a particular style but to a universal
characteristic of the creative process. See A. Alvarez, The Savage God (New York: Random
House, 1972), for an interesting discussion of this group of poets.
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2
THE CREATIVE PROCESS AS THE MIRROR IMAGE
OF THE DREAM
Creativity is such a value-laden topic that any new formulation about it
runs the risk of being rejected out of hand. Creativity pertains to art, scientific
discovery, even theology; it touches on the most cherished areas of life and
the highest ideals. It is exalted and often mysterious. For many, the
mysterious aspect of creativity constitutes an important part of its appeal.
Any attempt to dispel even a portion of the mystery is, therefore, resisted.
There is, in fact, reason to say, on philosophical grounds, that denying the
mystery of creativity is a contradiction in terms.1
I am not concerned here with philosophical objections because I believe
I can answer them and will do so later in this volume (chap. 12). My more
immediate concern is with a widespread tendency to resist any formulation
about creativity by insisting that it contains nothing new. After all, creativity
has been thought about for a long time. Not only have philosophers,
theologians, and scientists devoted a good deal of attention to it but,
throughout the history of art, creative artists themselves have reflected on the
nature of creativity, within the substance of their art works and in other
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relating creativity and art to dreams developed.4 The most elaborate early
study was Marie Bonaparte's analysis of the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Making the explicit assumption that dream processes such as condensation
and displacement operated directly in art, Princess Bonaparte related Poe's
major themes and symbols to events and personages in his life. In Poe's story
"The Black Cat," for example, she proposed that the author's mother was
represented in several characterizations: the slayer's wife, the cat Pluto, and
the second cat. Spelling out the analysis of the artistic work as equivalent to
the dream, she stated the following: "Through displacement, the psychic
emphasis that belongs to the mother is shifted on the unrecognizable cats or
on the murderer's anonymous wife. Through condensation, in each of these
three protagonists, the poet's mother Elizabeth has been fused with Virginia
his wife and, what is more, has incorporated Catterina, Poe's cat, in two of
them."5 Other psychoanalysts became deeply interested in the symbolic
content of art, both literary and visual art, and ingenious interpretations of
artistic symbols, modeled after the interpretation of the symbolic content of
dreams, abound in psychoanalytic writings.6
Freud himself made some tentative connections between the dream
processes he had discovered and the creative process in art, although he
purposely shied away from any overall formulations about creativity.
Emphasizing the important role of daydreaming or fantasy in the creation of
poetry and other types of fiction,7 he pointed out that daydreams, like dreams
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reversed and it served the creator's ego, replenishing him rather than
overwhelming him as with the insidious regression of schizophrenia.
Kris's formulation, the analyses of art by psychoanalysts before him, and
the observations of many artists and writers both prior and subsequent to
psychoanalysis clearly assume and emphasize a similarity between dreams
and works of art. Even in music, musicologists such as Max Graf11 have
attempted to demonstrate similarities between dream processes and musical
works, despite the absence of visual and linguistic representations
characteristic of dreams. Scientific creation has also been linked to dreaming,
despite the ordered, logical and seemingly unemotional content of those
productions.12
Another widely held conception about the creative process, a
conception pertaining indirectly to the similarity between creating and
dreaming, is that creation is largely due to unconscious processes. This
conception, again, has primarily been an outgrowth of the work of the
psychoanalysts. But before psychoanalysislong before Freud formulated his
notion of the Unconsciousartists had denied that their creations came
solely from conscious thought and therefore implicitly suggested this type of
conception themselves. For psychoanalysts, in fact, the high degree of
psychological insight about unconscious processes embodied in works of art
throughout history supported the same view. Freud consistently
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acknowledged his own great debt to art and literature for the wealth of
psychological truth and knowledge contained therein. On several occasions,
he insisted that he personally had merely achieved a systematization of
artistic and literary knowledge accrued through the centuries before him.
Psychoanalytic studies of art and literature by Freud and his disciples seemed
to reveal the dynamisms seen in patientsOedipus complex, repetition
compulsion, separation anxietyand the conviction grew that creative artists
have some type of direct access to their own unconscious contents while
creating. This conviction has persisted in modern psychoanalytic writings.
Among artists themselves, the idea that art consists of the revelation of
unconscious material has influenced several modern movements, including:
expressionism, dadaism, surrealism, and beat as well as confessional poetry
and literature. Such a conception of art has been adopted fully by the beat
writers Kerouac and Ginsberg as well as others who follow a model of writing
out virtually everything that comes into their minds, in the style of free
association in psychoanalysis. For these writers, the closer they could come to
their inner or unconscious worlds, the closer they could come to truth. And
truth, for them, was synonymous with art.
Scientists and investigators of scientific thinking also have emphasized
the importance of unconscious processes in scientific creation and discovery
although they have sometimes differed about the manner in which these
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principles, which according to Nietzsche are the driving forces of art and
artistic creation, correspond with dream and intoxication, respectively, in
everyday life.18 Modern philosophers, such as Brand Blanshard,19 insist
directly on the important role of unconscious or subconscious factors in
creation.
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more precisely: the creative process is the obverse of dreaming in that the
creator consciously uses the mechanisms and processes characteristic of
dream thought and dreaming for the purposes of abstracting, conceptualizing,
and concretizing as well as reversing the effects of unconscious censorship.
As a key to much that will follow, I will discuss the elements of this
statement separately. (1) "The creator consciously uses": This means that the
creator actively, with full logic, and in a waking, conscious state employs
thought processes structurally similar to unconscious dream processes. Thus,
structurally similar processes operate in the obverse aspects of the psychic
apparatus, conscious and unconscious. The creator consciously pays attention
to factors that are also important in unconscious thinking such as sound
similarities between wordsthat is, rhyme, homophony, and alliteration. He
works with visual and with verbal symbols. He alters time sequences. He
shifts and he compresses. And he uses two specific thought processes (to be
described) that are both similar and obverse, mirror images, to dream
processes.
This does not mean that creators necessarily are aware that they are
using thought processes similar to the unconscious processes operating in
dreams. If they had been traditionally aware of this, they might well have
discovered a systematic interpretation of dreams long before Freud, or they
would have long ago described this mirror-image factor in creativity. But it
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does mean that creative thinking is primarily a conscious process and not the
welling uptemporary, ego controlled, or whateverof unconscious
psychological processes. (2) "For the purpose of abstracting, conceptualizing,
and concretizing": In contrast to dream thought, which produces confusing,
chaotic, and manifestly illogical images and sequences, the creative process
produces order and meaningful images and metaphors, as well as tight
conceptualizations. The creative person engages primarily in abstract
thinking, hierarchically the reverse of the primitive literality of unconscious
or primary process thinking. Concrete forms are used for abstract purposes.
(3) "Reversing the effects of unconscious censorship": One of the
psychological goalsnot necessarily an intentional one of the creative
process, particularly the creative process in art, is reversal of unconscious
censorship. Not a matter of mere catharsis, the expression and purgation of
highly charged or forbidden emotional contents, there is an active unmasking
and structuring of unconscious thoughts, feelings, and motives. Unconscious
material is shaped and integrated into the resulting creation and, for the
creator, some degree of awareness or personal insight usually occurs. This
reversal of censorship accounts for the high preponderance of unconscious
material in artistic creations, one of the factors contributing to the intrinsic
value of art. In other types of creation, where integration of unconscious
material into the product is of lesser, or of minor, importance, reversal of
censorship primarily serves a function for the creator himself.
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the creative process retraces steps and pathways also traversed by the
primary process. The starting point of the creative process could include
dream content: the poet starting a poem, for example, could be actively
thinking about a manifest portion of a dream of the night before. But more
often, it has nothing whatever to do with an actual dream; it includes other
types of thought content such as words, concepts, vague emotions,
remembered scenes, or mathematical symbols. Such types of thought content
initiating the process are subjected to a mirror-image process tending, in
some degree, to reveal underlying unconscious (as well as preconscious)
preoccupations.
A patient of mine not too long ago indicated something of what I am
describing here and, incidentally, also spelled out one of the differences
between creative and psychotic thinking. This patient, a seriously ill but, I
believe, potentially a very creative young girl, was describing some of her
frustrated efforts at beginning a piece of creative writing, and she said: "The
trouble is, when I try to describe her [referring to a girl to whom she had
some homosexual attachment] I realize that I'm not simply describing her but
I'm really revealing a good deal about myself. I think I'm frightened to find out
the things about myself I might reveal." Psychotic thinking per se lacks any
features of progressive or structured insight. Results of some experimental
procedures with creative (research) subjects supporting this formulation of
reversal of censorship with its concomitant instigation of anxiety will be
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reserves of energy appear, energy that was not available at the beginning. He
does not, in other words, necessarily begin his day's work with a good deal of
energymy creative writer subjects, for example, report that they usually
take a long time to "warm up" before they get into their creative workand
energy is generated by engaging in the creative process itself. Partly because
of this hyper alert and aroused state, most creative people require solitude to
carry out their work. There are other reasons for the solitude as well, such as
concentration and internalized communication, but it is strongly plausible to
assume that solitude is required because of arousal. Solitude not only
facilitates concentration on difficult intellectual work, but it is needed
because of the irritability and intensity of the hyper alert and aroused state.
The temperamental artist who flies into a fury when frustrated or distracted
is a caricature, but it is a caricature based on an intrinsic difference between
the creative process and other types of intellectual work. A major reason for
this difference is the high degree of anxiety generated by creative activity.
Biologically, this anxiety is an aspect of the protective state of
physiological readiness engendered by internal or external threat. This
internal and external threat in creative activity is, paradoxically, produced by
the creator himself; he engages in a process of unearthing31 unconscious
material and seeking the internal and external new and unknown. These
factors, as well as others, engender anxiety and a protective state of alertness.
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the attainment of "honor, power and the love of women"34 has any validity,
real or intuitive, it points to the partial connection between art and sexual
attraction in nature.
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the mirror-image process and they are usually better able than others to
tolerate the attendant anxiety.
The universality of the motive to arouse and control anxiety is indicated
by the widespread appeal of art itself. No one would question the proposition
that a basic feature of many forms of entertainment, such as riding roller
coasters or watching acrobats or stock car racers, consists of the experience
of anxiety stimulation followed by relief and a renewed sense of control. An
intrinsic feature of good art, not generally recognized or acknowledged,
consists also of the induction of an experience of anxiety arousal followed by
relief and increased control. A simple example is the pleasure engendered by
suspense in literature, or in music. Tension associated with suspense is
unquestionably a mild to moderate form of anxiety. More complex examples
are the experiences of anxiety aroused by new perceptions engendered by
every type of art. In fields outside of art, new perceptions are frequently
considered valuable and accepted because of their applications to tangible
matters and affairs. A new way of understanding the functioning of the cell, a
new twist on a technological matter, or a new perception of a personnel
problem are sometimes immediately useful. In art, however, usefulness is not
a major value or an immediate concern. New perceptions are valued more for
intrinsic reasons related to the experience of having and attaining them. Yet,
regardless of whether or not they directly pertain to unconscious
psychological material, new perceptions engender a certain amount of
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Notes
1 If creations are considered to be entities that are truly new, i.e., radically different from any
antecedents, their appearance is an intrinsic mystery, i.e., it cannot be explained.
Explanation implies prediction and, as the truly new is unprecedented and therefore
unpredictable, it cannot be explained. See C. R. Hausman, A Discourse on Novelty and
Creation (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975); for a review of others arguing similar
positions and a critique, see Rothenberg and Hausman, Creativity Question, pp. 3-26; also
see chap. 12 below.
2 V. G. Hopwood, "Dream, Magic and Poetry," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 10 (195152)
:152.
3 See references to Blake and Coleridge in P. Bartlett, Poems in Process (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1951). Also see Novalis, Schriften (1798); J. P. Richter, "Uber die naturliche Magie
der Einbildungskraft," Leben des Quintus Fixlein, Samtliche Wake, 33 vols. (G. Reimer,
1840), 3:235 ff.; F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. and ed. W. Kaufman and trans. R. J.
Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 419-53, 539-43.
4 Throughout this book, I shall refer to and discuss primary process thinking as defined by Sigmund
Freud in chap. 7 of "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1900). See also D. Rapaport,
Organization and Pathology of Thought: Selected Sources (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1951), for an analysis and appraisal of primary process thinking.
5 M. Bonaparte, The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe (London: Imago,1949), p. 651.
6 Famous examples are E. Jones, Hamlet and Oedipus (New York: Norton, 1949; rev. ed., New York:
Doubleday, 1954); H. Sachs, The Creative Unconscious (Cambridge, Mass.: Sci-Art
Publishers, 1942, 1951); D. Schneider, The Psychoanalyst and the Artist (New York:
International Universities Press, 1950). One of the earliest literary critics to develop a
theory of poetry as analogous to dreams was F. C. Prescott (see Poetry and Dreams
[Boston: Four Seasons, 1912]). Recent literary critics have modified Prescott's position
and have produced some interesting works of criticism (see F. C. Crews, The Sins of the
Fathers: Hawthornes Psychological Themes [New York: Oxford University Press, 1966); S.
Lesser, Fiction and the Unconscious [Boston: Beacon Press, 1957]; N. Holland,
Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964, 1966]). For a
comprehensive bibliography of scientific writings on art and artists, many of which treat
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the work of art as analogous to the dream, see Rothenberg and Greenberg, Index:
Creative Men and Women.
7 S. Freud, "Creative Writers and Daydreaming" (1908 [1907]) (London, 1960), 9:143-53.
8 S. Freud, "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious" (1905) (London, 1961), vol. 8.
9 His basic position, from which he never really strayed, is famously summed up as follows: "Before the
problem of the creative artist, analysis must, alas, lay down its arms" (S. Freud,
"Dostoevsky and Parricide" [1928 (1927)] [London, 1961], 21:177).
10 See E. Kris, "The Psychology of Caricature," for the first use of the term, and "On Inspiration" and
"On Preconscious Mental Processes" for detailed elaborations; all are in his
Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art (New York: International Universities Press, 1952).
11 M. Graf, From Beethoven to Shostakovich (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947).
12 J. J. Montmasson gave dreaming an important role in imaginative work of any kind, including that of
science (Invention and the Unconscious, trans. H. S. Hatfield [New York: Harcourt Brace,
1932], pp. 43 ff. W. B. Cannon reported that a great discovery by the Nobel Prize winner,
Otto Loewi, apparently occurred in a dream (The Way of an Investigator [New York:
Norton, 1945], p. 60.) Kekule's discovery of the structure of the benzene ring is usually
also cited as an instance of a scientific breakthrough resulting from a dream. Although
Kekule himself used the term "dream" (Traum) in admonishing his colleagues to creative
thinking, the full context and correct translation of his remarks requires some significant
modification of the traditional interpretation of his account (for references and further
discussion, see n. 13, chap. 5 below). The misconception about Kekule's account has an
important bearing on the point I am making here. His report of the discovery of the
benzene ring does bear out that there is a similarity between dream process and creative
thinking, but the obverse factorthe mirror-image relationshiphas not previously
been considered or recognized.
13 H. Poincare, Science and Method, trans. F. Maitland (New York: Dover Press, 1952).
14 Cannon, Way of an Investigator.
15 G. Wallas, The Art of Thought (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926).
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16 Plato, The Ion, trans. Lane Cooper, ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues
(New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1961), p. 220.
17 I. Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. J. C. Meredith (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), esp.
pp. 188 ff.
18 Nietzsche, Will to Power, pp. 420 ff.
19 B. Blanshard, The Nature of Thought (Atlantic Highlands, N. J.: Humanities Press, 1964), vols. 1 and
2, esp. 2:166-211.
20 In this section I shall continue to discuss artistic creativity as the general model; creativity in
science and other fields will be considered later.
21 According to the classical formulation of primary process thinking, it occurs in infants prior to the
development of reality testing and other ego functions. It is designated as "primary"
because it is first in the human developmental sequence. Consequently, it is identified as
an early or primitive mode of cognition.
22 Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations, p. 312.
23 P. Noy, "A Revision of the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Primary Process," International Journal of
Psychoanalysis 50 (1969): 15578.
24 G. J. Rose, "Creative Imagination in Terms of Ego 'Core' and Boundaries," International Journal of
Psychoanalysis 45 (1964) :75-84.
25 See D. W. Winnicott, "Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena" (1951), in his Collected
Papers (New York: Basic Books, 1958); A. H. Modell, "The Transitional Object and the
Creative Act," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 39 (1970):24050; W. Muensterberger, "The
Creative Process: Its Relation to Object Loss and Fetishism," in Psychoanalytic Study of
Society (New York: International Universities Press, 1962), 2:161-85.
26 S. Arieti, The Intrapsychic Self: Feeling, Cognition and Creativity in Health and Mental Illness (New
York: Basic Books, 1967). Also see more recently, Arieti, Creativity: The Magic Synthesis
(New York: Basic Books, 1976), esp. p. 12.
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27 For Freud, fully coherent linguistic statements and constructs were converted by means of primary
process operations into the disrupted, incoherent visual representations in dreams. See
J. G. Schimek, "A Critical Re-examination of Freud's Concept of Unconscious Mental
Representation," International Review of Psycho-analysis 2 (1975) :17187, for an
excellent critique, based on information from developmental psychology, of this aspect
of Freud's formulation of primary process operation. See also, M. Edel- son, "Language
and Dreams: The Interpretation of Dreams Revisited," Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
27 (1972):203-82, for a discussion of the analogies between Freud's dream theory and
the linguistic theory of Noam Chomsky. Some years ago, at a conference at Austen Riggs
Center in Stock- bridge, Mass., Erik Erikson pointed out that Freud's method of
psychoanalysis contained a significant element of bias against visual perception and
thought: asking the patient to lie on a couch where he and the analyst could not see each
other's faces denied the importance of the visual mode.
28 Though some will argue that dreams reveal as well as conceal, the primary thrust is toward
censorship. All representations, including symbols of any type, could be said to have a
double nature and to reveal as well as conceal. From the perspective of psychological
function, however, the relative degree of the two factors of revelation and concealment is
absolutely critical. The fact of a thrust toward censorship follows from Freud's discovery
that the function of dreams is to keep the dreamer asleep,- wishes are expressed in
censored form. This discovery has not been superceded or overturned (see Freud, "The
Interpretation of Dreams"; W. Dement, "The Biological Role in REM Sleep," in Sleep
Physiology and Pathology, ed. A. Kales [Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969], pp. 245-65; J. G.
Salamy, "Sleep: Some Concepts and Constructs," in Pharmacology of Sleep, eds. R. L.
Williams and I. Karacan [New York: Wiley, 1976], pp. 53-82). A recent erudite attempt at
challenging the wish fulfillment and disguise principles from a neurobiological viewpoint
(R. W. McCarly and J. A. Hobson, "The Neurobiological Orgins of Psychoanalytic Dream
Theory," American Journal of Psychiatry 134 [1977] :1211-21; and Hobson and McCarley,
"The Brain as a Dream State Generator: An Activation- Synthesis Hypothesis of the
Dream Process," American Journal of Psychiatry 134 [1977] :1335-48) is unsuccessful
because it fails to take the guardian of sleep discovery adequately into consideration.
Moreover, in their emphasis on patterns of neuronal generation as responsible for
dreams, the authors do not adequately explain their postulated interaction between
neurophysiological and psychological effects. They state that there is an integration of
"disparate sensory, motor and emotional elements via condensation, displacement and
symbol formation" (p. 1346), but outside of postulating a mysterious isomorphism with
the "state of the nervous system during dreaming sleep" (p. 1347), they do not explain
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nevertheless used it as a general motto for the whole volume on dreams. This motto also
embodies his basic approach to psychology, i.e., gaining insight into the higher mental
processes such as normal development, consciousness, adaptive behavior, and creativity
through studying the "lower" ones: abnormal functioning, the unconscious, everyday
mistakes, and the dream.
39 There is growing tendency among psychoanalysts, and psycholinguists as well, to emphasize the
revelatory aspects of symbols and of dreams. This must be considered an "after the fact"
position. We now understand dreams and symbols because we have many more tools to
do so. Only rarely can it be said that the dreamer's motive is primarily communication;
dreams are a more "royal road to the Unconscious" than waking life primarily because
the complexities of consciously motivated activities are absent. Waking activities are,
now that we have the tools for understanding, also royal roads to the Unconscious.
40 M. Kanzer, "The Communication Function of Dreams," International Journal of Psychoanalysis 36
(1955) :260-66; A. Roland, "The Context and Unique Function of Dreams in
Psychoanalytic Therapy: Clinical Approach," International Journal of Psychoanalysis 52
(1971) :431-39; J. Klauber, "On the Significance of Reporting Dreams in Psychoanalysis,"
International Journal of Phychoanalysis 48 (1967) :424-32; M. S. Bergmann, "The
Intrapsychic and Communication Aspects of the Dream," International Journal of
Psychoanalysis 47 (1966) :356-63.
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3
THE MIRROR-IMAGE PROCESSES
In order to show how the mirror-image process functions, its specific
forms and operations, I shall return and examine further the creation of "In
Monument Valley." The wide generality of the process illustrated here in a
particular case shall be demonstrated later. In other chapters of this book, I
shall consider a variety of cases and I will present some of the evidence, both
clinical and experimental, supporting the conclusions to follow.
Janusian Thinking
When I traced the development of "In Monument Valley," certain salient
factors emerged. The poet's relationship to his mother constituted an
underlying unconscious and preconscious theme, and two particular
conscious thoughts played critical roles at certain junctures in the poem's
creation. The first of these pertained to a characteristic of horses: horses lived
human lives. This formulation played an important role in the early phases of
the writing and it guided the creation of what eventually became the last two
stanzas of the poem. The second thought pertained to the horse in relation to
a rider and it guided the creation of what became the two earlier stanzas.
Together, these particular thoughts determined major features of both form
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and content and were crucial to the creation of the entire poem.
I will begin with the first of these, the idea that horses lived human lives.
Previously, I called this thought the germinating idea for the poem despite its
not technically being the very first one the poet hadremember both the first
words he wrote, "Hot pumice blew in Monument Valley," and the original
experience of seeing the horsebecause it was, by the poet's own statement,
the idea that propelled the poem forward. No explicit reference to this idea
appears in the final poem but it is both implied and indirectly incorporated
overall. Special connections between horses and humans are suggested in the
reference to a bond between "his kind and mine" and in the narrative
progression from a horse and rider together, a later meeting between them,
and a final separation. That the horse as an intermediate species is a very
important idea in the poem is further demonstrated by its forming the basis
for the conception of the horse as an emblematic beast of our timecreating
emblems and metaphors for the time and culture is, of course, the very stuff
of which poetry is made.
Some would describe this thought or idea as the "inspiration" of the
poem, but I will refrain from using that problematic term. The term
"inspiration" has many misleading connotations and there are many
misconceptions about the role of inspiration in creativity.1 Described more
simply as an important early thought or as a germinating idea, it is less
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a horse was a beast simultaneously. A horse was also simultaneously not-ahuman and not-a-beast. The poet formulated a concept emphasizing distinctly
antithetical aspects of the horse rather than a concept involving mutual
modification of certain aspects or a compromise formation. Horses were not
humanly beasts nor beastly humans, nor were horses thought of as related to
humans on an evolutionary scale. He did not think of a combination of horses
and humans such as the centaur, the mythical entity composed of the torso,
arms, and head of a man merged with a horse's body. In the context of the
poem, the horse assumed no human characteristics nor a human any horselike features, nor, as in fable and myth, did the horse speak as humans do. The
formulation consisted of a logical contradiction and the postulation of a
simultaneous antithesis.
I designate this process2 of actively formulating simultaneous
antitheses "janusian thinking," a term based on the qualities of the ancient
Roman deity Janus, the god whose many faces looked in several opposite
directions at the same time. Janusian thinking consists of actively conceiving
two or more opposite or antithetical ideas, images, or concepts simultaneously.
Opposites or antitheses are conceived as existing side by side or as equally
operative and equally true. Such thinking is highly complex. It is intrinsic to
creativity and it operates widely in all types of creative processes, intellectual
and pragmatic as well as artistic. It is different from dialectical thinking,
ambivalence, and the thought processes of children or of schizophrenics. It is
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of this bond. The janusian thought also functioned to unify the poem because
the relationship between man and beast complemented the idea of the weird
blending of animate and inanimate in the shrieking rocks of Monument
Valley.4 Furthermore, the idea of the human-beast horse as emblematic for
the modern age was one of the factors giving the poem universal meaning
beyond the particular experiences described.
But the janusian thought was derived from other psychological sources
beside purely intellectual deliberations about the horse as emblematic of the
modern age and even aside from purely aesthetic considerations such as
providing contrast and unification within the structure of the poem. There is
no doubt that the poet himself was aware of the intellectual implications of
his thought and some of the aesthetic functions that it served, and there is
also no doubt that he was not aware of some of the emotional roots of his
thought at the time it occurred to him. He was not aware that the thought of a
horse as human and beast simultaneously, or not-human and not-beast
simultaneously, had roots in his own personal conflicts. And he was not
aware that this janusian thought also served to bring some of the elements of
these conflicts to the surface during the writing of the poem. This function or
quality of janusian thinking, together with the quality of similarity to dream
representation, constitutes the essential enantiomorphic relationship with
dreaming. A janusian formulation superficially resembles a dream image but
it functions in unearthing unconscious processes rather than in keeping them
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other aspects of the poet's conflict. For example, the poet's conception of the
horse-human relationship as pertaining to philosophical issues about the
body and the soul could be considered a reflection of a conflict about sex, that
is, whether sex is beastly or sublime. The poet's dream concerning Miriam
contained definite sexual elements, she swooning in her underclothes, and
both the remaining content of the dream and his later associations about
Miriam's demanding qualities indicate he was conflicted about these
elements. As Miriam was intimately connected to the underlying thoughts of
the poem, an associated sexual conflict must have been incorporated there as
well.
Simultaneous opposition suggests unconscious processes because it is
structurally congruent with emotional conflict. Janusian formulations have
roots in unconscious conflicts. The function of revealing and unearthing these
unconscious conflicts and other unconscious material is due to a particular
factor directly associated with janusian thinking. This factor is a specific
mechanism of psychological defense, negation.
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or beastly. This was the poet's own beastly nature; the poet was also a beast.
Represented in part was the poet's wish to be free and independent like the
wild beast, but the unconscious identification of himself with a beast or
animal pertained to deeper and more unacceptable feelings. The double
negation indicates that the poet unconsciously saw himself as a beastly
human or a humanly beast. Given our previous analysis of his unconscious
yearnings, he felt, "I am a beast who wants to be cared for by his mother."
Both the human and beast aspects of the horse were figurative aspects of the
poet's unconscious concerns.
Defensive negation operates widely in the artistic creative process in
other operations beside janusian thinking. Broadly speaking, it is the
mechanism that allows a creator to incorporate into a work of art aspects of
personal unconscious content without recognizing that he is doing so. When
describing the feeling and perceptions of a specific character in a literary
work, for example, the writer often uses negation when he tells himself (and
the carping critics) that he is not representing any of his own feelings in the
description. Another more dramatic example of the effect of negation in the
creative process is the frequently reported experience of arriving at a point in
artistic activity where "the work creates itself." At such a point, the work
flows extraordinarily freely and the experience is exceptionally gratifying.
Artists characteristically look forward to such gratifying occurrences, and
they and others often term them as inspirations or believe the experience to
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The function of defensive negation helps clarify an essential mirrorimage characteristic of janusian thinking, the active postulation of
simultaneous opposition or antithesis on a conscious, secondary process
level; janusian thinking reverses the concealing operation of representing
opposites interchangeably by the primary process. Janusian thinking brings
opposites or antitheses together in order to produce aesthetic effects, to solve
conceptual and scientific problems, and it helps to reveal unconscious
material without producing excessive anxiety. The defense mechanism of
negation facilitates this revelation of preconscious and unconscious material
in janusian thinking. Simultaneous opposition and simultaneous antithesis
are accompanied by simultaneous negation, an operation allowing the creator
to unearth unconscious and preconscious contents without becoming
overwhelmed.12
What happens to the unconscious and preconscious material revealed
by janusian thinking? Does such material simply appear and remain
unacknowledged and inaccessible to the creator because of defensive
negation? No, as a reversal and a fully reflective mirror image of dreaming,
the creative process continues to make unconscious material increasingly
accessible to consciousness. A specific example from "In Monument Valley" to
follow will serve to illustrate how this continuation occurs.
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I choose this example partly because these lines were not conceived all
at one time, but achieved in a stepwise fashion. Hence, there is an opportunity
to look closely at the process of janusian thinking as it unfolds, rather than
only considering a fully formed result. I also choose this example because the
formulation of the particular janusian construct is followed by the unearthing
of some particular unconscious material. In the working manuscripts of the
poem, the development of these lines occurred in the manner and the
sequence to follow.
The poet made the first reference to "stillness" in this early version of
the first stanza:
We live mostly in the past or in the future
These lines begin in one and end in the other
The evening a summer or two after the war
That I last found myself on horseback
A swarming stillness under
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the same line was: "A swarming stillness. A first star . . . Making an attempt to
begin another line after this one with a reference to "a strong and gentle
animal," he soon got stuck and again tried to start anew. Then he wrote:
One summer dusk a year or two after the war
I found myself for what would be the last time
On horseback, at Shoup's farm north of Woodstock
A stillness swarming inward from the first star
Here again, he stopped and turned to work on the second stanza and,
leaving the first stanza as above, he changed the second stanza to the
following:
Or outward from the strong and fragrant animal
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was contained in the phrase describing the horse's gait "opening vistas of the
absolute." Relating the horse to something "absolute" connected, or led back,
to the star. It suggested, or otherwise developed into, the janusian
formulation of stillness coming from inward and outward sources
simultaneously. But before this formulation was constructed, the heavenly
star and the earthly beast had already been connected together.
Another point to bear in mind is that the wordplay involving the
homophonic term "gait" provided the means whereby the horse could be
connected to the absolute. The use of "gait" in the version just presented is
somewhat like a pun; it refers both to the horse's stride and to the identical
sounding word, "gate." Thus, the horse's gait is itself a gate opening vistas of
the absolute. I shall shortly refer again to this particular punning-like
connection in relation to another type of mirror-image process in creativity.
I also want to call attention to the phrase "strong and fragrant animal"
used in this version of the stanza. Although the qualities of strength and
fragrance together are not exactly antithetical or oppositional, especially in
reference to an animal, there is a slightly jarring or arresting note introduced
by the use of these two adjectives together. After all, the word "fragrance"
does usually apply to delicate and pleasant odors and it is seldom used to
describe a horse's smell except in a joking or ironic way. I am suggesting that
the description of the horse as both strong and fragrant is the beginning of a
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Finallythat is, his final change before retyping and starting to work on
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the entire poem again from the beginning-he changed the words "strong
and gentle mare" to "buoyant sorrel mare," the description he used in the
completed version.
Now we have observed in detail the specific point at which the change
of the horse to a mare occurred! This important change occurred after two
particular janusian thoughts had been defined. Earlier, it will be remembered,
I strongly emphasized the importance of the poet's changing the horse's sex
during the writing of the poem because, as I also emphasized, the word
"mare" was homophonic with the French word, mere, meaning mother. I
pointed out that this change provided evidence that the poet was
unconsciously preoccupied with wanting to be cared for by his mother while
writing this poem. Now I must emphasize that the use of this word also led to
the unconscious preoccupation coming close to and finally appearing almost
fully in consciousness. The poet, who is highly sensitive to homophonic
qualities of wordsnote the punning use of "gait" just consideredand
highly fluent in French, was not initially thinking of the specific homophony of
the word "mare" while writing the poem. Later, however, when he focused on
his use of the word, he himself immediately adopted the idea that the poem
had a great deal to do with his mother. The overlooking of the homophony
while writing the poem could hardly be attributed to anything but
psychological blockingespecially in view of the dream evidence linking the
poem to his motherbut his use of the word and his later quick acceptance of
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the link to his mother also indicates that the idea of mother was very close to
his awareness. The rapid achievement of insight at that point indicated that
the unconscious issue was at the threshold of consciousness.13
The janusian process, therefore, functioned in two interrelated modes at
once: the aesthetic and the psychological. It gave structure, coherence, and
abstract implication to the lines,14 and it served to unearth the poet's
unconscious concerns. The probable psychodynamic sequence was as
follows: the janusian formulation of the stillness coming both from a heavenly
body and a supporting animal involved an initial double defensive negation
indirectly revealing that the source of the feeling of contentment was an
unconscious element having dual characteristics. It was an element often
considered both absolutebrilliant, all embracing, heavenly, might be better
wordsand supporting at the same time: namely, a parent. Although I lack
the poet's specific associations to this line in order to corroborate such an
assumption, I am influenced by my previous knowledge that a star has been
an unconscious image for the poet's mother in other poems he has written.
The element suggested by the operation of defensive negation in this
general formulation is, however, vague and only dimly revealed. The next
janusian formulation began to make it clearer and more specific. When the
poet referred to a strong and fragrant horse, he began to reveal, through
defensive negation, that the horse not only unconsciously represented a
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person, but a very specific person. Only his mother could be the one strong
enough to support and care for him and to be fragrant and female at the same
time. When he developed the full-blown janusian formulation through the
substitution of "sweet smelling" for "fragrant," he was unaccountably moved
that was the way he explained it, "not really sure why"to change the
horse to a mare, a direct but not yet quite conscious representation of his
mother.
I would not insist that the janusian process was exclusively responsible
for the poet's progress toward unearthing his unconscious concern while
writing these lines. As I have stated, the entire creative process is the mirror
image of dreaming, and other as yet unidentified processes played a role. Of
additional interest regarding the poet's production of the janusian
formulation in this stanza is the first construction of an image directly
connecting the poem to the unconscious wish of his dreams. Beside using the
word "mare," he also constructed an image related to being cared for.
Immediately following his writing the line, "Or outward from the strong and
fragrant animal," he referred to his weight on the horse's back, the first time
he made a concrete reference in the poem to the idea of being a burden and
being supported. As I have previously suggested, this reference is a
representation of the feeling of being cared for. Interestingly, too, he initially
used the understated wording "who seemed to find sufficient my
weight/Upon his back" and then changed it to the slightly stronger, "who
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Homospatial Thinking
The germinating idea for the poem was a janusian thought of a horse as
not-human and not-beast and this thought became transmuted, transformed,
and elaborated throughout the poem. Primarily, this janusian thought
influenced the content of the last three stanzas of the poem and it is implied
both in the line referring to "the ancient bond between her kind and mine,
and in "tottering still half in trust, half in fear of man." Janusian thoughts are
often implied or transformed in the final version of a poem, as well as in the
final versions of other types of creations, because the simultaneous
opposition is integrated into a unified structure such as an image, metaphor,
or a complete poem or theory. Sometimes, especially in poetry, a janusian
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was to sharpen the intensity of the final point of the poem. As I pointed out in
chapter 1, these stanzas also contain the wish-fulfilling image relating to the
poet's unconscious preoccupation. The mood is idyllic and the rider is
supported by the horse much as the poet wished to be supported and cared
for by his mother.
It will probably surprise no one familiar in the slightest way with
creative thinking, or for that matter any type of productive thinking, that the
poet's thought about the horse and rider came to him originally as a visual
image. After all, the word we always use in connection with creative and
productive thought is imagination, a word originally referring to visual
experience. Scientific studies of creative thinking have been strongly
influenced by this root meaning of the word "imagination," and some have
discussed or attempted to assess the role of visual imagery in the thoughts of
both artists and scientists.15 The poet's first mental formulation consisted of a
visual image pertaining to a horse and rider and, unsurprisingly, he then took
up his notebook to write the words mentioned above. However, the specific
nature of this image should be surprising, because it was quite unusual and it
has never been previously documented or described. The poet's mental image
of a horse and rider was of two discrete entities occupying the same space. He
did not see a clear image of a specific horse with a specific rider, the poet
himself for example, on its back. He did not visualize a remembered scene, say
a landscape, with horse and rider in it, nor was there even any definitely clear
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diffuse. Whereas dreams might convey the sense of a horse without a rider
occupying the same space as a horse with a rider by means of an image of a
horse accompanied by a vivid feeling of an invisible rider's presence, or by
means of a distorted but vivid compromise formation of horses and a rider
merged, the poet's waking thought is rooted in reality and consists totally of a
necessarily vague superimposition or fusion of discrete entities. To
reemphasize, the illustration presented here is a diagrammatic
representation of the poet's thought, not a picture of the actual image in his
mind. It is impossible to present two or more discrete entities occupying the
same space concretely because such an event never occurs in concrete
experience. The actual image is necessarily a vague and abstract
representation.
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Fig. 1
An artists conception of the nature of the mental image alluded to by the
words. His riderhe had never had a rider. Drawing by Robert C. Morris.
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Aspects of the
Second Version
Homospatial Conception
Fig. 2.
Lines from the second version of "In Monument Valley" are on the left; the
column on the right identifies the aspects of the structure of the
homospatial conception explicated in each corresponding line.
He did no further work on this idea that day, and on the next he worked
sporadically on various parts of the poem. But his work was interrupted by
the planned trip to the city, and so he did not fully develop the horse and rider
relationship as contained in the final version of the first three stanzas until
four days later. He wrote the fully developed version on the day after his
having the dreams about Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore.
The main point about this sequence is that the homospatial conception
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continued to be in some form in his minda portion of the poetic image had
been constructed and specifiedand it facilitated the process of unearthing
his unconscious concerns, an unearthing that had begun with the janusian
thought of the horse as not-human and not-beast simultaneously. I have
already pointed out that the idea of the poet himself on the horse's back, the
offspring supported by the parent, was a more direct representation of the
poet's unconscious wish than the dream presentation of a parent on an
offspring's back. But lest I be accused of a tautology here, because I have used
the poetic construction of the horse and rider as a means of interpreting the
wish fulfillment of the dream, I will marshal final and telling evidence for a
mirror-image unearthing process in the creation of the poem as follows: the
first written material derived from the homospatial conception contained an
allusion to a time in the poet's life when his wish to be cared for by his mother
or at least to be the center of his mother's, as well as his grandmother's,
attentioncame closest to being realized. He referred in this first formulation
to a time before "I went off to study or to war." From facts gathered in our
later discussions, it is clear that the phrase referred to a very important
period in his life. During this period (mentioned in chap. 1), his relationship to
his mother and grandmother had a very special character.
The poet had a brief sojourn in the army in his late teens which
interrupted his college education. Prior to his college experience (before
going "to study"), there was a series of summers and shorter holidays, as well
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as some short holidays during his first college year (a time prior to his going
"to war"), which he spent almost exclusively in the company of his mother, his
grandmother, and his grandmother's sister. His parents had gotten divorced
some years before and his father had moved away. The poet's sibling was
older than he and no longer lived at home. The maternal grandmother, an onand-off resident from the time her own husband had died, had by then moved
in with the poet and his mother permanently. The grandmother's sister,
whom the poet "adored," was also a widow and she visited for the entire
summer each year. It was a time when the poet was the only male in a house
of women. He remembered especially being with his grandmother constantly
during this time because his mother was away from home running a small
business. Although the grandmother was somewhat of a burden, there were
important emotional compensations.
As a period of his life during which there was no male competition in
the house, the years including these summers and holidays provided the
closest realization of his wish for exclusive nurturance he ever experienced.
He was the sole object of attention of the three women and it was a period of
relative peace and gratification compared to a stormy earlier time. If he were
not totally cared for by his mother, he at least had a good deal of her
attention. This period of his life was clearly the latent reference of the
manifest imagery in the second early dream, the actual time during which he
had been responsible for his grandmother and had felt pleasure at the
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prospect. The actual ride on Shoup's farmthere was one, a very happy one
took place several years later, during the summer.
The poet did not consciously think of these summers with his mother,
grandmother, and the grandmother's sister while writing the lines
designating the time before "I went off to study or to war," but he did think of
words referring to himself as the rider of the horse and also referring
virtually directly to this important period of his life. The homospatial thought
led to a more direct connection to the latent reference and the underlying
wish of his dream. It brought close to consciousness the time of his life when
his wish to be the sole object of his mother's and his grandmother's attention
came nearest to being gratified.17
After the poet wrote the lines connecting the horse to himself and to the
wish-fulfilling time of his life, the process of unearthing unconscious material
continued. His dreams of several days later pertain to the same issues and
they develop the unconscious themes further. In the dream prior to his
writing the full and definite version of the first two stanzas of the poem, there
is a fairly direct representation of an oedipal wish. Marianne Moore, the aged
and respected poetess, was to marry a younger man, this younger man, it is
fair to assume, was the poet himself, while Marianne Moore represented his
mother and/or grandmother. His underlying wish, therefore, consisted of
wanting to marry his mother and/or his grandmother, a further extension
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"the horse" and "a star" ("his gait opening vistas"). The overall conception and
the use of this homophonic connection in the poem is also an example of
homospatial thinking.18 Having conceived of the words "gait" and "gate"
togetherhe had used each of the spellings in different manuscript versions
of the poemthe poet experienced two discrete kinesthetic sensations
occupying the same space in his consciousness. He thought of both the up and
down rolling motion of the horse and the opening motion of an entrance way
together. The word "gate/gait" allowed two discrete entities, or discrete
sensory qualities of entities, to emanate from and occupy the same space. He
did not, to be sure, invent or create this double meaning for the word
"gate/gait"; it was already present in the English language. Unlike the
previously described homospatial thought of the riderless horse and the
horse and rider together, an unusual type of conception helping to integrate a
janusian idea, there is nothing strikingly unusual or even inventive about
recognizing that gait/gate has a double reference. What is unusual, and what
is part of the creative process, is actively conceiving and using the two
sensory references of the word together. That the two sensations were jointly
present in the poet's mind in the manner I have just described is evident from
the phrase, "his gait/Opening buoyant vistas of the . . . ," the participle
"opening" clearly referring to the entrance way meaning of the word and the
adjective "buoyant" clearly referring to the horse's stride. Horses' gaits
cannot open anything, nor can gates be buoyant unless floating on water.
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At this point in the writing, however, the phrase read mostly like a bad
pun. But punningeither good or badand homospatial thinking are not the
same; the homospatial process functions as an integrating factor and it
functions to unearth unconscious material. There is more at stake than simply
demonstrating a double meaning for the word gait/gate and, as a pun does,
producing pleasure through the recognition of the familiar.19 There is a
unifying purpose and a special congruence between the elements of a
homospatial conception and the context from which it develops. There is
additionally a special congruence between the original psychological context
and the unconscious material unearthed by the homospatial process. Like
janusian thoughts, homospatial thoughts may also not appear directly in the
final version of the creation. The double reference of gate/gait does not
appear directly in the final version of this poem, but it served to stimulate the
following sequence:
1. After the version of the phrase employing "gait" just mentioned, "his gait/Opening
buoyant vistas of the . . . ," the poet tried:
While IA buoyant present entered through a gait
Bordered as by thick hedges of invisible lilac.
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poet's unconscious wish in this portion of the poem, and now we see that the
homospatial conception consisting of gate/gait has functioned to produce
specific lines and to unearth an affect of happiness and fulfillment which was
surely connected to that basic image. But the unearthing process did not stop
there. The poet continued to think about using gate/gait, and while deciding
to drop it from the line above referring to the meadows, he thought of putting
it into another place.
He thought of using the word "gate" as part of the name of another
natural monument in Monument Valley. Turning at that point to his earlier
written line, referring to the "Three Sisters" as a natural monument, which
read, "Shreik the 'Three Sisters!' No place for a picnic," he added the phrase
"St. Peter's Gate." Dissatisfied, he then tried "Gates of Heaven" and soon he
arrived at the particular construction he used in the final version, "Hell's
Gate." He cast the entire line into its final form as: "The 'Three Sisters' howl,
'Hell's Gate' yawns wide"an effective change, I believe all would agree.
In a strange but rather dramatic way, this change represents another
instance of the unearthing of unconscious material: when the poet and I had
discussed the phrase "Hell's Gate," he told me that he had been thinking of the
Rodin sculpture "Gate of Hell" in Paris as well as of the German word hell
meaning "light." Also, he laughingly (and anxiously) told me about another
connectionhis mother's Christian name was a fairly common one with an
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unusual spelling. Her name was spelled, "Hellen," and he had been conscious
of this double "1" spelling of her name since he was a child. In his words,
"once I had even teased my mother about the 'hell' portion of her name."
The path leading from the homospatial thought of gate/gait to a
manifest reference to the mother's name and thereby to the mother herself
was not accidental. As I have repeatedly emphasized, the mother was an
important underlying focus of this poem. Moreover, given the libidinal
emphasis of the underlying oedipal wish, the presence of an erotic
connotation in "Hell's Gate yawns wide" (mother's vagina opening)
constituted another aspect of the progression toward unearthing unconscious
meaning. The homospatial process unearths these aspects of the underlying
ideas and helps to unify the poem in structure as well as emotional content.20
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cognitive levels also involve these accompanying drives and affects to some
degree. Although this fusion of affects and drives does not necessarily result
from a working through of unconscious conflicts and does not produce real
resolution of conflicts between affects or drives, basic sexual and aggressive
factors are always represented in the homospatial conception and some drive
neutralization therefore occurs. As a result of the bringing together and
fusion of the sexual and aggressive aspect of the content, and a concomitant
fusion even to a minimal degreeof unconscious sexual and aggressive
drive, neutralized energy is available to the creator's ego. This neutralized
energy facilitates overcoming repression in the same manner as neutralized
energy functions to facilitate overcoming repression in the achievement of
emotional insight, such as in psychoanalytic treatment or, for that matter, in
any form of adaptive psychological activity. Moreover, neutralized energy is
available for further ego adaptive activity. The homospatial process,
therefore, facilitates all types of ego adaptive activity involved in the creative
process. In this way, the creative process becomes self-generating with
respect to neutralized energy and ego adaptive functioning.
Both of the cited examples of homospatial thinking in the creation of the
poem illustrate fusion of unconscious sexual and aggressive content. From
our analysis of both of the dreams of the night before the poet conceived the
riderless horse and the horse and rider together, we know that the riderless
horsethe horse of the final stanzas initially represented the poet's wish
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to be aggressively free and independent, to make his own bed and go his own
way. Hence, the riderless horse was a representation of his aggressive
impulses. The horse with rider aspect of the homospatial conception was, on
the other hand, perfused with sexual content. As evident from the dreams, the
horse and rider represented his oedipal attachment to his mother, an
attachment thatas we later sawwas highly eroticized. Horses, it should be
added, are frequently the objects and representations for sexual feelings, for
persons of both sexes. This homospatial conception, therefore, actively fused
sexual and aggressive content. The fusion of impulses in the conception
provided some of the neutralized energy to enable the poet to think more
concretely of a wish-fulfilling time before he went "to study or to war" and to
unearth, in part, the connection of his poetic thoughts to his mother in the
change of the horse to a mare.
The use of the homophonic words "gait/gate" in a homospatial process
also served to produce a degree of fusion of unconscious sexual and
aggressive content. There can be little doubt that the sensations of an opening
gate conjured up in the poet's formulations had sexual overtones. The early
line, "While IA buoyant present entered through a gait/Bordered as by
thick hedges of invisible lilac," is readily suggestive of sexual intercourse,- the
idea of a "gait/Bordered as by thick hedges" readily arousing an image of
pubic-hair-surrounded vaginal orifice. Focusing directly on the word "gait"
referring to the horse's stride, there seems to be a definite representation of
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aggressive feelings. Although I cannot prove this particular premise from the
poetic material itself, a horse's gait is so vigorous and powerful that it is
difficult to imagine its not representing aggressive qualities to some degree.
To my emphasis on psychodynamic fusion involved in the homospatial
process, some might raise an objection and insist that the mental events I
have described do not indicate adaptive fusion but a wish for primitive or
regressive fusion on the poet's part. Reversing the psychodynamic sequence
in a sense, they would propose that the dreams as well as the horse and rider
image in the poem derive from the poet's primitive wish to fuse with his
mother. The genesis of the homospatial conception, according to this, would
be the poet's attempt to effect a symbolic fusion between himself the rider
and the horse his mother, through his daytime waking fantasy. The poetic
creations following this fantasy then would result from some form of
elaboration and, as Freud put it, "changes and disguises" and the offer of a
"purely formal, that is, aesthetic pleasure."22 Such an objection and
explanation would categorize the homospatial conception as a manifestation
of primary process thinking and it would conform to traditional explanations
of creative thinking as manifestations of "regression in the service of the
ego"23 or narcissistic fusion states.24 But, just as Freud's emphasis is on
disguise and change or on the mysterious invocation of what he called
"formal. . . pleasure," these explanations do little to advance our knowledge of
the specifics of creative processes and, more importantly, they neglect the
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quality of the poet's waking thought and the crucial sequence of mental
events I have described.
There was a progression from the initial waking thoughts about the
poem to the dream thoughts and back again to the thoughts about the poem, a
progressive unearthing rather than a disguising, of unconscious meaning. The
homospatial conception was not an eruption of primary process material into
consciousness which was then mysteriously controlled by some undefined
ego operation. The homospatial process is itself an ego operation and a form
of secondary process thinking. The conception did not occur during a period
of "with- drawl of cathexis," a decrease of attention in the environment or an
immersion in fantasy as required by Kris's concept of regression in the
service of the ego.25 It occurred when the poet was fully aware of his
environment and beginning to think of how to modify his poem in process.
Finally, two points of crucial importance derived from the data. (1) The
homospatial conception was a conscious, intentional superimposing and
fusing of two images in which the overall configuration was vague and
diffuse; in distinction, primary process symbolization results in vivid sharp
images in which compromise formation, e.g., a horse with a human head,
occurs. (2) The horse was clearly considered to be a stallion rather than a
mare at the time of the homospatial conception; only later was it changed to a
female representation of the mother. Consequently, even if fusion with his
mother was the poet's underlying wish, it would be erroneous to consider the
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in part, how it is that some creators behave healthily in the creative process
the process clearly requires good reality testing while it is going onand also
may behave in quite an unhealthy manner in their everyday lives. There may
be little carryover between the spheres of creative activity and of everyday
interpersonal relationships. The creative process generates its own
neutralized energy and sometimes provides real psychological insights to the
creator. However, creativity does not necessarily lead to psychological health.
A healthy person is not necessarily a creative one; there is reason to believe
that psychological health is helpful and important for creativity, but it is still
necessary to have the capacity to use the mirror- image processes.
There are other mirror-image processes operating in the creative
process besides the ones I have mentioned, but I must first recapitulate and
spell out a fuller psychodynamic understanding of the writing of "In
Monument Valley" before all the threads are lost. In the course of this
recapitulation and extension, some of these other mirror-image processes
will emerge and become clear.
Notes
1 See discussion of the role in inspiration in creativity in A. Rothenberg, "Poetic Process and
Psychotherapy," Psychiatry 35 (1972) :238-52.
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2 Throughout this book, I use the term "process" to apply to the creative thought patterns because, in
all cases, there is an extended sequence consisting of selecting and designating either
opposites or discrete entities, posing them simultaneously, fusing them, etc., and
applying these conceptions to the creative task.
3 Note the distinct difference between this formulation and the "regression in the service of the ego" of
Ernst Kris. Kris states that the creator shifts between primary process and secondary
process thinking. Primary process productions are modified by the secondary process
after they appear (Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations, esp. pp. 291-318).
4 Some might want to insist that this earlier image of rocks as simultaneously alive and dead was the
original janusian thought. I have no quarrel with such a point and it simply starts the
janusian process at an earlier phase of the creation of the poem. The poet himself, when
reading over the section above after I had written it, suggested that the structure "Hot
pumice blew . . . causing the Elephant Rock to howl" was a formulation of an inanimate
production of the animate and was therefore an instance of the type of thinking I was
describing.
5 The precise relationship between cognitive functions and affect or feelings as well as psychological
defenses against affects has not yet been satisfactorily worked out in any current
psychological theory, including psychoanalysis. Whether cognition is always
accompanied by affect, whether cognition and affect are two aspects of a single process,
or whether it is appropriate to postulate an integration of the two processes that does
away with the distinction entirely has not yet been settled. Although there is a good deal
of disagreement about the most appropriate formulation among these alternatives, there
is general agreement that the old sharply drawn distinction between cognition and affect
in common parlance, between thought and feeling or between intellect and emotion
is incorrect. Cognition and affect are clearly highly interrelated. See J. C. Harper et al.,
eds., The Cognitive Processes: Readings (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,1964), esp.
part 5, "Cognition, Motivation and Personality," pp. 387-582; S. J. Korchin, "Anxiety and
Cognition," in Cognition: Theory, Research, Promise, ed. C. Scheerer (New York: Harper &
Row, 1964); J. S. Antrobus, ed., Cognition and Affect (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970); J. C.
Mancuso, Readings for a Cognitive Theory of Personality (New York: Holt, Rinehart, &
Winston,1970). A full description of janusian thinking, as well as the other thought
processes discussed in this work, requires the settling of problems such as this one. It
also requires the elaboration of a more complete theory of the relationship between
thought and personality than is currently available. Certainly, such a task cannot be
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attempted here.
6 S. Freud, "Negation" (1925) (London, 1961), 9:235-42.
7 Anna Freud, in her classical work on ego defenses, did not even include negation as one of the ten
familiar and prominent defenses,- see A. Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense
(New York: International Universities Press, 1946). As an exception to the general
psychoanalytic neglect of this defense, David Rapaport gave it some attention in his
seminal work (Organization and Pathology of Thought). Also, Jacques Lacan, the
psychoanalytic innovator, developed an aspect of his own theory from Freud's article on
negation; see J. Lacan, "Response au Commentaire de Jean Hyppolite sur la 'Verneinung'
de Freud," La Psychoanalyse 1 (1956) :41-58; also in Ecrits (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1966), pp. 381-99.
8 In distinction to other defenses, the person using negation often recognizes its defensive function
fairly readily, even when it is not pointed out by another person.
9 This process is often mistakenly attributed to the defense of projection. The writer is considered to
be projecting his inner feelings onto the characters he has created. But such a
formulation overlooks the psychological reality of the situation and, like primary process
theories of creativity, tends to overlook the creative person's rationality and his clear
grasp of distinctions during the creative process. The writer does not project his inner
feelings onto his characters as though they were real people. He knows they are fictional
and are products of his own mind at all times. But he does attribute what he writes to
aesthetic necessity alone and he negates any direct relationship to himself. In an
unpublished experiment carried out by Eugene Shapiro and myself, results conclusively
demonstrated that literary works are not analogous to projective tests, projection is not
a major or a primary factor in literary creation (A. Rothenberg and E. Shapiro,
"Psychological Approaches to Literature," in prep.).
It is also incorrect to label the major mechanism as either intellectualization or rationalization
on the basis that the concept of aesthetic necessity is used as a justification. For
one thing, writers acknowledge that this phase is related in some way to
unconscious processes and therefore defensive justification alone could not be
involved. Rather than mere justification, there is an active negation of any direct
congruence between the specific contents of the material and the specific
contents of the writer's own Unconscious.
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13 His achievement of insight could not be attributed to my presence except in a small way; he
frequently had such insights on his own, and he and I were merely discussing the poem
in a general fashion, not exploring any underlying meanings.
14 I think the improvement in the poem throughout the stages of revision I have presented and the
aesthetic power of these lines is self-evident without further elaboration. I think all
would agree that the stillness coming both from the horse and the star is consistent with
the body-soul overtones of the poem, that this construction conveys a sense of unity and
peace, and that other aspects of the changes are highly effective. But to go into any
further critical and aesthetic discussion at this point would clearly be persionary, if
indeed it is necessary.
15 See A. Roe, "A Study of Imagery in Research Scientists," Journal of Personality 19 (1951) :45970;
F. C. Bartlett, "The Relevance of Visual Imagery to the Process of Thinking," British
Journal of Psychology 17 (1927) :2329; P. McKellar, Imagination and Thinking (New
York: Basic Books, 1957), and "Three Aspects of the Psychology of Originality in Human
Thinking," British Journal of Aesthetics 3 (1963): 12947; A. Paivio, Imagery and Verbal
Processes (New York: Holt, Rinehart &. Winston, 1971). For a philosophical account and
an assessment, see E. Casey, Imagining (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976).
16 Clearly, the reference to space in this context is to the subjective experience of inner space in the
mind. The expression, "imaginary space in the mind" conveys the sense of what I am
referring to, but I have avoided it because of the possibility of a confusing tautology.
Homospatial thinking is a component of artistic imagination and, therefore, it would be
confusing to use the term "imaginary" in any part of a definition. The most accurate
description psychologically is that the homospatial experience fills, or totally occupies,
consciousness.
17 I refer to the mother and grandmother interchangeably because I think it is clear that they have
equal psychological importance here, at least as far as the wish to be cared for is
concerned. The grandmother was a constant presence throughout his childhood and was
a direct object of the poet's longings. That there are differences in his orientation to his
mother and grandmother will become clearer in the next chapter, but we are not
interested in pursuing a detailed analysis or reconstruction of the poet's life, his
unconscious contents, or the psychodynamic structure of his personality in this book. By
the same token, the wish-fulfilling memory of the summers with the three women could
be a screen memory for infancy, but this deeper psychodynamic sheds no further light on
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the matter being discussed, nor does it in any way invalidate the analysis.
18 In this discussion we are entering into an especially complicated theoretical area because the use of
homophones enters into punning. Freud extensively analyzed the psychological
structure of puns and proposed that they were products of a process he called "joke
work," a process similar to dream work; see Freud, "Jokes and Their Relation to the
Unconscious." In chapter 10 below, I shall take up this theoretical issue more fully, but I
must emphasize here that I am discussing not the construction of a pun but how a
homophone is used in the creation of a poem.
19 Freud's explanation [see ibid.), stated here, of the psychodynamics of the pleasure derived from
puns is, I believe, quite correct.
20 The process through which the "Hell's Gate" phrase was finally arrived at seems also to have been
influenced by janusian thinking. First designated as a heavenly gate, the nether region
may also have been in the poet's mind at the same time. He did, in any event, shift from
heaven directly to its opposite in these versions; no intermediary was formulated at all.
It is quite common for janusian thinking or aspects of the janusian process to operate in
concert with homospatial thinking.
21 H. Hartmann, E. Kris, and R. Lowenstein, "Notes on the Theory of Aggression," in The Psychoanalytic
Study of the Child (New York: International Universities Press, 1949), vols. 3 and 4:9-36;
H. Hartmann, Essays in Ego Psychology (New York: International Universities Press,
1964); A. Solnit, "Aggression: A View of Theory Building in Psychoanalysis," Journal of
the American Psychoanalytic Association 20 (1972) :435-50.
22 Freud, "Creative Writers and Daydreaming," p. 153.
23 Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations.
24 G. J. Rose, "Narcissistic Fusion States and Creativity," in The Unconscious Today, ed. M. Kanzer (New
York: International Universities Press, 1971), pp. 495-505.
25 "The general assumption is that under certain conditions the ego regulates regression, and that the
integrative functions of the ego include voluntary and temporary withdrawal of cathexis
from one area or another to regain improved control" (Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations,
p. 312).
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4
L'ENVOI: PSYCHODYNAMICS OF THE CREATION
OF A POEM
Now that various connections to the poet's life and to his psychological
preoccupations have been revealed, revealed not merely to satisfy curiosityseeking into the affairs of the outstanding, and surely not for the purpose of
debunking or reducing the creative process to some simplistic series of
formulations, I shall give this necessarily disjointed narrative some coherence
and order. I shall recapitulate the information pertaining to the creation of "In
Monument Valley" and provide some additional information about the poet's
thoughts pertaining to the poem, information that will fill some of the gaps
produced along the way. I shall, in essence, tell the story of the creation of this
poemthe psychological storyto the extent that such a story can be told.
First, to review the pertinent life history and factual circumstances
concerning the writing of the poem, as follows:1 approximately six months
after the trip and encounter with a horse at Monument Valley, the poet was
expecting a visit from Miriam, a friend who had also been a guest at J.T.'s
house in the southwestern United States. On the morning prior to her visit,
the poet formulated specific poetic lines about a horse appearing suddenly
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When his grandmother died, several years after the gratifying period of
summers of regular and intensive contact, the poet had his very first direct
experience with death. Prior to the burial, the grandmother's body had been
dressed in a red velvet gown and lay in stately splendor in the bedroom of her
house. Here, the poet visited her and, never having seen a dead body before,
he remembered thinking about how prettily she had been made up. While
telling me his associations about his grandmother, he also described
undergoing the very disturbing experience of sitting alone beside her bed for
many, many hours, imagining to himself that she wasn't dead.
The psychological theme of a parent becoming a burden to a child had
deep roots in his actual life experience. He witnessed such a relationship
between his mother and his grandmother. Failing gradually during her last
years, the grandmother had imposed a heavy physical and psychological
burden on the poet's mother. The latter cared for the grandmother constantly
and bore the burden well, but it was an extraordinarily difficult time for all,
including the poet.
A specific association to a line in the completed poem connects that line
directly with the poet's mother and indirectly with his experience with his
grandmother's death. With no prompting from me, he at one point began to
wonder and to talk about the line, "Brief, polyphonic lives abounded
everywhere." He felt it had some particular emotional importance to him.
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After some tentative attempts to connect the line to other poems he had
written, he suddenly realized that the idea related specifically to his mother.
Remembering an incident when he was fairly young, he became aware that
the idea of brief lives connected to the word "ephemeral," a word that had
strong associations with his mother. Never having heard the word before, he
had been introduced to it in a conversation with his mother about insects. He
asked her at that point what it meant. When she told him, spontaneously and
forcefully he said to her, "I'm glad youre not ephemeral." She was, he said,
enormously pleased and he had always remembered the incident with great
pleasure himself. It is of special interestexactly why I will explain shortly
that the conversation in which this word came up pertained to insects. The
idea of insects had played a role in his thinking of the phrase "brief
polyphonic lives" during the creation of the poem. In arriving at the final
poetic line pertaining to this remembrance, the poet progressed through the
following formulations, all after the line, "Burdened by thick hedges of
invisible lilac" (sequence numbering added):
1. A frog unheeded sang 'Plaisir d'Amour . . .'
2. The katydid sang Plaisir d'Amour
3. Tree toads in thin polyphony sang 'Plaisir d'Amour'.
4. Where lives abounded, brief and polyphonic.
Another sequence in the creation of the poem that I have not mentioned
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previously, but is of interest, pertains to the very first thoughts the poet had
about the poem. On the morning he wrote the first lines about the incident of
the horse appearing while he was picnicking at Monument Valley, the poet
was reminded of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." He
thought that the horse appearing suddenly on the scene was reminiscent of
the figure of Madeline Usher in that story looming up suddenly from the dead,
looming up while the House of Usher was destroyed. In the margin of his
notebook he wrote the words "House of Usher." He even tried to include the
idea of the "House of Usher" directly in the poem, using it in a few early
versions as the name of one of the monuments along with the "Three Sisters."
For example, he tried:
Hot pumice blew in one unending gust
Causing the 'House of Usher' and the 'Three Sisters' to shriek.
But he abandoned the idea rather early and did not return to it.
Psychodynamic Formulation
Both the first idea, consisting of the words and thought instigating this
particular poem, and the inspirations occurring during the course of the
writing, consisting of the thoughts that solve aesthetic problems and generate
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associated with her. But his first thoughts about the horse, the poetic
thoughts and words beginning the poem, point to his deeper unconscious
concern. In the light of all the information now derived about the poet's
unconscious contents, it is possible to see that his first thoughts about the
poem were figurative representations of his concern about his grandmother
and his mother.
It is not necessary to trace the connections between Miriam and the
poet's mother and grandmother. Such details would be unnecessarily
revealing, and, for the present discussion, they would add little to
understanding the relationship between the poem and the poet's
psychological processes. But his thoughts of "The Fall of the House of Usher"
and of the horse appearing on the scene like Madeline Usher looming up
should certainly bring into bold relief the associations about his dead
grandmother just described. Sitting by his grandmother in her bed, the first
dead person he had ever seen, he imagined her to be still alive. The image of
Madeline Usher, a literary prototype of the living dead (a female as well) was
doubtless related to these remembrances about his grandmother. In the
major dream of the night after starting the poem, his grandmother rose to
meet him at the door much as Madeline Usher loomed up from the burning
house.
In the earliest draft of the poem, the poet referred to a monument he
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called "The Three Sisters," and this reference, surviving all revisions, was
incorporated into the final version of the poem. The phrase did not refer to an
actual remembered name of a rock formation in Monument Valley. Like all of
his other names for monuments in the poem, those of the final version as well
as earlier drafts, he wasn't sure whether there was such a designated
formation at the actual geographical site. There might have been one called
"The Two Sisters," he said to me at one point, but he wasn't sure.4 Why did he
decide to refer to the "Three Sisters"? He said he was thinking of Chekhov's
play of the same name, and there is no reason whatsoever to doubt such a
conscious intent. The conscious intent, however, points also to a probable
unconscious connection. In the light of the other data and associations about
this poem, the idea of "three sisters," three closely related women together,
refers also to the time of his life when he was the center of attention of three
figurative sisters, his grandmother, his grandmother's sister, and his mother.
Chekhov's play, in fact, concerns three mature women living together and
takes place in the summertime, circumstances very similar to the ones in the
poet's past that were so closely associated with this poem.
These initial thoughts of the poet about the poem are not the same as
the previously described unearthed unconscious material, revealed later in
the course of writing the poem as a result of the mirror-image process of
creativity. For the poet, the connections between these initial thoughts and
his unconscious concerns remained quite remote throughout the creative
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separate from the content of the problem or idea. For instance, it is hard to
say whether the creator of "In Monument Valley" became interested in the
horse incident because it immediately stirred up unconscious feelings at the
site about his mother and grandmother, or whether the horse incident
became an important vehicle for feelings and concerns primarily operating
later at the time of writing, or whether both occurred. I think the distinction is
not so important for our current purposes; in poetry, there is likely little
distinction between these alternatives. With respect to this poem, all of these
probably operated. When discussing a scientific creation (chaps. 5, 6, and 13
below), however, the distinction between the content of the idea and the
manner of approach will be sharper and of greater significance.
To stipulate the overall psychodynamic development of the poem: the
poet's thoughts at the time of the horse incident at Monument Valley and/or
later thoughts about the incident touched aspects of his unconscious conflict
about caring for an aged parent (or grandparent). Because of anxiety about
the conflict (a factor that must be assumed) and the desire to create a poem,
the poet became intrigued with the incident as an aesthetic problem. As he
conceived of a poem, his first thoughts consisted of poetic phrases and ideas
that were also figurative representations of his unconscious conflict. When he
wrote them down and began constructing the specific poem, he
simultaneously began a process of unearthing and uncovering his
unconscious conflicts and concerns.
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Following his writing a first version of the poem, the poet had dreams
pertaining to the unconscious concerns represented in his poetic thoughts,
the dreams bore a manifest structural resemblance to the poem and their
latent content consisted of a wish to be cared for by his mother. The dream
work continued the psychological process begun in the thoughts about the
poem, in a disguised way, the dreams expressed the unconscious wish
connected to the poetic ideas.
The poet had stopped working on the poem during that day at the point
where he had formulated the line referring to the guiding idea of the horse as
an emblematic beast of the age. Emblematic as an intermediary and a blend of
species, the line was derived from the janusian formulation of the horse as
simultaneously beast and human, not-human and not-beast. Following the
dreams, the poet had a homospatial thought integrating the janusian
conception of simultaneous antithesis.
The janusian and homospatial conceptions together functioned to bring
the poet's unconscious wish closer to his awareness. When he returned to the
poem, he thought of himself as being the horse's rider7 and therefore put
himself in the position of being physically supported and served by the horse
rather than, as up to that point, only surprised, troubled, or emotionally
burdened by it. He referred to a specific time in his life when the condition of
being cared for by maternal figures came close to being realized. Although he
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ultimately changed the lines referring to the time before he "went off to study
or to war," which suggested that period of his life, and gave a slightly different
temporal reference,8 the wish-fulfilling quality of his feelings associated with
this period came to dominate the entire first two stanzas of the poem. The
janusian thought and the homospatial thought, especially the latter because it
more closely preceded the event, served to unearth a memory as well as a
wish-fulfilling effect related to the initial idea of the poem.
As he continued to work on the poem, there was a further unearthing of
unconscious material when he became conscious of some erotically tinged
feelings while writing about the rider on the horse's back and then changed
the horse's sex to female, designating the horse to be a "mare." This followed
directly from his working on another janusian construction of simultaneous
antithesis. Although the underlying connection of this poem to feelings about
his mother was beginning to approach the poet's consciousness at that point,
it had not yet come to awareness. The poet was primarily aware of thoughts
about a poem he admired by a much respected colleague, Elizabeth Bishop.
After the several days interruption of work on the poem, the
unconscious connection to his mother was represented in a dream manifestly
concerning Elizabeth Bishop herself as well as another important female poet,
Marianne Moore. The manifest presence of Elizabeth Bishop in the dream
indicates the close connections among the poet's previous conscious thoughts
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about her, the material in the first two stanzas of the poem, and the wishes for
maternal care. She appears in the dream as a day residue connecting to
thoughts about the poem.9 His associations to that dream leave no doubt that
the latent content concerns the wish for maternal care because they refer
both to his grandmother and to the previous dreams. Although his
associations did not relate directly to his mother, the feelings about his
grandmother and his mother were essentially equivalent during this period of
time. The dream representation of Marianne Moore married to a much
younger man, though a disguise and a displacement, seems to indicate the
interchangeability of his mother or grandmother. He (the much younger man)
marries and possesses an esteemed and prized older woman, his mother
and/or his grandmother.
On the day following this dream, the poet rewrote the poem again from
the beginning, and, while working to bring it to completion, another
homospatial process brought his mother even closer to awareness. Working
on the homophonic relationship of the words "gate" and "gait" he formulated,
"Hell's Gate," and although thinking of the Rodin doors in Paris, he surely
thought fleetingly of his mother, since he had long been conscious of the
connection between the word "hell" and his mother's name.
Another phrase connected to his mother was formulated during this
phase of his writing, "Brief, polyphonic lives." Previously I mentioned that the
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phrase grew out of the poet's association to insect sounds but I did not
describe the actual process leading to its production. The appearance of this
phrase was facilitated by yet another form of homospatial thinking, one I have
not previously mentioned. It is a mirror-image process of dreaming that
involves the use of rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and other formal devices
based on partial or total repetition of the sounds of words.10 Similar to the
homospatial superimposition of identities referring to disparate and distinct
entities as described in the gait/gate example previously, creative rhyming
and alliteration are the direct obverse and mirror image of the rhyming and
alliteration in dreams.
Although it is somewhat of a digression from this exposition of the
psychodynamics of the poem, I shall briefly describe and detail the operation
of this other form of homospatial thinking. In dreams, rhyme and alliteration
function as pathways for displacement, a displacement always onto the
innocuous and irrelevant. Therefore, sound similarities among aspects of the
manifest and latent content of a dream facilitate concealment of unconscious
wishes, drives, and conflicts. In the creation of poetry and similar types of
literary products, however, conceiving effective rhyme, alliteration, and other
sound repetitions functions obversely. As used in secondary process and
conscious thought, the formulation of sound repetitions helps to unearth and
reveal unconscious preoccupations. Sound repetitions played just such a role
in the poet's formulating the particular line, "Brief, polyphonic lives abounded
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he thought of finding a rhyme for the word "mare" (the rhyme scheme is
ABBA). Fond of "near rhymes" or "off rhymes" (words or phrases
approximating each other in sound rather than rhyming exactly), he wrote
the following words in the margin of his worksheet: "moor, paramour, mere,
demure, immure, admire, more, nevermore." After writing this series, he
thought of the phrase "Plaisir d'Amour," the name of a song suggesting, or
providing an opportunity to introduce, the idea of a frog ("A frog unheeded
sang 'Plaisir d'Amour' . . ."). After trying this idea, he substituted the insect
"katydid," then tried "tree toads." Finally, he ended up with the construction
pertaining to the word "ephemeral""Brief, polyphonic lives abounded
everywhere"the idea strongly associated with a pleasant experience with
his mother. In the process of thinking of words he might use as rhymes for the
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word "mare," he had hit upon the word "amour," a word that led closer to his
unconscious preoccupation rather than further away. There was a reversal of
the displacement mechanism of dreams. Instead of using the sound series for
displacing unconscious material onto the innocuous and irrelevant, the
searching for rhyme words led to increasingly relevant associations.
Effective rhyming, alliteration, and other sound repetition devices
function generally in the creation of poetry as mirror image of dreaming
processes. This connection to unconscious material contributes to the
emotional impact of the rhyme or repetition. As a general principle, the
second word or sound conceived in an effectively rhymed or alliterative pair
tends to be more closely connected to unconscious preoccupations because of
the progressive process of unearthing. To find out which of the pair are such
key words is impossible when looking at a final completed poem. A rhyme
word at the end of a stanza in the final version of a poem may be a word the
poet thought of early during creation, while a rhyme word at the end of the
first line of the poem may actually have been conceived last. Poems are
seldom written in the same sequence as we, the audience, read them. As my
exposition here has I hope clearly shown, it is essential to have access to the
poem in process to know something of the poet's mind.
This point about rhyme and other sound devices in poetic creation
opens up a rich and fruitful area of exploration and investigation on its own. It
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earlier dreams developed into a later dream representing a disguised wish for
marriage with his mother, partly because of the unearthing process
concomitantly going on in the creation of the poem. As the unconscious
material came closer to the surface in the poem, a (very likely) deeper wish
was expressed in the dream. Although there may be a progressive continuity
between dreaming and the creative process, and consequently a facilitation
and a contribution, the particular functional relationship between the two
forms of mental activity is still primarily an obverse one. The dream functions
primarily to express unconscious preoccupation in disguised form, while the
creative process functions progressively to reveal it. As the poem discussed
here progressed, more and more direct connections to the poet's mother
appeared while his dreams continued to present obscure or disguised
representations. As both forms of mental activity occur in the same person,
there is inevitably some mutual interaction. The revelation of unconscious
material in the creative process may instigate dreams expressing deeper
wishes and, vice versa, dream discharge can often influence the creative
process.
By the time a poem is completed, or nearly so, poets are dimly aware of
some of its personal significance to them. When this poem was nearly
finished, the poet was aware of having tried to work out and assert something
about his feelings about women in general as well as his feelings about
independence, freedom, and going his own way. Later, he made direct
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enhance it.
Summation
I shall try to demonstrate the critical point I have just made within the
complete context of the poem. First, I shall summarize and fill out what we
now know about the psychodynamics and background of the specific parts of
the poem, taking each stanza in order:
One spring twilight, during a lull in the war,
At Shoup's farm south of Troy, I last rode horseback.
Stillnesses were swarming inward from the evening star
Or outward from the buoyant sorrel mare
This stanza and the one following were written after the basic structure
and content of the last three stanzas had been developed. The creation of
these two stanzas was guided by the homospatial conception of the riderless
horse and the horse and rider together, a conception generated by the poet's
wish to be cared for by his mother. The first line of the stanza was derived
from a formulation initially referring to times spent in the company of his
mother, grandmother, and grandmother's sister. The allusion to war,
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The first and second lines of this stanza were derived from the
homospatial conception of the homophonic words "gate" and "gait," a
conception involving the bringing together of the horse's stride (first line)
and the idea of a door opening (second line). Both the original idea from
which the phrase "heady with unseen lilac" was derived and the first line as
finally formulated here have sexual overtones. This construction suggests the
feelings of a woman during sexual intercourse, "not displeased by the weight
upon her, "and the original idea, "bordered by thick hedges of invisible lilac,"
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a vaginal orifice. The phrase, "brief, polyphonic lives" connects to the poet's
memory of a pleasant and important interaction with his mother. The last line
is an expression of the fusion in the horse/horse-rider homospatial
conception.
Yet here I sit among the crazy shapes things take.
Wasp-waisted to a fault by long abrasion,
The 'Three Sisters' howl, 'Hell's Gate' yawns wide.
I'm eating something in the cool Hertz car
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The idea of the horse appearing at the door and the reference to death
in the first two lines were connected to the poet's thoughts about the looming
up of the figure of Madeline Usher. It also involved a reference to his
grandmother whom he had imagined as alive while dead, a person rising from
death. The phrase "half in trust, half in fear of man" was derived from the
janusian conception of horse as simultaneously not-beast and not-human as
was the line referring to an ancient bond between the human and the horse in
the last stanza.
But she is past hunger, she lets it roll in the sand,
And I, I raise the window and drive on.
About the ancient bond between her kind and mine.
Little more to speak of can be done.
These lines represent the conscious feelingsdiscouragement, noncommunication, the sense of an inability or unwillingness to return to the
pastthat stimulated the writing of the poem. They also represent the poet's
conscious wish to be free and independent. The writing of the poem involved
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the poet's search both for an abstract meaning of these ideas and feelings and
for their unconscious roots.
In the earliest version of the poem, the poet wrote lines presenting a
fairly straightforward description of the circumstances of his experience at
Monument Valley. He included the extreme sense of tension and discomfort
he had felt at the scene and a fairly prosaic statement of the abstract and
universal implications of the encounter with the horse: "A tradition in China
as in modern verse/Gives to each age its emblematic beast." The janusian
conception of the horse first formulated at this stage had not yet indicated an
unearthing of unconscious material. These early lines stated the poet's
personal anxiety and possessed some aesthetic tension but they did not yet
possess the overall quality of dynamic movement and progression of the final
poem.
How did it get better? How, to sharpen the question, did the poet mold
these earlier lines into an excellent poem? A key factor was a change in
structure. After his dreams concerning Miriam, his mother, and his
grandmother, and after he arrived at the homospatial conception, he began
thinking about a happy, wish-fulfilling connection. He thought of a personal
memory and decided to develop it as the beginning of the poem, constructing
stanzas to go before the original lines. Structurally, he was giving the
Monument Valley experience a historical background and providing a
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represents many things, the energy and dynamism comes from the sense of
breaking a relationship with something in the past or with the past itself.
Regardless of whether the horse is a metaphor for man's alienation, for death,
for war, for sexuality, for womankind (including Miriam and the poet's
mother)and she is all of these she is a thing of the past. At one time, the
relationship with her was intensely gratifying, but a good deal changed; at the
time of the encounter nothing more could be done with her or for her. Even
an apple that was reminiscent of happier days of an Edenesque experience
was only a core to be offered. Eden was lost. All that remained was to raise
the window of the car and drive on, to renounce the relationship and move on
to other things. Consequently, while there is a profound sense of loss in this
poem, there is also a sense of progress. Both the poet and the horse have
changed; the relationship is lost, but the poet at least can still move on.
The sense of progress and development results directly from placing the
wish-fulfilling, gratifying stanzas at the beginning of the poem. The emotional
sequence thereby moves away from wishful fantasy toward reality and
captures the mixed feelings of loss and progress we all experience as we
mature and grow up. And the decision to create the earlier stanzas was
derived from homospatial and janusian thinking and the unearthing of
unconscious material in mirror-image processes of creativity. The structuring
of the poem was influenced by the poet's growing awareness as he proceeded.
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shift to hell's gate, both are related to the final door of death. In an overall
similar fashion, the poet's unconscious conflict both progressed and stood
still during the writing of the poem. It was more conscious, but not changed
too much.
Many emotional and structural congruencies can be developed from the
specifics of the creation of this poem. But I think it is no longer necessary for
me to stay in this realm of literary analysis to make my major point. My point
is that the homospatial and janusian processes, processes which on the
surface could seem to be merely aesthetic devices for connecting and
integrating various aspects of the poem, have deep emotional roots and
functions as well. The unearthing of unconscious material functions to make
poetic form and content congruent with each other on an emotional level;
surface and deep material are blended and unified.
I must finally mention something about the nature of the process of
literary revision, a process I have been implicitly discussing throughout these
chapters without explicitly analyzing. In a previous study of revisions15 in the
creation of a play by Eugene O'Neill, I demonstrated that the revision process
functions to reveal unconscious material, but it is also used to remove
psychological elements and content that are closest to the author's immediate
conscious and preconscious concerns. In exception to the revelation in
creativity I have so far strongly emphasized, there is some degree of
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For example, he removed his earliest reference to being there with J.T.
by changing all "we" references to "I" and he deleted references to the
personal discomfort experienced during the picnic. After initially thinking
about the time in his life when he spent his summers with his mother,
grandmother, and grandmother's sister, he altered the time reference to have
a more symbolic connection, "during a lull in the war," for the final version.16
As O'Neill did in the creation of his play, the author of this poem deleted
references to his more conscious and preconscious concerns and he also, like
O'Neill, embodied his deeper, more unconscious preoccupations in the final
product. The result is that the final product is far better than the initial
formulation; it is an achievement of something newnot only a description of
the author's actual experience17and valuable. The process of revision
shows us how this achievement came about.
I have now completed the analysis of a specific case. In spite of much
detail and documentation, I have left much undone and unexplained about the
creation of the poem. Such is, and may always be, the case with the splendor
of creativity. But I cannot dwell on the specific case any longer because I must
now proceed to more general considerations, applications, and evidence.
Notes
1 I shall give as much information in this account as seems necessary to clarify material pertaining to
the poem. Details about specific relationships and circumstances will, however, be
omitted.
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2 The possibility arises, of course, that the stipulated process of unearthing the unconscious seen in the
creation of this poem was stimulated entirely by the poet's relationship to me. However,
I have previously reported another empirical study of the creative process, carried out
totally in my absence and the absence of any psychiatrist, where the characteristic of
unearthing unconscious processes was clearly present; see Rothenberg, "The Iceman
Changeth." I should also point out that, whatever my role in the process, it is the
concomitance of unearthing the unconscious and the successful creation of a poem that
must be explained.
3 I have discussed the relationship between insight and inspiration in some detail elsewhere,- see my
"Poetic Process and Psychotherapy." The data presented here provide a more elaborate
documentation and confirmation of the previous suggestions and propositions.
4 Monument Valley, Arizona, does have a rock formation named the Two Sisters.
5 After reading the foregoing material as documented here, the poet agreed that it was all quite
plausible and probable. As the nature of our relationship was not a psychotherapeutic
one, there was no need or possibility to pin down these connections further.
6 In a strict use of the term, a symbol is a substitute for something else which it may or may not
superficially resemble. I have here used the expression "figurative representation" in lieu
of "metaphor" in order to avoid confusion when I later refer to artistic metaphors
specifically. In a broad sense, however, figurative representations can be considered
equivalent to metaphors. Metaphors, or the here-designated "figurative
representations," both represent other entities and integrate elements of these entities
into their content. There is today much interest and discussion about such definitions
and distinctions; see esp. L. C. Knights, and B. Cottle, eds., Metaphor and Symbol (London:
Butterworth, 1960).
7 During that day, he had formulated the lines (as still part of the last three stanzas):
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13 Note that the Garden of Eden idea, as represented in a reference to giving the horse an apple core, is
antithetical to the idea of being at death's door; pleasure and gratification are opposed to
death and punishment. The qualities of the setting in the poem are therefore
simultaneously antithetical, another janusian formulation introduced at a very early
stage of the writing of the poem.
14 Freud's essay, "Creative Writers and Daydreaming," has been rightly criticized for focusing only on
escapist and hack writing in discussing the role of fantasy in literary creativity. It is
partly because of this error that psychoanalysis has come to be identified with a view of
art as a manifestation of regressive primary process thinking and wish fulfillment.
Although Freud was certainly right to emphasize personal roots in creativity and the
importance of fantasy and wish fulfillment at some level, he neglected the qualitatively
different psychodynamics of good art I am discussing here ("Creative Writers and
Daydreaming," pp. 141-54).
15 See Rothenberg, "The Iceman Changeth," a study in which the process of revision is seen as a
feature providing both an understanding of the creator's unconscious processes and the
means whereby a literary work is improved and given aesthetic value.
16 The reference to Shoup and his farm, a real person and a real place, escaped deletion because it was
not connected to any immediate personal or psychological concern and because it had a
specific aesthetic purpose. This purpose was not changed or contradicted by the overall
aesthetic and psychological thrust of the final poem. Shoup's farm was included initially
because it gave particularity and contemporaneity to the mythic allusion to Troy. The
personalized reference to a particular farm and person known to the poet was an
intentional aesthetic device designed to contrast with, to establish continuity with, and
to heighten the immediacy of the ancient Trojan war. The real Shoup's farm was located
near Troy, N.Y., a factor introducing the connection into the poet's mind. The inclusion of
such incidental personalized references in order to enhance the overall aesthetic effect
does not at all contradict the general point made here about the concealing aspect of
literary revision.
17 Here, the philosophical question arises of whether this shift from description and documentation
represents actual discontinuity with the past and radical newness (see n. 1, chap. 2
above, and chap. 12 below). The author's constant act of separating himself and his
immediate preoccupations and concerns from the object he is creating is, I think, an
intensive and profound one and thereby warrants consideration as a core feature of the
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5
SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY
Throughout the preceding exposition of the creation of a specific poem,
I have continually asserted that I was presenting an illustrative example. The
psychological processes I have described operate generally and universally in
creativity and are not merely characteristic of this particular poet's
functioning nor of the particular creation of this poem. I must now set about
producing evidence for this assertion. To start, I shall shift the focus rather
sharply and leap into an activity that seems very remote from the making of
poetry. The subject matter is highly technical and impersonal and seems a far
cry from the warm and vibrant, intensely personal material considered so far.
My concerns here are the subjects of physical science and of the scientific
enterprise.
This leap, extreme and hopefully creative in itself, could also turn out to
be foolhardy. After all, not only is the subject matter of the physical sciences
quite unlike that of the arts but scientific thinking has long been considered
the sine qua non of the logical, the objective, and the rational mode. It might
hardly seem likely that the emotionally perfused unusual thought processes I
have so far described could play an important role in science. Furthermore,
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unlike the artist, the scientist presumably deals with external and consensually verifiable reality. His domain is not subjective or internal reality,
nor are characteristically shifting standards of artistic preference and taste
applicable to his productions. The scientist is said to discover laws that
already existed, he does not himself create these laws. There are clear rules
for evaluating the validity of scientific laws having nothing whatsoever to do
with the scientist's personality, his way of working, nor with the
personalities, biases, or tastes of his audience. The law exists in nature, he
does not make it and place it there; unlike the artist, he makes nothing new
but primarily sees and understands.
All of these distinctions between science and art engender serious
reservations about whether identical psychological processes could possibly
operate in the two endeavors. Indeed, I myself held such serious reservations
for a very long time. Only slowly did I change my mind. Because of a
serendipitous finding from my research, I virtually was driven to begin to
acknowledge a similarity between artistic and scientific creativity. In a
particular experiment designed to assess whether elements of janusian
thinking were connected to creativity in a large group of college
undergraduates, I divided the entire group into a creative subgroup and a
noncreative control subgroup. My criteria for designating the members of the
creative group, however, were derived solely on the basis of data I had
obtained indicating creativity in the arts. Aside from further matching
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between the groups on the basis of sex, age, intelligence, and socioeconomic
status, I paid no attention to any other information I had about characteristics
of the subjects in the two groups. To my surprise, the results of the
experiment were equivocal: there was no definite distinction between the
subgroups with respect to the factors of janusian thinking tested. Only
gradually did it dawn on me that, because of my own reservations about
relating artistic and scientific creativity, I had neglected some important data.
I had not paid any attention to subject characteristics pertaining to scientific
creativity in distinguishing and designating the two subgroups.
After close inspection of information pertaining to such characteristics, I
discovered that a large number of scientifically creative subjects had been
placed in the "noncreative" control group! Only a few subjects who happened
to be creative in science in addition to the arts had already been placed in the
creative group. I shall present the details of this experiment later (chap. 7),
but a striking discovery was that the results became completely unequivocal
when all the data were reassessed and reevaluated after adding the scientific
creators to the creative test group. The performance of the artistically and
scientifically creative subjects on the experimental task was greatly similar
and, statistically, was significantly different from all other subjects in the
experiment to a very high degree.
After this influential experience, I began to search for a meaningful way
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accumulation
of
facts
through
rigorous
observation
and
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In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic
enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and
being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances
favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones to
be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species.
Here, then, 1 had at last got a theory by which to work. [Italics added]3
Darwin, as we well know, spent the remaining forty-four years of his life
proving the hypothesis of natural selection, an hypothesis that came to him all
at once as a leap of thought. Clearly, the thought did not emerge fully formed
with no antecedent; Darwin stipulates that his previous experience and
thought had prepared him well for this sudden understanding. But rather
than a carefully reasoned, step-by-step inductive process of deriving
inferences on the basis of specific observations and experiments, the idea
came to him as a flash of intuition, a flash that waited on his further
researches before it could be proven.
Another famous instance of an intuitive leap is described in the oftquoted testimony of Henri Poincare, the man responsible for some of the
most important mathematical discoveries of the latter part of the nineteenth
century. The following is his description of the events leading to one of his
important discoveries or creations, the mathematical theory involving
"Fuchsian functions," a special form of automorphic functions:
For a fortnight I had been attempting to prove that there could not be any
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of seemingly unconscious factors operating in his own work and the work of
other important mathematical figures. Hadamard's specific description of
what he called an "unconsciously" achieved discovery of his own, the
discovery of the valuation of a determinant, was as follows:
I see a schematic diagram: a square of whose sides only the verticals are
drawn and inside of it, four points being the vertices of a rectangle and
joined by (hardly apparent) diagonals. . . . It . . . seems to me that such was
my visualization of the question in 1892 [when I made the discovery] as
far as I can recollect.5
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formulated the ring structure of the benzene molecule. Not only organic
chemistry but biochemistry and the modern science of molecular biology are
beneficiaries of his contribution. Kekul arrived at the conception of a ring
structure after a sudden visual experience in which a snake seized hold of its
own tail. Although the story of this discovery has now become an apocryphal
one in which Kekul is represented as having been drunk or as dreaming at
the time, in his original description he stipulated that he was in a state of halfsleep (Halbschlaf). Prior to visualizing the snake, the active directed nature of
his thinking was, as he described it, as follows: "My mind's eye, sharpened by
repeated visions of similar art, distinguished now . . . structures of manifold
form."9
These examples, some of which I shall discuss in greater detail, all
indicate the importance of leaps of thought in scientific discovery. Although
Poincare expresses the feeling most explicitly, all of the descriptions indicate
a sense of formulation achieved all at once, an idea lacking in clear
antecedents and accompanied by a feeling of certainty. From the point of view
of the subjective experience of the scientist, then, all of these thoughts are
certainly creative. They are experienced as new and discontinuous with
previous thoughts and they all have positive value. Initially valuable because
sensed as correct and important, their value is verified by more ordinary
types of deductive and inductive logical processes.
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[restaurant] to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the
secret of life. [Italics added]15
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already. His discovery, then, was due to a janusian thought: Watson conceived
that the chains were identical and opposite at the same time. The structure of
DNA, it may be said, existed in nature, but it required janusian thinking to
recognize it.
The discovery of the very important mechanism of genetic replication,
then, was the result of a leap of thought, a creative one, and the leap involved
janusian thinking. Embedded as this discovery was in a process of collecting
information from various sources, the primarily inductive process at most
stages of the search, as well as the headlong race toward breaking the genetic
code among many leading scientists of the time, it may seem hard in
retrospect to see the creative leap and Watson's unique contribution.
Wouldn't someone else have discovered this double helix if Watson hadn't
(with Crick's important help)? Wasn't the discovery of the double helix only
the uncovering of a fact of nature, a fact that could have been uncovered by
other means? Could the structure have been discovered without conceiving
the simultaneous opposition? All these questions may be posed and
speculated about, but no speculation would alter the story of the actual
discovery, Watson's arriving at the solution in just the manner he did. He
shifted all at once from the idea of like-with-like pairing to the concept of
simultaneous opposition.
Another enormously important twentieth-century discovery in the
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natural sciences also occurred by means of a leap of thought. This was the
discovery, the formulation, to be more exact, of the general theory of
relativity by Albert Einstein. For persons living in this day and age, I need
hardly spell out, at any length, the significance of this particular theory for
science and for the ethos of our time. As a new theory of gravitation, it
embraced Newton's classic theory as a special case. Not only did nuclear
explosives and power become possible because of this theory, but many of
the major developments in modem physics, astronomy, and allied fields are a
direct result of it. Our current knowledge of the nature of the physical
universe depends significantly on it.
Virtually all scientific theories and discoveries are, as Helmholtz said in
the quotation above, presented in a logical, sequential form when they are
published. Seldom, if ever, does the scientist reveal the actual thoughts
helping him to arrive at his solution (psychologists understandably do so
more than others). Einstein was no exception; he presented the general
theory of relativity in the manner best calculated to prove its efficacy and
feasibility. Recently, however, Einstein's actual thoughts leading to the theory
have come to light in an unpublished essay written by him in approximately
1919. The essay was discovered by Gerald Holton among other Einstein
papers being collected for posthumous publication by Princeton University
Press.16
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The thought that one is dealing here with two fundamentally different
cases was, for me, unbearable [wai mir unertrdglich]. The difference
between these two cases could not be a real difference, but rather, in my
conviction, could be only a difference in the choice of a reference point.
Judged from the magnet there certainly were no electric fields, judged
from the conducting circuit there certainly was one. The existence of an
electric field was therefore a relative one, depending on the state of motion
of the coordinate system being used, and a kind of objective reality could
be granted only to the electric and magnetic field together, quite apart
from the state of relative motion of the observer or the coordinate system.
The phenomenon of the electromagnetic induction forced me to postulate
the (special) relativity principle.
When, in the year 1907, I was working on a summary essay concerning the
special theory of relativity for the Yearbook for Radioactivity and
Electronics I tried to modify Newton's theory of gravitation in such a way
that it would fit into the theory. Attempts in this direction showed the
possibility of carrying out this enterprise, but they did not satisfy me
because they had to be supported by hypotheses without physical basis. At
that point there came to me the happiest thought of my life, in the
following form:
Just as in the case where an electric field is produced by electromagnetic
induction, the gravitational field similarly has only a relative existence.
Thus, for an observer in free fall from the roof of a house there exists, during
his fall, no gravitational field [italics Einstein's]at least not in his
immediate vicinity. If the observer releases any objects, they will remain,
relative to him, in a state of rest, or in a state of uniform motion,
independent of their particular chemical and physical nature. (In this
consideration one must naturally neglect air resistance.) The observer is
therefore justified in considering his state as one of "rest."
The extraordinarily curious, empirical law that all bodies in the same
gravitational field fall with the same acceleration immediately took on,
through this consideration, a deep physical meaning. . . . The fact, known
from experience, that acceleration in free fall is independent of the
material is therefore a mighty argument that the postulate of relativity is
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juncture must be taken seriously. Why might he have felt so strongly about
whether two fundamentally different cases were involved? Certainly in the
absence of more detailed psychological information about Einstein
information about how and under what circumstances he be- became
acquainted with these theories, his associations about the sentence in
question, and other material one would want for an adequate psychological
assessmentwe cannot precisely say what factors were involved. But we
certainly should have reason to suspect that the conceptual problem involved
particular emotional and unconscious concerns. On the basis of accumulated
clinical knowledge from psychoanalysis and on the basis of recent trends in
cognition research indicating strong connections between cognition and
motivation, there is reason to believe that such emotional and unconscious
correlates help to dictate a scientist's interest in a problem and even the
particular way he initially defines and structures such a problem.21
Following the assertion of his strong emotional position on the matter,
Einstein goes on to spell out the tight logic leading to his postulation of the
first, special, relativity theory. Although he does not mention it here,
Einstein's first presentation of his postulate in 1905 contained, of course,
highly technical and elaborate extensions of this logic, a logic stated with
great simplicity in this passage. As with the creative process in the arts,
therefore, we see an emotionally laden idea subjected to rigorous unraveling
and development, a development that depends on the requirements of the
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Einstein states directly, in the previous paragraph, that he was looking for an
analogy in nature that would allow him to bring Newton's theory of
gravitation into the theory of relativity, the step making it a general theory.
There is no doubt, I think, that analogic thinkingthe search for, and
discovery of analogiesis a crucial part of creative thinking just as it is a
crucial part of all effective thinking. Analogic thinking is a specific type of
logical thinking and it can occur in stepwise fashioncareful and systematic
consideration of one related analog after anotheror it can occur within a
creative leap of thought. In other words, although analogic thinking plays a
role in creativity, sometimes a prominent one, it is not the determinant aspect
of it.
Looking then at Einstein's arrival at the particular idea he called "the
happiest thought" of his life, we see that he has discovered the particular
analogy he sought. The form of the particular analogy, however, is distinctive:
it is highly illogical and contradictory on the surface, but it contains a deep
and important logic and rationality. He says, Thus, for an observer in free fall
from the roof of a house, there exists, during his fall, no gravitational field. This
is the thought Einstein himself italicized. And what, on the surface, could be
more antithetical and illogical? Imbued, as everyone was in the year 1907 and
as nonphysicists still are today, to think of gravity and falling as motion
intense motion for that matterhow could there be both falling and no
falling, the effects of gravity and no effects, and how could there be both
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thought, the creative theoretical leap, occurred. After a long time of searching
for the appropriate formulation (at least four years according to his
autobiography),24 he states, "I happened to read for amusement Mai thus on
Population, and then a few sentences later, "it at once struck me. . . .
The fact that Darwin was reading Malthus when he finally hit on the
idea of natural selection has always suggested something rather strange and
paradoxical. The main point of Malthus's thesis is that untrammeled human
population growth relative to a fixed environment would result in
extermination of the species because of competition for existence. And yet we
see Darwin postulating that this struggle for existence results in the
enhancement and perfection of the species relative to its environment!
What does this tell us about Darwin's thinking? By no means am I the
first to recognize this apparent contradiction in the momentous event.
Several generations of scholars have noted it and, in passing, have concluded
that Darwin completely misunderstood Malthus's point and took his own
meaning from what he read. But is this conclusion really plausible? After
reading all of Malthus's detailed descriptions of the negative effects of
population growth, is it likely that a man of Darwin's enormous intellect
would completely miss the point? It is seriously doubtful. Darwin nowhere
disagreed with or contradicted Malthus's point. More plausible, therefore, is
the postulate that Darwin's specific idea at that moment was a formulation of
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homospatial conception (the horse alone and the horse with a rider) is
indicated by Hadamard's reference to "hardly apparent diagonals joining the
four points of the rectangle." Conceiving a square, a rectangle, and diagonal
lines all occupying the same space requires the type of diffuse image in which
certain aspects are hardly apparent (see fig. 3B).
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Fig. 3.
Homospatial Conceptions. A. "Ideas . .. coalesce." Diagrammatic conception
of Poincare's description of his mental experiences leading to his creation
of the Fuchsian functions. (Actual formulas used here pertain to the
Fuchsian functions, but they are not intended to indicate the particular
content of Poincare's idea, a content he never specifies.) B. "A schematic
diagram: a square of whose sides only the verticals are drawn and inside
of it, four points being the vertices of a rectangle and joined by (hardly
apparent) diagonals.. . . " Representation of Hadamard's conception
leading to the creation of the valuation of a determinant. (Diagonals drawn
to suggest an image that is impossible to present physically. The rectangle
is superimposed upon the square; therefore, the mental image consists of
diagonals within the area of the square, not, as drawn here, ending in an
extrapolated spatial location.)
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Fig. 4.
Artist's conception of the homospatial image leading to the creation of the
steam condenser: Watt mentally visualized the girls doing laundry in their
kail pots and, superimposing the cylinders upon them, he thought of steam
in separate containers. Drawing by Robert C. Morris.
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Although Pasteur and others subsequently found that the principle just
propounded did not always hold absolutely true, his discovery had a great
impact on crystallographic research and on the knowledge about levo and
dextro rotation that is so taken for granted today. As we know, Pasteur went
on from these early researches to make other very important discoveries. One
of the most far-reaching of these was his discovery or creation of the science
of immunology. Also the result of a leap of thought, the foundation for this
discovery or creation was an immediate interpretation of a chance event. In
view of Pasteur's famous aphorism, "La chance se favoree preparee" (chance
favors the prepared mind), the account is of especial interest, because the
circumstances illustrate the type of preparation and thinking involved.
In eighteenth-century England, Edward Jenner began the practice of
using an injection of cowpox to protect human beings against virulent
smallpox. Supposedly, he was led to this idea by a milkmaid patient who, he
thought, was suffering from smallpox. When he told her his diagnosis, she
said, "I cannot take the smallpox because I have had the cowpox." Jenner was
impressed and began to study the phenomenon systematically; finally, he
convinced himself that cow- pox did prevent smallpox infection and he
introduced the practice of using injections of the markedly milder infection
throughout England and elsewhere in the world. Neither Jenner himself nor
any of his enthusiastic followers, however, understood the mechanism of
protection nor did they apply the idea to other diseases.
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It was Louis Pasteur who discovered the mechanism and the wide
applicability of the immunological principle connected to it. Here is the
account of the circumstances of his discovery given by Rene Dubos:
Pasteur had begun experiments on chicken cholera in the spring of 1879,
but an unexpected difficulty interrupted the work after the summer
vacation. The cultures of the chicken cholera bacillus that had been kept in
the laboratory during the summer failed to produce disease when
inoculated into chickens in the early autumn. A new virulent culture was
obtained from a natural outbreak, and it was inoculated into new animals,
as well as into the chickens which had resisted the old cultures. The new
animals, just brought from the market, succumbed to the infection in the
customary length of time, thus showing that the fresh culture was very
active. But to everyone's astonishment, and the astonishment of Pasteur
himself, almost all the other chickens survived the infection. According to
the accounts left by one of his collaborators Pasteur remained silent for a
minute, then exclaimed as if he had seen a vision, "Don't you see that these
animals have been vaccinated !"35
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Notes
1 Pertinent to this discussion is the fairly recent proposition advanced by T. S. Kuhn in The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) that science advances
through the development of paradigms. Kuhn distinguishes between normal scientists
and those who develop paradigms producing revolutionary advances. Normal scientists
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follow paradigms until they are no longer productive or heuristic; at that point, a new
paradigm is produced and normal scientists proceed to test it out and apply it. While I
am not specifically concerned with formulations about scientific progress here, Kuhn's
account of the making of scientific paradigms roughly parallels the concept of creativity
in science outlined in these pages.
2 Though it has become somewhat fashionable to doubt the authenticity of the apple story, two of
Newton's contemporaries, Pemberton and Stukeley, both report that the first idea
occurred while Newton was sitting alone in the garden; see H. Pemberton, A View of Sir
Isaac Newtons Philosophy (Dublin, 1728). Stukeley's famous account is as follows: "After
dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank thea, under the
shade of some appletrees, only he and myself. Amidst other discourse, he told me, he was
just in the situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It
was occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood. Why should
that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to him self. Why
should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earths centre? Assuredly, the
reason is, that the earth draws it . . ." (W. Stukeley, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newtons Life,
1752 [London: Taylor &. Francis, 1936], pp. 19-20).
3 F. Darwin, ed., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters (New York: Dover, 1958), pp.
42-43 (repr. of 1892 ed.).
4 Poincare, Science and Method, pp. 52-53.
5 J. Hadamard, The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1949), p. 81.
6 See numerous examples presented in the following: Montmasson, Invention and the Unconscious;
Koestler, Act of Creation; R. M. Harding, An Anatomy of Inspiration (Cambridge: W. Heffer
& Sons, 1940); Wallas, Art of Thought.
7 H. von Helmholtz, "An Autobiographical Sketch (1891)," in Selected Writings of Hermann von
Helmholtz, ed. R. Kahl (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1971), p. 474.
8 R. Dubos, Pasteur and Modern Science (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1960), p. 114;
Cannon, Way of an Investigator, pp. 59-60; C. F. Gauss, Works, vol. 5 (Gottingen: W. F.
Kaestner, 1863-1933), p. 609; reported by S. Chandrasekhar in E. Fermi, Collected Papers
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14 For an interesting history and an extensive documentation of the numerous contributors to the
ultimate solution, see R. Olby, The Path to the Double Helix (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1974). Although the book clearly reveals that Watson, like all other
creative scientists, stood on the shoulders of gaints, it is important to note that Olby's
account does not differ from Watson's on any salient point.
15 J. D. Watson, The Double Helix (New York: Atheneum, 1968), pp. 125-26.
16 This essay came to my attention long after I discovered janusian thinking and other processes in
literary creativity.
17 A. Einstein, "The Fundamental Idea of General Relativity in Its Original Form" (circa 1919, trans. by
Gerald Ffolton), manuscript, Einstein Archives, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton,
N.J.; acknowledgment to Otto Nathan, Trustee of the Estate of Albert Einstein, and to
Helen Dukas for permission to quote this essay, and to Professor Holton for permission
to use his translation. Holton has published other portions and versions of the above
translation in Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 363-64; and "Finding Favor with the Angel of
the Lord: Notes Toward the Psychobio- graphical Study of Scientific Genius," in The
Interaction Between Science and Philosophy, ed. Y. Elkana (New York: Humanities Press,
1975), pp. 369-71.
18 Kris, together with Abraham Kaplan, uses the term "stringencies" to apply to the possible modes of
dealing with a problem; clearly, there are quite a large number of such stringencies in
science in comparison with art. The creative scientist must be aware of and capable of
applying all, or most, of the appropriate stringencies; E. Kris and A. Kaplan, "Aesthetic
Ambiguity," in Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations, pp. 243-72.
19 An interesting suggestion, and an observation completely coordinate with the analysis I am
presenting here, is to be found in an analysis by Gerald Holton, the Einstein scholar.
Holton points out the existence of polarities in Einstein's personality and cites both his
sensitivity to polarities in science and his talent for dealing with antitheses. Einstein's
interest in the polarity between the Faraday and Maxwell-Lorentz theories, according to
this, was an instance of his special sensitivity to such types of problems. Holton's
observations are quite fruitful and are especially gratifying because they were arrived at
independently,- they were not published at the time I first described janusian thinking
(G. Holton, "On Trying to Understand Scientific Genius," American Scholar 41 [1971] :95
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110).
20"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world," he said; quoted in P. Frank, Einstein: His
Life and Times, trans. G. Rosen (New York: Knopf, 1947), p. 208. One can respect this as a
religious belief, but certainly it is also a strongly emotional "nonobjective" position for a
man of science.
21 Routinely, in psychoanalytic treatment, scientists and other intellectuals reveal the emotional and
unconscious roots of their interest in a particular research area and a particular type of
conceptual problem. Moreover, applied psychoanalytic research on creative people
frequently gives plausible evidence of such connections; see Rothenberg and Greenberg,
Index: Creative Men and Women, for bibliographic references. For an interesting attempt
at arriving at some of the unconscious bases of Newton's thought, see F. E. Manuel, A
Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968). For
references to cognition and motivation research) see chap. 3, n. 5, above.
22 Sidney Blatt suggested to me that Einstein's thinking of the idea of falling from a roof could have
represented an unconscious suicide wish. It could also have represented an unconscious
wish to fly. A wish to fly often represents a deeper wish for free and uninhibited
sexuality and sexual gratification.
23 Einstein's description of a person falling from the roof of a house suggests a homospatial conception
along with a janusian one. It is well known that Einstein's thinking was highly visual in
nature,- he reported that himself; see Hadamard, Psychology of Invention, pp. 142-43, and
Wertheimer, Productive Thinking.
24 Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 41.
25 H. Gruber and P. H. Barrett, Darwin on Man (New York: Dutton, 1974), p. 105. This is an excellent
analysis which correctly discusses scientific creative thinking as a sequence of processes
rather than a single act. The author of the theoretical section (Gruber) recognizes the
overall thrust of Darwin's idea, but misses the factor of simultaneous antithesis.
26 Darwin, nevertheless, accorded Wallace full acknowledgment.
27 "Letter by A. R. Wallace to A. Newton, 1887," in F. Darwin, Autobiography, p. 200.
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28 The translation of the passage here by Maitland is later than Halsted's frequently quoted one (H.
Poincare, The Foundations of Science, trans. G. B. Halsted [New York: Science Press,
1913], p. 387). The reflexive verb form saccrocher that Poincare himself used (Science et
Methode [Paris: Flam- marion, 1924], pp. 50-51) is literally translated as "to fasten
together as in crocheting." The Maitland rendition here of "coalesce" seems more
appropriate than Halsted's previous one of "collide." The only questionable aspect of
Poincare's statement, questionable with respect to being a description of homospatial
thinking, is his use of the word combinaison, i.e., "combination." New identities or
integrations of previously discrete entities result from homospatial thinking, while
"combinations" are additive results. Whether the discrepancy is significant or whether
Poincare was following common usage and referring broadly to a bringing together that
would include either or both combination and integration cannot, unfortunately, be
ascertained.
29 Quoted by R. Hart, "Reminiscences of James Watt," in Transactions of the Glasgow Archeological
Society (Glasgow: James MacNab, 1868), 1:4.
30 For an account of this history, see R. H. Thurston, A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1939).
31 E. Benedictus, "Les Origines du verre Triplex," Glaces et Venes 201 (1930) :9-10; phrases quoted
from this article were translated by Brenda Casey.
32 This type of thinking was also characteristic of Sigmund Freud, see A. Rothenberg and W. Sledge,
"The Creative Thinking of Sigmund Freud" (in preparation).
33 Quoted in R. Dubos, Louis Pasteur: Free Lance of Science (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950), pp. 95-96.
34 Ibid., pp. 99-100.
35 Dubos, Pasteur and Modem Science, pp. 113-14. The collaborator mentioned was Pasteur's nephew,
Adrien Loir, who, as an early teacher of Rene Dubos, conveyed the story to him (personal
letter from Dubos, July 9, 1975).
36 See aspects of Koestler's, Montmasson's, Harding's, and Hadamard's interpretations: Koestler, Act of
Creation; Montmasson, Invention and the Unconscious; R. M. Harding, Towards a Law of
Creative Thought (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner Co., 1936), esp. the account of
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6
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
We have, I think, just engaged in quite a dizzying leap. Although many
people take for granted that creativity is a unitary phenomenon, that the
same or similar factors operate in creative accomplishment in any field, my
leap from poetry to science still has probably been a heady one. Horses
represented as emblematic of the ethos of the time are strange companions
with levotartrates, electrons, the Faraday and Maxwell-Lorentz laws, and
genetic reduplication, despite the intrinsic similarities of the creator's
thought. Moreover, much remains to be filled in and clarified about the nature
and operation of the mirror-image processes. Before proceeding with more
technical matters and data, therefore, I shall give an account of the overall
nature of the creative process. In the course of this narrative I shall provide a
picture of the subjective side of creative thinking and the manner in which the
creative process, for both the artist and the scientist as well as other types of
creators, is the mirror image of the dream.
The creative process begins in waking life. It begins in a state of
awareness of external environment and physical circumstances, and a state of
conscious intention as well. Regardless of the field in which the creator
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carries out his activities, he begins his task with the intention of creating
something clearly in mind. No one creates anything without deliberately
setting out to do so. While the creative intention of the artist is clear and well
known without the need for special elaboration, the scientist's creative
intention does require some clarification. Objectively it appears that the artist
produces something new and valuable and he knowingly sets out to do so,
while the scientist looks for and finds something not truly new but an entity
previously existent in nature. From a subjective point of view, however, this
distinction does not apply; the scientist in his quest for discovery is often
interested in creating or producing something new and valuable in much the
same way as the artist. Psychologically, the difference is primarily that a
scientist does not think of producing something made by himself alone, but
something which was, in essence, made by nature. Although constructing a
theory imparts a greater sense of personal responsibility for the product than
verifying an hypothesis by experiment, both types of scientific activity can
involve a strong intent to find, or to produce, something strikingly valuable
and new. From this subjective viewpoint, the creative process takes place in
scientific activity whether the scientist is developing a theory or working
primarily on experimental verification, or whether a discovery is made by
means of serendipity. The serendipitous finding gets established because the
scientist wants to make something new of information appearing by chance.
The intention to create must be both deliberate and very strong. Many
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factors deter creative achievement, factors involving both the limited and
refractory nature of materials and the sometimes limited and refractory
nature of social recognition. By and large, persons engaging in creative
activity have this strong intention and motivation, for reasons derived from
upbringing, heredity, group factors, and the complexities of the social ethos.
The idea of automatic or unintentional creating is an impossibility. Even the
seemingly automatic creations of so-called visionary poets Blake and
Coleridge are no real exception, since they were conscious and strongly
motivated poets before any visions or poetic lines appeared in their dreams.
Surely their waking motivation to create pervaded their dream experience as
well. Moreover, in the case of Coleridge's opium state and of Blake's dream,
the resulting poems involved later extensions and later revisions and
changes, respectively.1 Despite the poets' public claims, conscious effort,
intent, and creating entered into the stage of writing out the poems.
The creator begins with a high degree of knowledge of his field. The
scientist has learned the technical knowledge available and he is capable of
understanding complicated theories and laws. A creative scientist, in other
words, must have a high level of what is usually designated as "intelligence"
and he must have applied himself to obtaining as much of his field's
information and knowledge as possible. Although scientific creations
sometimes come from persons who switch from one scientific discipline to
another, such persons usually are those who absorb a good deal of
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This interest in discovery begins the process and continues at every step of
the way. Though the artistic creative process sometimes begins with an
inspiration, that is, a dramatic idea or insight, such an inspiration is merely
the stimulus for embarking on a process of discovering. Almost never does
the creative artist know very much about the product he will eventually
create. Not only are the details lacking at the start, but some of the most
crucial elementscrucial both for him and for his audiencewill be
discovered during the course of the process of creating.5 In art, the initial
element or, to use Beardsley's term, "the incept,"6 usually consists of a word
or a phrase, a series of phrases, an overall structure or theme, an image or a
visual form, a succession of sounds or rhythms, or an outline of a plot. These
are far from completed ideas ready to be spelled out, but they are elements
that the creator is interested in exploring. The creative process itself is the
means and method of exploring these concepts.
As the artist begins to work out his initial idea, as he begins to execute
the work of art, he discovers and develops the ramifications and the
implications of the early ideas; then, new ideas occur along the way that
instigate new quests for discovery in their own right. And the discoveries the
artist makes are discoveries about the nature of experience and about the
nature of the medium he is working with as well as discoveries about himself.
A poet, for instance, may explore all the ramifications of a particular linguistic
phrase and its connections to the things that it denotes. In the poetic creative
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process I have documented, the poet explored the idea of the horse with the
horse's ramifications in mythology, in the modern ethos, and in the poet's
own personal life. Concomitantly, he explored the implications and
ramifications of certain words connected to horses, such as "gait," and
discovered exciting integrations between words and experience.
During the course of this process of discovery, the creative person
engages in a good deal of fantasy. This is so for both the scientist and the
artist, although elaborate personal fantasy is more characteristic of, and more
related to, the artistic creative process. The scientist's fantasies are often
highly concrete and they suggest analogies and applications to abstract
phenomena in science. When the creative leap occurs, these fantasies often
enter into the homospatial process; elements of the fantasy become
superimposed upon the mental images of natural phenomena. As I shall
describe in chapter 10, the musician and the visual artist also often have
fantasies involving concrete elements that are subjected to the homospatial
process. Very likely, the literary creator's fantasies are the most personal of
all. "His Majesty the Ego," as Freud put it,7 or the creator himself may
manifestly appear more often in the fantasy of literary creators because the
literary art often devolves on stories having definite actors or agents. Freud
was surely correct in suggesting that daydreaming or fantasy played an
important role in creation, but he was incorrect in assuming that creative
thinking consisted merely of disguising these fantasies in an acceptable
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Only the intention to solve the problem can be said to be unconscious at such
moments; the creative thinking, however briefly it flashes, is conscious.9
Unlike primary process or dreamlike manifestations of the Unconscious in
waking life, such as the classically described jokes, slips of the tongue or pen,
or other automatisms, there is neither condensation nor displacement in
creative leaps of thought. Rather than disguising wishes and disrupting
conscious thought, the mirror-image processes integrate unconscious wishes
with solutions to a problem or task. The creative process moves in a direction
opposite to that of the dream} abstract modes of cognition work toward
unearthing and discovery rather than expression and gratification of wishes
alone. Creating moves from free, wandering thinking to fixated solutions and
constructions within a product. Unconscious processes do not push into and
disrupt the creator's awareness; they are, in a sense, pulled by the mirrorimage forms of cognition.
It would be a mistake to focus on creative fantasy as the only, or the
major, mirror-image-of-dreaming manifestation in creation. Creation in any
field does not consist of an isolated event or a single act, but it results from a
long series of circumstances, sometimes occurring in an unbroken chain or
sequence but often interrupted, reconstructed, and repeated over a period of
time. The process of creation begins with the conscious selection of a task and
a factor to be explored. Both janusian and homospatial thinking sometimes
appear full-blown at this stage. The janusian process, usually occurring
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earlier than the homospatial one, may appear rapidly in the earliest phase of
creation, the incept then consisting of an actively constructed simultaneous
antithesis. In scientific creation, an initial problem may be formulated in just
such terms. For instance, a scientist thinks the following: the law of
electromagnetic induction and the law of gravitation, though appearing to be
opposites, are really the same. Now, how can I go about proving this? When
Einstein said that the idea of dealing with two different cases here was
unbearable to him, it could indicate that at some point he consciously
structured the initial problem in such a manner. In poetry, the idea that
sexuality and violence are the same could be the incept instigating the task of
creating a poem. With one of my subjects (see description of the
circumstances in chap. 10), this particular janusian thought did in fact
stimulate a poem about nude bodies on a beach and dead bodies in the gas
ovens of Auschwitz. Janusian thinking thus frequently instigates a succession
of thoughts and acts, and further janusian as well as homospatial conceptions
occur along the way. Leaps of thought occur and unconscious material is
revealed, particularly in art, but unlike the dream, consciousness or at times a
sense of heightened consciousness is in full sway.
From a subjective point of view, the heightened sense of consciousness
during the course of the creative process constitutes a distinct mirror image
of dreaming. While terms such as "expansion of consciousness" are clearly
figurative rather than literally descriptive of a psychological state, they
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convey the quality of intensity, the sense of increased comprehension, and the
freedom from boundaries of time and space. I shall return to discuss the
determinants of this state in a later chapter (chap. 12) but a further
clarification of its subjective nature is warranted here. Intense concentration
is characteristic of several phases in the creative process. Not unlike the type
of concentration necessary for high levels of performance in any activity, from
sports to strictly intellectual tasks, the intensity seems to be greater under
conditions of exceptionally strong motivation such as that in the creative
process. Every facet of a visual scene, every nuance of a musical tone or of a
word or phrase, and every aspect of a scientific theory or experiment is
explored and kept in focus at several particular stages of the creative process.
Certain aspects of the heightened sense of consciousness and a subjective
quality akin to dreaming arise from this factor of intense concentration. Just
as dreaming occurs in a state where attention to external stimuli is suspended
and there is intense concentration on internal psychological phenomena,
creating also frequently involves intense fixation on mental images, thoughts,
and constructs. Capacity for such intense concentration is a necessary factor
in successful creating in any field. Although these states of intense
concentration are similar to dreaming, they are also the obverse of dreaming.
They are appropriately designated as heightened states of consciousness in
opposition to the physical unconsciousness or sleep in which dreaming
occurs. All the creator's conscious faculties are operating optimally and
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context, since really effective metaphors seldom stand alone,10 a new identity
becomes articulated as the culmination of the homospatial process.
As the creative process continues to move from disguise and disorder to
illumination and order, as it moves from personal preoccupation to generic
and universal concerns, as it involves increasingly heightened states of
consciousness and awareness rather than the restricted focus of the sleeping
mind, it proceeds in a reverse direction from dreaming. And, as a mirror
image, it bears resemblances to dreaming. There tends to be more sensory
imagery than ordinary thought processes, more periods of seemingly
undirected thought and suspension of awareness of physical surroundings,
intense affectual experiences of heightened anxiety or heightened enjoyment
and pleasure not often connected with ordinary waking thought, and a quality
of vividness in the final product, in artistic creation especially, that is similar
to the vividness in dreams. There are periods when the creator lets his
thoughts run freely while he suspends critical judgment and there are periods
of sheer playfulness. There are gratifications and fun in discharging impulses
and feelings of all sorts: anger at an imagined oppressor, sexual fantasy
involving imagined scenes and circumstances, fancied mastery of a difficult
physical task. And there seems to be some form of pleasure associated
directly with the use of sensory imagery itself. Some of these factors in the
creative process arise from the same psychological needs and functions
operating in dreams and many can be traced to the factor of unearthing
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There is, as I stated in the introduction, a widespread belief that genius and
insanity are very closely allied, but this generalization has arisen not from
data but from dramatic cases. Creating does involve high degrees of anxiety
and it can intensify psychological illness, because the unconscious material
unearthed and the kind of insights achieved during the creative process are
not of the sort to produce permanent relief of symptoms. But in the main,
creating does not depend on psychological dysfunction or disease. As mirrorimage processes, schizophrenic and creative thinking are more similar to
each other than they are to ordinary forms of thinking; it may therefore be
easier in some ways for a person suffering from schizophrenia to shift into
using creative thought processes. This, however, can only occur at times
when anxiety is reduced enough to use these processes, times when the
schizophrenic person can tolerate the increased anxiety they produce.
Creating is such a socially valued activity that persons suffering from
schizophrenia may derive enough gratifying and protective reinforcement
merely from engaging in such activity. Working at creation in the arts or in
high level mathematics and science may provide enough social reinforcement
so that anxiety is reduced and logical and adaptive thought is consistently
possible. On the other hand, creation may only be attainable when anxiety is
reduced as a direct result of psychological equilibrium produced by other
factors in their lives. Or benefit may be derived merely from the structure
imposed on their thinking by the stringencies of intellectual activity itself.
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Under all these conditions, healthy functioning may lead to creative activity.
In the arts, it appears that certain historical epochs and certain types of
social factors have favored the incorporation into subject matter of the
preoccupations of psychologically disturbed people. Art concerned with
paranoid themes or with phantasmagoric content has been more popular at
certain periods than at others. In times of extreme social upheaval, such as in
the twentieth century, intense concerns about sexual identity, violence,
rebellion to authority, and family interrelationships come more to the fore in
art. Whether such concerns are matters of psychopathology is not for persons
living in the current milieu to decide.
Knowledge, fantasy, drive for discovery, intense motivation and
concentration, and pleasure and gratification characterize the creative
process. The creator formulates his task or problem under the influence of his
own unconscious interests and concerns. He suffers anxiety and unearths
some of the unconscious content connected to the initial task.
Psychopathology plays no causative role, except possibly in the choice of
theme and subject matter. Essentially, psychopathology must be overcome for
effective creating. Although differing mental states occur during the course of
the creative process, which may in some cases evolve over years or decades,
the creator is always under the influence of a deliberate desire to create. The
creative process begins in waking life and ends in waking life. Some aspects of
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the phenomenon may occur in dreams and in sleep, and primary process
thinking may play a role at certain points. It may help facilitate fantasy,
sensory imagery, and childhood associations. Dream content and themes may
develop and extend themes of waking thought and may often facilitate
mastery of technical tasks through representations allowing for mental
focusing, repetitive practice, and even for wish-fulfilling success. Such dream
content and experiences may be directly influential on waking life. Theme
progressions and developments such as the previously discussed
representation of the mother carrying the grandmother in the poet subject's
dream help promote creative work and transformations. However, despite
traditional beliefs that dreams manifestly reveal important themes, and
despite the practice of some artists to keep dream diaries and to use actual
dream content in their work, dream material does not have an intrinsic or a
direct function in creating. Starting from actual dreams or using dreams as
subject matter has no special advantages. Abstract thinking predominates
overall and two particular thought processes, janusian and homospatial
thinking, which are the mirror images of such dream processes as making all
opposites equivalent and transcending the ordinary boundaries of space,
function in reverse direction from the dream. These processes serve to arouse
the creator, and their results arouse those who perceive the creations as well.
That art and creativity stimulate and awaken us is both literally and
figuratively true.
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Notes
1 See Bartlett, "Dreams and Visions," Poems in Process, pp. 62-77.
2 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, esp. pp. 174-210.
3 A number of scientific discoveries have occurred at a point in the discoverer's life when he had
suffered an important setback or loss. Metchnikoff discovered phagocytosis after having
lost his position at the university (see M. Fried, "Metchnikoff's Contribution to
Pathology," Archives of Pathology 26 [1938] :700-16; Freud discovered the "key" to
dream interpretation after having a disappointing experience relating to one of his
patients (see E. H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis [New York: Norton, 1968], pp. 197204); Semmelweis discovered the cause of puerperal sepsis when his admired teacher
died of an infection contracted while performing an autopsy (see W. J. Sinclair,
Semmelweis: His Life and His Doctrine [Manchester: University Press, 1909], pp. 48-50).
4 See discussion of creativity in an idiot-savant in D. S. Viscott, "A Musical Idiot-Savant; a
Psychodynamic Study, and Some Speculations on the Creative Process," Psychiatry 33
(1970) :494515.
5 Some aestheticians, such as Benedetto Croce, propose that the creation occurs completely in an
artist's mind. This proposal, like claims by artists that a creation occurred all at once in a
dream, ignores the critical making and creating that occurs during writing, painting,
experimenting, etc.; see B. Croce, Aesthetic As Science of Expression and General Linguistic,
trans. D. Ainslie (London: Macmillan, 1909). Also, for data regarding the creator's
interest in discovery, see J. W. Getzels and M. Csikszentmihalyi, "The Creative Artist as an
Explorer," in Human Intelligence, ed. J. McV. Hunt (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction,
1972), pp. 182-92; J. W. Getzels and M. Csikszentmihalyi, The Creative Vision: A
Longitudinal Study of Problem Finding in Art (New York: Wiley, 1976).
6 Beardsley, "On the Creation of Art," p. 291.
7 Freud, "Creative Writers and Daydreaming," p. 150.
8 Ibid., pp. 152-53.
9 The psychological circumstances here can best be understood in the context of the functioning of
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JANUSIAN THINKING
Creativity is manifest in many and diverse types of human endeavor,
including all varieties of art, religion, philosophy, engineering, business
activities such as advertising and marketing, and, depending on the definition,
in internal psychological states and in commonplace activities such as
cooking, sports, and interpersonal interaction. If we keep the focus on
activities leading to tangible products consensually considered to be both
valuable and new, we can see that the type of thinking and activity involved in
poetry and science are, in many ways, paradigms of the creative process.
Poetic thinking and activity are paradigmatic of the thinking and activity in all
forms of literary creation, and of creation in the other arts, in religion, and in
philosophy. The type of thinking and activity involved in scientific creation is
paradigmatic for a wide range of disciplines and pursuits concerned with the
manipulation of physical reality and of so-called objective events. Therefore,
from the evidence so far regarding janusian thinking in poetry and science, it
could be assumed that this form of cognition plays a role in virtually all forms
of tangible creation. Rather than let the matter rest with such a sweeping
assumption, I shall now elucidate the particular operation of janusian
thinking in diverse types of creations. I shall cite instances where janusian
thinking is clearly manifest and instances where its presence can be strongly
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responsible for all change in the universe. Yin and yang are the regulators of
the four seasons and, by extension, all moral effects. In short, they are the
major factors underlying everything. The initial janusian notion of
simultaneous opposition or antithesis has been further elaborated into a
religious creation, a highly complex and detailed theology extending beyond
the core conception. Lao-tzu, the early Chinese mystic who supposedly
composed the Tao Te Ching or the Way of Life, the religious guide from which
the name of the religion was derived, described the Tao or Way derived from
these precepts as follows: "the Form of the Formless/ The Image of the
Imageless" (Tao Te Ching, chap. 14).4
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that, sat down and arduously developed his dialectical analysis and synthesis
of these states or factors. But, so far, nothing from Sartre affirms or denies
this.
However, documented material from at least two philosophers provides
evidence that janusian thinking played an early and germinating role in their
philosophical creations. In his autobiographical account, Ecce Homo,
Nietzsche describes the sequence of events leading to the creation of Thus
Spake Zarathustra, the work many consider his major accomplishment and
the one he called "the greatest gift that has ever been bestowed upon my
fellow men."9 That there was a specific germinating idea for the book is
attested by his following account:
During the . . . winter [1882-83], I was living not far from Genoa on that
pleasant peaceful Gulf of Rapallo, which cuts inland between Chiavari and
Cape Porto Fino. I was not in the best of health; the winter was cold and
exceptionally rainy; and my small albergo was so close to shore that the
noise of a rough sea rendered sleep impossible. These circumstances were
the very reverse of favorable; and yet, despite them, and as if in proof of
my theory that everything decisive arises as the result of opposition, it was
during this very winter and amid these unfavorable circumstances that my
Zarathustra was born. In the morning I used to start out in a southerly
direction on the glorious road to Zoagli, which rises up through a forest of
pines and gives one a view far out to sea. In the afternoon, whenever my
health permitted, I would walk around the whole bay from Saint
Margherita to beyond Porto Fino.... It was on these two roads that all
Zarathustra, and particularly Zarathustra himself as a type, came to me
perhaps I should rather sayinvaded me."10
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After this experience, Nietzsche wrote the first part of the book. In Ecce
Homo, he explains that a key aspect of the "Zarathustra type" idea was what
he called "great healthiness."11 This "great healthiness" was intrinsic to his
conception of the Superman, the conception he expounds throughout the
Zarathustra book. But the actual germinating idea for the book was even
more developed than "great healthiness"; it was a formulation of the
complete "Zarathustra himself as a type." This complete "type" he presents as
follows:
The Zarathustra type ... who to an unprecedented extent says no, and acts
no, in reference to all to which man has hitherto said yes, nevertheless
remain[s] the opposite of a no-saying spirit. . . . He who bears destiny's
heaviest burden, whose life-task is a fatality, yet [is] the lightest and the
most transcendental of spirits for Zarathustra is a dancer. . . . He who has
the hardest and most terrible insight into reality, and who has thought the
most "abysmal thoughts" nevertheless find[s] in these things no objections
to existence, or to its eternal recurrence. . . . On the contrary he finds
reasons for being himself the everlasting Yea to all things, "the tremendous
and unlimited saying of Yea and Amen."12
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on the arts and on scores of young people in the United States. McLuhan's
core concept, which he elaborated into a challenge to traditional and what he
called "linear" modes of art and thinking, was formulated in the phrase "the
medium is the message." This phrase is a clear example of simultaneous
antithesis: taking the traditionally accepted phrase, "the content is the
message," McLuhan substituted the opposite-meaning word "medium" for
"content." Because the structure of the phrase still invokes the traditional
idea, opposites are asserted simultaneously. McLuhan has it both ways.
Visual Arts
Modern art, especially surrealism, dadaism, and many forms of
expressionism, is replete with images, forms, and symbols conveying
simultaneous opposition and antithesis. Some outstanding examples are seen
in the accompanying figures (figs. 6-12). In the painting Nature Morte Vivante,
1956 (fig. 6), Salvador Dali, one of the leading surrealists, depicts both rest
and motion simultaneously. The fruit dish, for instance, is represented twice,
one image is in twirling motion and its twin is completely motionless. The
apple is doubly represented as both plummeting and suspended totally
motionless in air. Ordinary objects of a still life painting, the glass, the bottle,
and the knife, are surprisingly represented as falling, while the ordinarily
highly mobile meteor and even the bird are suspended in midair and
motionless. The longer one looks at this painting, the more elements of
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Fig. 6.
Salvador Dali. Nature Morte Vivante, 1956. Motion and rest are depicted
simultaneously: the apple is still and plummeting; the bird is motionless,
while the objects move. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. A. Reynolds Morse,
Salvador Dali Museum, Cleveland (Beachwood), Ohio.
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Fig. 7.
Rene Magritte. Personal Values, 1952. Numerous reversals of size are
visualized simultaneously. Private collection, New York. copyright ADAGP,
Paris, 1979.
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Fig. 8.
Marc Chagall. Bouquet of the Lovers, 1926. Numerous size reversals:
people larger than houses, flowers larger than people, violin larger than
house. copyright ADAGP, Paris, 1979.
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Fig. 9.
Max Ernst. Aquis Submersus, 1919. Simultaneous oppositions and
reversals of content and form are depicted. The Stdelsches Kunstinstituts
und Stdtische Galerie, Frankfurt.
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shown in figure 14. Because Dali has called attention to the double image in
this picture by reporting that he got the idea from the postcard and from
Picasso's faces, some have considered it a "trick" painting. Its artistic success,
however, does not depend on its being a trick image but on its expressive
qualities. If this is understood, and acceptable, we can trace the steps in the
development of this effect. Seeing the postcard picture of figure 14, Dali drew
the sketch of figure 15 before doing the painting in figure 13. The overall
painting consists of the hut turned into a wild half face conveying fear and
suspicion, a strange and moving paranoiac face. How did Dali make this
transformation? The sketch in figure 15 shows that Dali was interested in,
and he reproduced, the tranquil qualities of the village scene on the postcard.
By softening the lines of the picture, he actually intensified the sense of peace
and tranquility. In order to conceive the final painting, therefore, it was
necessary for him to formulate and/or to visualize both the wild face and the
tranquil scene simultaneously. He also had to be able to conceptualize the hut
shape both as horizontal in the original scene and as vertical in his ultimate
plan. Although the final painting has various types of dreamlike or symbolic
qualities, and the simultaneous antithesis I described are not immediately
apparent, they intrinsically contribute to the expressive quality of the
painting.
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Fig. 10.
Marc Chagall. I and the Village, 1911. Oil on canvas, 6'3 5/8" x 59 5/8".
Simultaneous oppositions of position (man and woman), and size (animals
and people). Collection, the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon
Guggenheim Fund.
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Fig. 11.
Marc Chagall. Homage to Apollinaire, 1911-13. Simultaneous sexual
opposites and opposite spatial orientations. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
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Fig. 12.
Pierre Molinier. The Paradise Flower. A woman's body is seen from
opposite sides simultaneously. Private collection.
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Fig. 13.
Salvador Dali. Paranoiac Face, 1934-35. c by ADAGP, Paris, 1979.
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Fig. 14.
Postcard photograph on which Dali based his painting, Paranoiac Face.
Salvador Dali, "Objets surralistes," Le Surralisme [no. 5].
Fig. 15.
Dali's preliminary sketch for Paranoiac Face. The drawing is almost
identical to the postcard photograph, except that it is softer. Salvador Dali,
"Objets surralistes," Le Surralisme [no. 5].
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One day, in 1919, being in wet weather at a seaside inn, I was struck by . . .
the pages of an illustrated catalogue. . . . It was a catalogue of objects for
anthropological,
microscopic,
psychological,
mineralogical
and
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sculpture I understand that art which operates by taking away. That art which
operates by laying on is similar to painting."21 In case the janusian
formulation here is not immediately apparent or, in the event that its impact
has been dulled by frequent quoting in other contexts, I will elaborate: on first
consideration, it would appear that this eminent creator is merely drawing a
distinction between the two artistic modes on the basis of the physical
operations involved in each. Hence, working primarily in marble as he did, he
characteristically cut, chiseled, and chipped away at the hard, inert stone.
Contrariwise, when painting he applied material to a surface and he therefore
added pigments and other elements lying near at hand. So much for a literal
interpretation of Michelangelo's remark. But, considering the conceptual
nature of the artist's activity, the circumstance in both cases is quite the
reverse. The sculptor gives contour and form to the inert and "empty" block
of stone; though physically he takes away, he surely adds and fills the space in
a conceptual and psychological sense. The painter, on the other hand, does
not merely add to and thereby fill up the surface of a canvas or wall; he
definitely organizes the surface space. In organizing, one of the primary
operations of painting is to produce surface areas that appear empty,
translucent, or even transparent by means of the very device of adding
pigments and other elements. Michelangelo in fact never produced sculptured
or contoured paintings such as those produced in recent times. Surely, then,
this Renaissance master indicated a janusian conception of the general spatial
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relationships in his creative activity: taking away operated at the same time
as forming in sculpture, and adding on operated while maintaining a flat
surface in painting. For Michelangelo, space was both positive and negative
simultaneously.
The modern painter Josef Albers described the simultaneous conception
of positive and negative space even more directly in his following remarks in
1962 in an interview with Brian O'Doherty, then art critic for the New York
Times:
If I come to my own working . . . my sport is to see between two lines
something happening. . . . There is one finger. And this is one finger. One
finger and one finger are two fingers. But then I say this . . . width . . . in
between is the same, and I can say [Interviewer: "Becomes a positive
area."] one and one is three. And that's only permitted in art. . . . But I go
further. In art, one and one is four. That's exciting.22
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With respect to the conception of entities that are both moving and
stationary at the same time, the Bauhaus artist Paul Klee used the term
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Fig. 16.
From Paul Wittenborn Art Books, Inc., 1961) illustrating his conception of
"dynamic repose."
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and that which is solid becomes vacant. Thus the entire picture will be full
of the life rhythm.29
Fig. 17.
Paul Klee's principles of endotopic and exotopic drawing. A. Linear figures
with intersections. B. Squares and corners. 1, Square, endotopic treatment.
2, Square, exotopic treatment. 3, Square, treated as a body without
reference to inside or outside. 4, Corner, endotopic treatment. 5, Corner,
exotopic treatment. Wittenborn Art Books, Inc.
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Fig. 18.
Interpenetrationsimultaneous treatment of inside and outside. From
Klee, The Thinking Eye (New York: Wittenborn Art Books, Inc., 1961).
The color of a painting is not red, white, green or purple as ordinarily
conceived. It is the shade seen between lightness and darkness. He who
grasps this idea will reveal through his brush the Nature of things; the
distance will be demarcated, the spirit will be set forth, and the scenery
and the objects will be clear and beautiful. The reverberation of the life
breath actually depends upon the proper manner of applying the inkwash, which gives the picture great luminosity.30
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Fig. 19A
Paintings derived from interpenetration. Paul Klee. Houses at Crossroads,
1929. "A conflict arises between endo- and exotopic. Then we have a sort
of mesh of forms" (Klee). "The simultaneous treatment of inside and
outside points to the concept of simultaneity, i.e., of contacts between
many dimensions" (Spiller, ed.).
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Fig. 19B.
Paintings derived from interpenetration. Paul Klee. Landscapelyphysiognomic, 1923. From Klee, The Thinking Eye (New York: Wittenborn
Art Books, Inc., 1961).
As for color, Albers, whose major artistic focus was on color, presented
the following formulation of use of color in the creative process:
With a middle mixture [of colors] all boundaries are equally soft or hard.
As a consequence, a middle mixture appears frontal, as a color by itself.
This is comparable to the reading of any symmetrical order and the middle
mixture will behave unspatially, unless its own shape, or surrounding
shapes, decides differently.
Such a study, or a similar recognition, in my opinion led Cezanne to his
unique and new articulation in painting. He was the first to develop color
areas which produce both distinct and indistinct endingsareas
connected and unconnectedareas with and without boundariesas a
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As a leader of the modern school of hard edge painting and the painter
of an honored series of variations on the theme Homage to the Square,33
others have certainly considered Albers highly creative indeed. There is
evidence that creative artists before Albers also thought of color use in terms
of simultaneous opposition, although in somewhat different terms. The
postimpressionist Vincent van Gogh wrote the following to his brother Theo:
. . . the study of color. I am always in hope of making a discovery there, to
express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors,
their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibration of kindred
tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone
against a somber background. [Italics added]34
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Fig. 20.
The pigment is identical for all grays, the apparent differences depend on
simultaneous contrast. From John F. A. Taylor, Design and Expression in
the Visual Arts (New York: Dover Publications, 1964).
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types and from different periods have indicated such a process in varying
ways. John Constable, the English naturalist landscape painter of the early
nineteenth century, described his orientation to painting old mills and mill
dams in a letter to his closest friend, Reverend Fisher, by emphasizing the
following: "the sound of water escaping from . . . old rotten planks, slimy
posts, and brickwork, I love such things. . . . As long as I do paint, I shall never
cease to paint such places."37
That Constable was thinking of simultaneously opposing qualities of
lively running water and decaying materials in such scenes is indicated by his
referring to the sound rather than the sight of water stimulating his painting.
The sound of water escaping surely suggests life, freshness, and activity in
antithesis to stationary and decaying rot and slime. It is also supported by a
comment relative to his perspective that he made in another context: "It is
remarkable," he said in an 1836 talk to the Royal Institution, "how nearly, in
all things, opposite extremes are allied."38
Odilon Redon, a postimpressionist symbolist painter of the late
nineteenth century, described his orientation to his subject matter as follows:
"My whole originality . . . consists in having made improbable beings live
humanly according to the laws of the probable, by as far as possible putting
the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible."39
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paintings? Moreover, is it not likely that he also conceived and visualized the
antithetical effect of vibrant, glistening dark areas full of swirling motion
along with intricately detailed unglistening though intensely lighted other
ones? (See fig. 21.) Do not his paintings of dead persons and animals reveal a
conception juxtaposing death with vibrant living forms and images? (See fig.
22.)
I call especial attention to another old master, Leonardo da Vinci. Not
only are his writings replete with references to reversals, oppositions, and
antitheses, in both his artistic and scientific formulations,41 but it is of
particular note that he adopted the procedure of carrying out all his writings
in mirror-image reversed script. For an interesting instance of manifest
simultaneous opposition, note his drawing of pleasure and pain in figure 23
and compare it to Chagall's Homage to Apollinaire discussed earlier (fig.
11).42 More particularly, however, I call attention to his painting Mona Lisa
(fig. 24). Completed sometime between 1503 and 1505, this painting has been
considered one of the great works in history. A cardinal feature of interest in
it has been the enigmatic quality of the lady's smile. In a later chapter (chap.
10) I shall discuss some general features of the painting that contribute to this
enigmatic quality. Here, I want to emphasize the particularly apt terms used
by outstanding art critics to describe this smile: both "good and wicked," as
well as both "cruel" and "compassionate;"43 "smile of the Saints at Rheims"
and "worldly, watchful and self-satisfied;"44 showing both "modesty and a
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Fig. 21.
Rembrandt van Rijn's use of extremes of light and darkness is shown in
these paintings. His famous Night Watch was not included here because,
although it shows the same effect, some controversy exists about
subsequent darkening of the oils. A. The Man with the Golden Helmet,
1652. Gemldegalerie, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin
(West). Photo Jrg P. Anders. B. Jeremiah, 1630. Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam.
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Fig. 22.
This fragment from Rembrandt's The Anatomical Lesson of Doctor Joan
Deyman, 1656, illustrates the simultaneous antithesis of death and life.
Although Rembrandt was commissioned to do a portrait of the doctor, his
graphic depiction of death was surely his own intentional conception.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
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Fig. 23.
Leonardo da Vinci, Sketch. A drawing of pleasure and pain as
simultaneously opposed. The intermingling and reversals of the arms
emphasize the simultaneous opposition. Oxford, Collection of the
Governing Body of Christ Church.
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case of "Jeremiah" is almost pudgy and formless. But even more important
than this contrast are the oppositions within the figures themselves. While
head and limbs, and especially the powerful hands, suggest tremendous,
superhuman energy and strength, the inward expression and deep
contemplation proclaim the strength of the soul that keeps these energies
from unfolding. [Italics added]46
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Fig. 24.
Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa, 1503. The smile demonstrates
simultaneously antithetical qualities. Louvre, Paris. Photo Giraudon.
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Fig. 25.
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Jeremiah (from the ceiling fresco of the Sistine
Chapel, Vatican), 1508-10. The figure shows oppositions of outer strength
and inner control.
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plain. . . . Light forms are cunningly opposed to dark; the dark bowl held by
the nude against the sky, the rabbits behind the seated figure as a point of
light against dark ground. [Italics added]47
Fig. 26.
Titian Vecellio. Sacred and Profane Love (Villa Borghese, Rome), 1515-16.
Light forms are simultaneously opposed to dark.
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prove that janusian thinking operated during the creation of the particular
work. However, they do suggest that diverse types of art works and artistic
effects can result from this type of thinking, regardless of whether the style is
naturalistic and representational, symbolic, romantic, impressionistic or
expressionistic, or one of the particular modern modes. When simultaneous
oppositions appear manifestly in completed works of art, they may
sometimes engender a sense of balance and harmony as described in the
Titian painting by Gaunt or they may engender a sense of tension and conflict,
or both qualities may coexist. For the creator himself, formulating
simultaneous opposition and antithesis early in the creative process, as is
usually the case, there always is tension and contradiction in the initial
conception.
I return now to direct examination of the creative process. A rarely
obtainable complete documentation of the successive stages of development
of a great masterpiece by Pablo Picasso provides a striking illustration of the
significant role of janusian thinking in artistic creation. It further clarifies how
janusian thinking dictates both form and content during the creative process.
Although Picasso himself insisted that important insights into the creative
process could be gained from studying the "metamorphoses" of a painting,49
he apparently preserved few of his planning and compositional sketches.
Fortunately, most if not all of the sketches for one of his greatest works,
Guernica, are available, and my illustration comes from these.50
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Fig. 27.
El Greco. View of Toledo, ca. 1610. Light edges and dark planes are
juxtaposed and produce the effect of a negative and a positive
simultaneously. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of
Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. The H. O. Havemeyer Collection.
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Fig. 28.
Pablo Picasso. Guernica. 1937. Oil on canvas 11 5 X 25 5 .
Collection, the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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Fig. 29.
Pablo Picasso. Composition study, 1937. Pencil on blue paper, 8 x 10
5/8. Picasso's first sketch for the Guernica mural. Collection, the Museum
of Modern Art, New York.
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element or position and appears designed to pull the vertical and horizontal
dimensions together.51
In some ways, this earliest drawing appears quite conventional. At first
glance, it could suggest a rather straightforward, almost realistic, scene
containing animals and a single clearly drawn human being. We can discern
the rather odd placement of a bird on the bull's back and, seeing the animal
hoof in the air, we can sense something of the use of animals as symbols and
the full-blown scene of carnage in the final painting. The human being holding
the lamp is depicted with great dynamic energy even at this phase, and to a
casual glance the figure seems to be in a rather conventional position of
looking out of a window at the slightly unusual and slightly disturbing scene.
But now we must look closer. Careful examination of the drawing
reveals an unusual disparity in the spatial configuration of this figure, and of
the window, and of the wall. For one thing, the window is rather highly placed
for the ground floor of the house and the positioning of the figure is almost
impossibleat a minimum, excessively awkwardfor standing and looking
out. Furthermore, a careful examination of the lines drawn to represent the
corner of the house near the figure reveals a decided duplexity in their
deployment: they could either be seen as depicting an outside corner of a
house or the inside corner of a room within a house, in the same location! In
case these effects are thought to be accidental or unintentional, a quick
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comparison with the final painting, in figure 28, reveals that this same human
being (a woman) holding the lamp is not only leaning out the window to view
the animals and the remaining elements in the scene, but she also appears to
be coming in through the same window from outside. She is looking in at the
scene from a position ordinarily associated with looking outside. Widespread
carnage and chaos ordinarily associated with an outside scene such as a
street or battlefield are depicted as compressed within a room, according to
this conception, and the woman at the window appears to be looking both
inside and outside simultaneously.
Those who have not followed my exposition up to this pointfor
instance, those who immediately saw the human being looking into the room
may have been influenced by strong familiarity with the final painting. In
other words, remembering the timbers in the ceiling and the sense of the
person looking into a room in the final painting, one may not experience
surprise about the placement appearing in the sketch. Nevertheless, the
simultaneously antithetical spatial positions are clearly manifest in the spare
scene depicted at that initial phase. That the initial conception of
simultaneous antithesis guided
Picasso's further work and elaboration is seen in his also depicting the
light in the center of the room in the completed mural as both a light bulb and
a blazing sun at the same time. Also, the timbered ceiling of the inside of a
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room has the wide expansive quality of an outside sky. The resulting sense of
massive carnage and chaos occurring inside a house or inside a room
contributes to the mural's tremendous emotional power. And the
simultaneous suggestion of carnage and chaos occurring in the more usual
outside location under sun and sky further broadens the visual and emotional
impact.
As with many other manifestations of janusian thinking described,
Picasso's conception was formulated early in the creative process and was
modified and elaborated in later stages. Some of his later composition
sketches do not contain this figure at the window, and she appears in an
altered shape in the final mural. More spiritual and ethereal there than in
many of the sketches, the contradictory quality of her physical position
became somewhat softened. Many other figures were also added along the
way and alternative conceptions of these figures appear in several sketches.
In successive formulations, overall composition and figure placement
changed several times. Generally, however, the sense of chaos in a confined
space was increasingly enhanced and the janusian conception was integrated
in various ways into the final product. The lines changing the center light to
both bulb and sun simultaneously were, interestingly, only clearly added
when the mural was virtually finished.52
Picasso's janusian conception of a scene of destruction and chaos
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wall simultaneously.
That janusian thinking pervades the creativity of architecture is
nowhere better indicated than in the term used to describe his work by an
unquestionably creative architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. In describing the form
of architecture he introduced and developed into a high art, organic
architecture, he called it an "affirmative negation," a development that
simultaneously negated and affirmed architectural values. "The fruitful
affirmative negation," he said, "[was] made by Organic Architecture in three
dimensions."54
Music
Speaking of the possibility of composing music on the basis of timbre
rather than on the traditional basis of pitch, Arnold Schoenberg said, "All this
seems a fantasy of the future, which it probably is. Yet I am firmly convinced
that it can be realized. I am convinced that [it] would dramatically increase
the sensual, intellectual and soul pleasures which art is capable of rendering. I
also believe that [it] would bring us closer to the realm which is mirrored for
us in dreams."55
Though Schoenberg refers to a realm mirrored in dreams with
particular respect to his interest in using timbre, it is clear he is describing
what is for him a general principle of musical creation. As a composer whose
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influence on modern music has been wide sweeping and profound, and as a
composer who has been unusually introspective about the nature of the
creative process in music, Schoenberg's comment is of special interest. It
leads us to expect that the mirror-image processes of dreaming might play a
significant role in musical creativity. And Hans Mersmann, the German
aesthetician, gives the suggestion greater weight and specificity with the
following observation: "The possibility of expressing simultaneous opposition
leads to the finest possibilities of expression, absolutely, leads to a place
where music reaches far beyond the limits of the other arts. The significance
of such tension grows when there are not only elements but formed forces
which stand in opposition to each other."56
Mersmann's observation is not an isolated one; among others, music
aestheticians Suzanne Langer and Gordon Epperson have cited it with
approval and assent.57 And Leonard Bernstein, the composer, conductor, and
aesthetician, recently emphasized the importance of what he called ambiguity
in music, an effect derivedaccording to his explanationfrom simultaneous
oppositions of factors such as diatonic and chromatic systems, tonality and
atonality.58
Opposition and simultaneous opposition in music are both purer and
more relative than in the other arts. As music has less definable and less
referential content than literature or painting, polarities are delineated
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Fig. 30.
Simultaneous antithesis of chromaticism and diatonicism in Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart's G Minor Symphony (as described by Leonard
Bernstein). Reprinted by permission of the author and publishers from
The Unanswered Question by Leonard Bernstein (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press). Copyright c 1976 by Leonard Bernstein.
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of attraction which make up every musical organism and which are bound
up with its psychology. . . .
In view of the fact that our poles of attraction are no longer within the
closed system which was the diatonic system, we can bring the poles
together without being compelled to conform to the exigencies of tonality.
For we no longer believe in the absolute value of the major-minor system
based on the entity which musicologists call the c-scale. [Italics added]72
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which they refer so that the overall sequence of events and the composer's
own point about the material will be easier to follow. All the omitted phrases
are designated by letter in the quotation and are produced in their entirety
with the corresponding letter and musical notation indicated in the
accompanying figure on the facing page (fig. 31). The complete text, therefore,
can be readily reconstructed by reposing the phrases into their original
context.
Let me give a brief example from my own work. The first idea that came to
me for my First Piano Sonata, begun in 1927, was in the form of a complex
chord . . . [fig. 31a]. This chord rang through my ear almost obsessively one
day as I was walking in Pisa, Italy. The next day, or, in other words, when I
sat down to work on the piece, I wrote the first phrase of the Allegro; ...
[fig. 31b], Later it became clear to me that the motif must be preceded by
an introduction, and the melody . . . [fig. 31c] with which the Sonata begins,
immediately suggested itself, quite without conscious thought on my part.
A few days later the original complex chord came back to my ear, again
almost obsessively; I found myself continuing it in my mind, and only then
made the discovery . . . [fig. 3Id] that the germ of the key relationship on
which the first two movements of the Sonata were based were already
implicit in the chordal idea with which the musical train of thought
which eventually took shape in the completed Sonatahad started.
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Fig. 31.
Roger Sessions's creation of his First Piano Sonata. Reprinted by
permission of Princeton University Press from The Musical Experience of
Composer, Performer, Listener, by Roger Sessions (copyright 1950 by
Princeton University Press, Princeton Paperback, 1971). Copyright 1931
by B. Schott's Shne, Mainz. Copyright renewed. All rights for the U.S.A.
and Mexico controlled by European American Music Distributors
Corporation. Used by permission.
I point out these things in order to throw some light on some of the ways
in which a composer's mind, his creative musical mind, that is, works; and
more especially to illustrate the nature of the musical idea as I have
defined it. Once more, I am not implying that the so-called principle
"themes" of a given piece of music are not musical ideas or, in most cases,
the most important formative ideas of the work. It is obvious that they
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The main reason I have truncated the quotation should now be clear.
Here, in Sessions's description, is the familiar sequence of a germinal idea,
followed by some elaboration, and then a return to the original idea
frequently encountered in the creative process. It is also a familiar description
of the creator's finding further possibilities on returning to his original idea.
Illustrated again is the importance of a single idea, an idea that is not
necessarily the very first one, nor is it necessarily directly manifest in the
completed work. As Sessions says, the important idea may or may not be the
major theme or other fully developed motif in the work.
Let us then look closely at the particular germinal musical idea
described here; see fig. 31a. Carefully comparing the composer's verbal
description of "a complex chord preceded by a sharp but heavy upbeat" with
the actual musical notation recorded reveals an important musical
discrepancy and an apparent contradiction. Although the composer verbally
says that the upbeat precedes the complex chord, his notation indicates that
the chord in fact sounds at the same time as the upbeat. Since the chord
continues to sound in the downbeat of the next measure, the structure is of an
upbeat simultaneous with a downbeat, a simultaneous opposition or
antithesis. It must be emphasized that this is no typesetter's error nor a
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the myriad unformed random sounds in our environment although they are
constantly with us.
The creative composer pays significant attention to this, the "negative"
aspect of auditory experience. This does not mean that he necessarily listens
to or brings noise into focus during the process of composing, though many
composers have been known to derive inspiration from listening to
apparently random sounds in their environment. For example, Beethoven
supposedly got his initial ideas for the Pastoral Symphony while listening to
the sounds of a brook;75 Weber composed music while listening to the wheels
of his carriage,76 the dadaist composers, as is well known, attempted to base
their music on the sounds of cities and machines. Listening to the negative
aspect specifically means that creative composers are aware, in their mental
"inner ears," of the random sounds related to or accompanying the formed
elements they are constructing. This is not merely an organizing of random
sounds. Composers are aware of random or negative elements at the same
time as they conceive and hear the formed elements. This is borne out by the
presence of a constant structural element in great music demonstrated fairly
conclusively by the musicologist Leonard Meyer.77 Meyer has shown that an
invariable factor in such music, in all cultures and periods in history, has been
the presence of elements producing unexpected effects. These elements
"weaken" the shape or expected progression of a musical sequence, and they
produce a momentary sense bordering on chaos and on attendant conflict and
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I have made about the composer attending to both positive and negative
formed and randomaspects simultaneously operates in the reverse
direction. Confronted with random sound from an electronic or other source,
the listener brings formed patterns, timbres, etc., into mind which he
conceives and hears in his mental inner ear at the same time as he hears the
random sounds. Though he may at times impose a form or organization onto
the random sounds, just as obversely the creative composer imposes random
elements onto formed sequences, the overall sense of the experience is one of
hearing random and formed elements separately and simultaneously.
Sometimes a sense of unification occurs.
The listening experience is, however, not fully analogous to the
experience of the creative composer. The composer both elaborates and
transforms these janusian perceptions and cognitions within his musical
work, but the listener to random music must, unless he has the capacity for
inner elaboration (unless he is himself a creative composer), be restricted to
solely having the experience of simultaneous antithesis. This type of janusian
cognition is a portion but not the whole of the musical creation process.
Literature
That paradox, opposition, and antithesis are intrinsic to literary
structure and to literary value and appeal has been postulated, argued, and
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After this indecision, the key idea for the novel, as Conrad reported it,
came at the following point: "when it dawned upon me that the purloiner of
the treasure need not necessarily be a confirmed rogue, that he could be even
a man of character." The turning point idea of the criminal as rascal or rogue
and man of character together led to a specific elaboration of a "twilight" land
of good and evil simultaneously and the drive to write the novel:
. . . it was only then that I had the first vision of a twilight country which
was to become the province of Sulaco, with its high, shadowy Sierra and its
misty campo for mute witnesses of events flowing from the passions of
men short-sighted in good and evil.
Such are in very truth the obscure origins of Nostromothe book. From
that moment, I suppose it had to be.81
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had been allowed to become incomes for idle Church dignitaries. . . . The
second evil was its very opposite. . . . I had . . . often been angered by the
undeserved severity of the newspapers toward the recipients of such
incomes, who could hardly be considered to be the chief sinners in the
matter.82
The novel Woolf struggled with here eventually became The Waves, and
a central image of the simultaneous dying and renewal of the plant, reflected
through and by the thinking mind and the stream of consciousness of the
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human skin. They were, for him, both weapons and sensual objects at the
same time. This led to a conception of the simultaneous operation of sex
and violence in the world, and he wrote a poem elaborating this theme.
This same poet thought of writing a poem about marathon racing; a line
connoting rest simultaneous with running and with motion instigated the
poem.
Experimental Studies
Shifting away from evidence derived from research interviews and
published documents, I shall outline some results of controlled
experimentation which I have reported in some detail elsewhere.88 Although
the following experiments were performed with creative students and
businessmen, preliminary experiments with the highly creative writers and
scientists in my interview studies, carried out in a manner similar to that
described here, have yielded similar results.
In the following experiments I used a word association testing
procedure to assess a tendency toward janusian thinking in creative subjects.
Two major considerations were involved. First, as I will clarify further in the
chapter to follow, verbal opposition tends to be clearer and more specific
than opposition in any other mode. Opposition between or among words is
easier to define and to assess than other types of oppositional relationship.
On classical word association tests, opposite word responses have
traditionally been recognized and have regularly been scored and calculated
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was actively encouraged to give the first word response that came to his mind
and, by and large, all subjects did. A tendency to respond with opposite
words, therefore, would directly reflect a tendency to associate opposites in
thought. Moreover, precise timing of word association response provided an
opportunity to compare the speed of opposite responding to other types of
response. Giving opposite word responses rapidly, more rapidly than other
types of responses, therefore, would reflect a tendency to rapid opposite
associates in thinking.
As rapid associating of opposites would be expected to be a factor in
janusian thinking, the experimental hypothesis was that subjects who were
more creative would manifest a greater tendency toward rapid opposite
response than less creative ones. Responses to the questionnaire served to
distinguish two subject groups: one that was high in creative potential or
accomplishment and another that was low. Evidence of independent initiative
and early success in the creative arts or in science (included later as a
criterion) classified a subject as a high creative and absence of such evidence
led to classification as low creative. In previous research, this means of
classifying subjects on the basis of responses to this questionnaire showed a
significant correlation with independent creativity ratings by teachers and
peers as well as subjects' ratings of their own creativity.94 Specific evidence
that the discriminating factor was creativity rather than scholastic aptitude
was derived from assessing scores on the College Entrance Examination
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Aptitude Test. The two subject groups identified as high and low creative did
not differ significantly on intelligence and aptitude as measured by that test (t
= 0.34, df = 111).
All word association responses of all subjects were scored according to
whether they were opposites on the basis of criteria for opposite response
derived by the original experimenters, Carroll et al. Using an empirical
consensual approach to classification, these investigators identified a list of
words classified as opposite responses by four out of five experimenters and
forty-two other judges. This list of responses classified as opposites appears
in the column labelled "Opposite" on table 1.
Another type of scoring of responses was also necessary because of a
special type of problem with the word stimuli from the standard KentRosanoff list. As might be obvious, even to someone unfamiliar with word
association, Kent-Rosanoff words are simple commonly used ones and
opposite responses to these word stimuli are themselves also simple common
words. Subjects might respond with opposites merely because their
vocabulary is limited or because the words are frequently connected in
common discourse. In order, therefore, to distinguish opposite responding
from a tendency to give common or popular responses, it was necessary to
score, as did Carroll and his collaborators, subjects' responses that
correspond to those most commonly given on standard word association
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Opposite
Primary
table
- - -
chair*
dark
light
light
music
- - -
sound*
sickness
health
health
man
woman
woman
deep
shallow
shallow
soft
hard
hard
eating
- - -
food*
mountain
valley
hill*
house
- - -
home*
black
white
white
mutton
- - -
sheep*
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comfort
- - -
chair*
hand
- - -
foot*
/ long
tall
short
\ tall
fruit
- - -
apple*
butterfly
- - -
moth*
smooth
rough
rough
command
- - -
order*
/ sour
sour
sweet
\ bitter
whistle
- - -
train*
woman
man
man
/ hot
hot
cold
\ warm
/ fast
fast
slow
\ rapid
wish
- - -
want*
river
- - -
water*
white
black
black
beautiful
ugly
girl*
window
- - -
glass*
rough
smooth
smooth
citizen
- - -
man*
foot
- - -
shoe*
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spider
- - -
web*
needle
- - -
thread*
red
- - -
white*
sleep
- - -
bed*
anger
- - -
mad*
carpet
- - -
rug*
girl
boy
boy
high
low
low
working
loafing
hard*
sour
sweet
sweet
earth
- - -
dirt*
trouble
- - -
bad*
soldier
- - -
man*
cabbage
- - -
vegetable*
hard
soft
soft
eagle
- - -
bird*
stomach
- - -
food*
stem
- - -
flower*
lamp
- - -
light*
dream
- - -
sleep*
yellow
- - -
color*
bread
- - -
butter*
justice
injustice
law*
boy
girl
girl
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health
sickness
sickness
/ dark
dark
light
\ heavy
bible
- - -
God*
memory
- - -
mind*
sheep
- - -
wool*
bath
- - -
clean*
cottage
- - -
house*
swift
slow
fast*
blue
- - -
sky*
hungry
full
food*
priest
- - -
church*
ocean
- - -
water*
head
- - -
hair*
stove
- - -
heat*
long
short
short
religion
- - -
God*
whiskey
- - -
drink*
child
- - -
baby*
bitter
sweet
sweet
hammer
- - -
nail*
thirsty
- - -
water*
city
- - -
town*
/ round
round
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square
\ circle
butter
- - -
bread*
doctor
- - -
nurse*
loud
soft
soft
thief
- - -
steal*
lion
- - -
tiger*
joy
sorrow
happy*
bed
- - -
sleep*
heavy
light
light
tobacco
- - -
smoke*
baby
- - -
cry*
quiet
noisy
loud*
moon
- - -
star*
scissors
- - -
star*
green
- - -
grass*
salt
- - -
pepper*
street
- - -
road*
king
- - -
queen*
cheese
- - -
mouse*
blossom
- - -
flowers*
afraid
- - -
scared*
NOTE: Although several stimuli have clear opposite responses not givene.g.comfort/discomfort; citizen/alien; sleep/wake; afraid/courageous;-only
the empirically determined opposites above (Carroll et al.) were scored.
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*Nonopposite primaries.
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High (n = 63)
Low (n = 50)
Stimuli
M%
SD
M%
SD
Opposites
34
50.77
26.80
40.77
23.66
Nonopposite primaries
65
25.75
18.83
26.57
19.27
Type of Score
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Low
(n = 63)
(n = 50)
No. of
M avg.
Response
M avg.
Response
Stimuli
Time (sec) SD
Time (sec) SD
Opposites
34
1.24 .28
1.41 .37
Nonopposite
primaries
65
1.53 .39
1.62 .48
Type of Score
Note: M avg. Response Time (sec) mean of average times of response in seconds.
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words or even unusual subject matter but it requires a special ability to mold
and structure words and subject matter, whether common or extraordinary.
Giving common words and responses in this experiment resulted from the
subjects' showing both the oppositional structure and the sometimes
somewhat ordinary content of their thinking. Some degree of aversion to the
common and popular does, of course, prevail among creative people, and
these subjects were no exception. During the experiment, several subjects
expressed dismay at their own tendencies to give plain and inelegant
opposites as responses. Nevertheless these responses reflected the subjects'
thinking tendency; every effort had been made to discourage and eliminate
any distorting or biasing factors. The testers obscured the purpose of the
experiment, allayed the subjects' anxieties, corrected misconceptions, and
emphasized the importance of responding with the very first word that came
to mind. Paper and pencil word association tests group-administered by
psycholinguists do not provide for such safeguards and controls and
therefore the connection between opposite responding and creativity would
have been obscured with such techniques.
The result most pertinent to janusian thinking is that the findings
involved not merely the tendency to respond with opposites but also the
speed of opposite response. Janusian thinking is not merely a matter of
conceiving opposites, opposite words, or opposite and antithetical ideas,- it is
the simultaneous conception of any or all of these. The more creative subjects
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gave opposite responses considerably more rapidly than the less creative
ones even though the two groups were equal in intelligence and aptitude,
factors which might have affected speed of response. And the creative
subjects' speed of response was rapid enough to indicate the possibility of
simultaneous conception of opposites in thought. Here, some obstacle or a
reverse result might actually have been expected. Given a reluctance of
creative people to respond in popular ways, some subjects might have
hesitated before reporting some of their popular opposite responses.97
As some internal guarding and aversion to giving opposites must have
occurred despite our safeguards and techniques, the emergence of the rapid
opposite response pattern is rather influential evidence for the connection
between janusian thinking and creativity. Although word association
response is primarily indicative of associational rather than directed patterns
of thoughtword association is not a creative task and not a manifestation of
the directed thought processes involved in producing a creationthe strong
associational pathways, demonstrated in this experiment, very likely serve to
set the stage for the active positing of simultaneous opposition or antithesis
in the creative process. As the more creative subjects characteristically gave
rapid opposite responses to the standard word association list, even though
there may have been some aversion to do so, the association patterns would
seem to be rather powerful and persistent. Rather than responding rapidly
with opposites because several are simple, popular words (N.B.: all of the
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nonopposite primaries are simple and popular), of course, the more creative
subjects respond in this fashion because of the pattern of their thought
processes.
In another experiment carried out in an essentially similar manner,
subjects were a group of thirty-four successful business executives. Engaged
in managing two different institutions, a bank and a silver manufacturing
corporation, these executives performed a wide range of functions, including
designing, marketing, and sales, as well as personnel administration. Degree
of creativity was again assessed on the basis of information about
independent initiative and successful performance in creative areas, and a
modified form of the special questionnaire used in the previous experiment
was administered.
In order to carry out a more specific assessment of the relationship
between rapid opposite response and creativity than in the previous
experiment, results on the word association test were analyzed somewhat
differently. Rather than calculating opposite, nonopposite primary response
and response times for the subjects as a group, these scores were calculated
for each individual. Tendency to rapid opposite response was independently
defined and the presence or absence of such a tendency was determined for
the individual subject. Presence of the rapid opposite response tendency was
designated on the basis of two combined criteria: (1) an opposite responding
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Notes
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1 I am referring, of course, to Taoism and Buddhism as theological systems that have commanded the
greatest number of adherents in the Orient. While adherence to specific beliefs is difficult
to establish, especially in modern day China, the popular folk religion in that country has
been largely based on Confucianism. Confucianism, in turn, has depended on Taoism for
its theological underpinnings and exegesis.
2 Hans-Joachim Schoeps, The Religions of Mankind, trans. R. Winston and C. Winston (New York:
Doubleday, 1966), pp. 40 ff.
3 The Judeo-Christian idea of God and Satan is generally considered to have occurred sequentially.
Biblical historians often point out that the Hebrew word for the evil one, Shatan, appears
late in sacred writings, long after the monotheistic conception of God was well
established. But there is also evidence that an ill-defined supernatural principle of evil
was contained in the earliest Judaic formulations, long before the name Shatan was
actually used. If this is so, and the original Jewish conception of monotheism was really
the product of a single thinker such as Abraham, or the Egyptian Ikhnaton, then the
monotheistic idea itself consisted of the conception of the simultaneous presence of good
and evil in a single supernatural force, and was a product of janusian thought.
4 Quoted in Chang Chung-yuan, Creativity and Taoism: A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art, and Poetry
(New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 31.
5 See Schoeps, Religions of Mankind, p. 178, for this formulation of Nirvana, a generally accepted one.
6 See D. T. Suzuki, The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind, ed. C. Humphreys (London: Rider & Co., 1969), p. 52.
7 See R. E. Allen, ed., Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 25-56.
8 C. K. Ogden, Opposition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1932, 1967).
9 F. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1908), trans. C. Fadiman (New York: Modern Library, 1927), p. viii.
10 In view of Nietzsche's frequent references to his own poor health at the time he achieved these
germinating ideas, there is an interesting shift to the opposite here. As Nietzsche
manifestly identified himself with Zarathustra, this could have been a janusian
formulation of both poor health and great healthiness simultaneously. His health was
very bad throughout the period of conceiving and writing Zarathustra. After the event
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described in the quotation above, he wrote, "For a few weeks afterwards I lay ill in
Genoa. Then followed a depressing spring in Rome, where I escaped with my life" (Ibid.,
p. 101). The conception of "great healthiness" for Zarathustra could specifically have
resulted from defensive operations of reversal or turning to the opposite,
overcompensation, and denial in fantasy. Such defensive operations do not preclude the
possibility of a janusion formulation which, although it is a cognitive event, has a range of
defensive and emotional concomitants (as do all cognitive events). If, however, it were
solely a defensive operation and Nietzsche did not consciously conceive poor health and
"great healthiness" simultaneously, it would not be a janusian formulation. Only an
emotional predisposition to thinking in opposites would be operating.
11 Ibid., p. 107. In this passage, the rhetorical interrogatory form has been converted to the indicative.
As is clear from reading Nietzsche's words in context, the above construction accurately
represents the essence of the "Zarathustra type" idea.
12 Ibid., p. 102.
13 Ibid.
14 S. Kierkegaard, Journal IV, A108, 1843, quoted and translated by W. Lowrie in Editor's Introduction
of S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), pp.
xii-xiii. Of interest is Kierkegaard's reference to "divine madness," the term Plato used to
describe creativity. In his linking of a simultaneous antithesis to a concept applying to
creativity, Kierkegaard seems intuitively to be following the same line I have formulated
here.
15 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 2:262.
16 W. Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (ca. 1790), p. 3, reproduced in facsimile, with an
introduction by Clark Emery (Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1971).
17 M. Ernst, "Inspiration to Order," in The Painters Object, ed. and trans. M. Evans (London: G. Howe,
1937), p. 79.
18 This, I believe, is a factor in a widespread tendency of philosophers and psychologists to study and
discuss creativity through a focus on visual art. Writers, of course, face an "empty" or
blank page when they start to write and composers face silence, but both the connection
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between emptiness and definite spatial factors is lacking and the contrast between
absence (no words, no sounds) and presence (literature, music) is less marked and is
experienced less.
19 This, I believe, is a factor in a widespread tendency of philosophers and psychologists to study and
discuss creativity through a focus on visual art. Writers, of course, face an "empty" or
blank page when they start to write and composers face silence, but both the connection
between emptiness and definite spatial factors is lacking and the contrast between
absence (no words, no sounds) and presence (literature, music) is less marked and is
experienced less.
20 Even the dramatic visual effects produced by the psychedelic drugs, if they were to be structurally
useful in the way described, would not be sufficient to produce art. Conception and
execution are requisite.
21 Quoted in E. Protter, ed., Painters on Painting (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1971), p. 41.
22 J. Albers, interview by Brian O'Doherty on National Educational Television, 1962; Center for
Cassette Studies Tape no. 27605, Audio Text Cassettes, 8110 Webb Avenue, North
Hollywood, California 91605.
23 H. Moore [Untitled], in Unit 1, ed. H. Read (London: Cassell & Co., 1934), p. 29.
24 H. Moore, interview by Donald Carroll, England; Center for Cassette Studies Tape no. 29818, Audio
Text Cassettes, 8110 Webb Avenue, North Hollywood, California 91605.
25 As music involves motion and rest in a prominent way, it should be no surprise that composers
often allude to such ideas.
26 P. Klee, The Thinking Eye: The Notebooks of Paul Klee, ed. J. Spiller (New York: G. Wittenborn, 1961),
p. 51.
27 Ibid., p. 50.
28 Chang Chung-yuan, Creativity and Taoism, see esp. pp. 199-238.
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many living ones flee with pain and lamentation and criesof a stick, which is dead
(from Taylor, p. 180).
42 Richter described this drawing as follows: "they are back to back because they are opposed to each
other; and they exist as contraries in the same body, because they have the same basis,
inasmuch as the origin of pleasure is labour and pain, and the various forms of evil
pleasure are the origin of pain" |f. P. Richter, ed., The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
[New York: Dover, 1970], 1:353).
43 A. Conti, "Leonardo pittore," Conferenze Fiorentine (Milan: 1910), pp. 108-9.
44 Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, p. 118.
45 Attributed by Eugene Muntz to an important nineteenth-century critic whose nom-de-plume was
Pierre de Corlay (E. Muntz, Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Thinker, and Man of Science
[London: William Fleinemann, 1898], 2: 155-56).
46 H. Keller and B. Cichy, Twenty Centuries of Great European Painting (New York: Sterling, 1958), p.
103.
47 W. Gaunt, A Guide to the Understanding of Painting (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968), pp. 246-47.
Gaunt uses the term "contrast" as synonymous with "opposite," not in the broader sense
discussed here in chapter 8 below.
48 Taylor, Design and Expression, p. 95.
49 See A. H. Barr, Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art, distrib. by Simon
&. Schuster, 1946), p. 272.
50 I am grateful to Rudolf Arnheim for his scholarship and his penetrating work, Picassos Guernica:
The Genesis of a Painting (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962). This book first
brought these sketches to my attention and it contains many valuable insights, although
Arnheim's analysis is not the same as the one I am presenting here.
51 Up to this point, my description follows that of Arnheim. The material following is my own.
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84 V. Woolf, A Writers Diary, ed. L. Woolf (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1954), pp. 139-40.
85 Rothenberg, "The Iceman Changeth."
86 Quoted in T. Cole, Playwrights on Playwrighting (New York: Hill & Wang, 1960), p. 232, from an
interview in the newspaper La Nacion, Buenos Aires,'November 30, 1933, translated by
Joseph M. Bernstein.
87 C. Bonnefroy, ed., Conversations with Eugene Ionesco (London: Faber &. Faber, 1970), pp. 72-73.
88 A. Rothenberg, "Word Association and Creativity," Psychological Reports 33 (1973) :3-12, and
"Opposite Responding as a Measure of Creativity," Psychological Reports 33 (1973) :1518.
89 J. B. Carroll, P. M. Kjeldegaard, and A. S. Carton, "Opposites vs. Primaries in Free Association,"
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 1 (1962): 22-30.
90 Numerous ways of categorizing word association responses are possible. Classification schemes
have ranged from the highly complex and intricate one developed by Gardner Murphy
("An Experimental Study of Literary vs. Scientific Types," American Journal of Psychology
28 [1917] :23862), which includes categories such as contiguity, similarity, opposites,
subordination, supraordination, and cause and effect, to the relatively simple
differentiation of paradigmatic and syntagmatic used by modern psycholinguists (see n.
24, chap. 8; below). For further information about the types of schemes and the
difficulties of establishing satisfactory categories, I refer the interested reader to Phebe
Cramer, Word Association (New York: Academic Press, 1968). In spite of the diversity of
possible classifications and the difficulty in designing any one scheme that is generally
suitable, opposite responding is relatively easy to identify empirically and, in all word
association research, opposite responding is scored either as a separate category or is
subsumed under a more general one. For example, the paradigmatic classification
mentioned, which is based on substitutability, subsumes both synonym and antonym (or
opposite) responses.
91 Two testers, Judith G. Scott and the late Jane Glassman, administered the tests for the entire group.
Subjects were randomly assigned to each of the testers in order to control for possible
influence of the testers' personality or technique on results obtained. Statistical
assessment indicated insignificant overall difference between the results obtained by the
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two testers.
92 The usual list contains 100 words for statistical convenience. The standard Kent-Rosanoff word
"chair" was replaced by the word "fair" for this test, so 100 words actually were
presented, but ninety-nine were scored. The word "fair" was used because it had an
unequivocal opposite, "unfair." Because it was not a standard stimulus word, however,
responses to this word were scored separately and results reported here do not include
these scores.
93 Measurement of the time from the presentation of the stimulus to the beginning of each response
was obtained both by a stopwatch carried by the tester and by electronic measuring of
response times directly from the tape recording. Only electronic time measures are
reported in the results; the stopwatch was held by the tester during the experiment
primarily to keep the subject aware that responses were being timed.
94 Previous classification study described in Rothenberg, "Word Association and Creativity"; this
article also gives further description of the characteristics of the creative group.
95 Responses that were neither opposites nor primaries were classified as "others," but these scores
are of little pertinence here and will not be reported.
96 That rapidity of opposite response is not a function of Marbe's Law, i.e., common responses are
given more rapidly than uncommon ones on word association tests, is demonstrated by
the time difference between all opposite responses here and the highly common
nonopposite primaries.
97 Should the question arise of whether the testers implicitly encouraged or willingly stimulated
opposite responding, let me add and emphasize that neither of the two testers were
informed of the experimental hypothesis.
98 See Rothenberg, "Opposite Responding," for specification of empirical criteria on which these
calculations are based and for further information about procedure.
99 As a test for creative potential, cautions pertaining to this procedure must be emphasized. It is
extremely important that the subject be put at ease and that every effort be made to
encourage his reporting his first association. Excessively delayed responses to the word
stimuli should he discarded, and retesting of these words or of the entire list should be
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done. Only then can the aversion to giving popular responses be minimized.
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8
OPPOSITION AND CREATIVITY
A story: It is a rainy day, a mother and her eighteen-month-old child are
caught in the house all day. In order to amuse her child, the mother puts him
in his playpen and surrounds him with toys. Almost immediately, the child
begins to cry, wanting to get out. The mother then puts him on the living
room floor and decides to let him follow her while she vacuums the rug, an
activity he usually enjoys. At first, it works, happily, the child toddles and
crawls after her. A few minutes later, however, he is crying again. Now, she
finds him on the outside of the playpen, alternately trying to reach one of the
toys inside or attempting to climb back in. She puts him inside and the cycle is
repeated. At lunchtime, she serves him his favorite sandwich, peanut butter
and jelly. He hardly touches it and, not wanting to make a fuss about his
eating, she clears the table and lets him get down from his chair. Twenty
minutes later, he complains of hunger and asks for his sandwich. Further into
the afternoon, he responds to his mother's toilet training program and agrees
to go to the potty when she asks him. Nothing happens there and ten minutes
later he has soiled his diaper. Alternating cycles with food and play are
repeated. Finally, at the end of the day when the father comes home, the first
words out of the mother's mouth are: "I don't know what to do with our child;
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words on the basis of ingrained and constant association. Thus, when one
asks for the opposite of "low," the response will almost invariably be "high,"
although "elevated," "lofty," and "soaring" might also be acceptable on logical
grounds. "High" is given as a response not necessarily because it is the
logically perfect opposite but because the two words "low" and "high" are
commonly associated with each other in speech and writing. Nevertheless,
this linguistic pairing between "low" and "high" produces no conceptual
complexities; high is logically opposite to low. Difficulties arise when
considering a pair such as man and woman, or, better still, king and queen.
For, when experimental subjects are asked for the opposites of man and king,
the responses are almost invariably woman and queen, respectively.
Such responses must give us pause because they invite a consideration
of the logical grounds for the pairing. After all, leaving aside formal dictionary
definitions for the moment, we always think of opposition as consisting of
some sense of sharp or radical difference. Positing that queen is the opposite
of king is somewhat logically jarring because the king-queen pairing seems to
conjure up more similarities than differences. Kings and queens are nobility,
they share more in common with each other than they share with any of us,
etc. Their only difference is their gender and, in the ultimate scheme of things
aside from the unisex obliteration of gender difference in current times
this seems too minor to warrant the clear designation of queen as true
opposite to king. Some would argue that commoner or slave are better
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opposites to king, but there are problems with those solutions as well. So, too,
the prior opposition between man and womanprior in the sense that it
enters into the king-queen pairingis subject to question. We are aware of
the so-called opposition in sex between man and woman but are equally
aware of their shared similarities, such as humanness and maturity.
One of the factors involved in the logical discrepancies I have just cited
is the matter of logical context, whether or not man or king is viewed in one
or in several contexts. But before I get into this thorny issue, and the related
one of the knowledge or sophistication of the person making judgments of
opposites, I must stick with the difference between linguistic and conceptual
opposition. The root meaning of the word "oppose," the basic term from
which our words opposite and opposition derive, is simply "to put against."
Without recourse to a lengthy and in this case essentially digressive account
of dictionary definitions, I think few would disagree that current usage of the
term falls into the following two broad and related categories: (1) "oppose" as
being against or as providing resistance to an idea, act, command, etc.; (2)
"oppose" as being contrary or radically different. Thus opposition means
either resistance or conflict or being situated in a contrary or a radically
different mode. There are implied issues of similarity, too, but I will come to
that in a moment.
The term antonym, as I have said, refers to opposition of words. A
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that are incomplete without each other such as question and answer, are
forms of linguistic opposition. In these categories, linguistic experiencethat
is, frequent association in speech and writingdictates the designation of
opposition more than strictly applied logical or conceptual criteria.
One of the reasons that opposition is sometimes thought to be simple
and straightforward is that linguistic opposition is often not distinguished
from conceptual opposition. Terms such as man and woman, husband and
wife, and question and answer seem to differ only in one aspect or merely by
having positive and negative qualities. But when more restrictive logical
criteria are applied, such as Webster's nullification of "every single one of its
implications," opposition becomes a far more complicated matter. With
regard to the examples I cited earlier pertaining to opposition with respect to
childhood experiences, the matter is more complicated still.
Opposition as a Concept
To clarify the import of my childhood examples, I will shift away from
opposition between words, antonym classification, to the concept of
opposition itself. While the distinction between linguistic and logical
opposition continues to be borne in mind, I shall return to the two broad
categories I mentioned before, resistance and being contrary or radically
different. As I suggested in passing above, these categories are not sufficient
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that essentially opposites are the same, as some have suggested.4 To do so not
only begs the logic of the matter, but requires extensive assumptions about
the nature of reality.
With this more precise definition of opposition, let us return to the first
of the childhood examples. The mother, confronting the highly common type
of behavior in an eighteen-month-old child, describes it to her husband as
doing the opposite. In using the term, she is not, of course, concerned with
definitions or with the weighty considerations just outlined, but she is saying
what most people would, and have, said about this phase of childhood:
eighteen month olds tend to be negativistic and oppositional. The question I
want to consider, however, is whether this term is appropriately used, not for
semantic reasons but in order to assess the status of opposition as a concept
or behavioral mode at this level of development. Is it correct to describe the
child's behavior as oppositional and, if so, is the child aware of opposing?
Our best understanding of the child's behavior and thought at this level
is that he is in the early throes of identity formation, more precisely, that he is
beginning to individuate. Following the long period of extensive dependency,
during which the child gradually develops a sense of differentiation from his
parents and from his environment, there is a rather sharp spurt of activity at
this age, activity that seems to function to help the child differentiate himself
further and to gain some sense of himself as an individual. Such activity,
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however, is not clear and consistent; the child does not adopt a pattern of
asserting his own will or his desires in a constant way, he is quite willy-nilly
about it. Characteristically, in fact, he seems to be indecisive, going back and
forth over the same ground or reversing previous behavior. Toilet training
can, of course, be a particular focuspossibly an instigating factorin the
spurt of individuating behavior at this age level. Toilet training usually
involves a fairly consistent attempt, on the parents' part, to impose their
wishes upon the child while offering little compensation, gratification, or
reward outside of verbal encouragement or praise. By that I mean that verbal
encouragement is less palpable than the food gratification associated with
learning to eat on schedule earlier. In any event, the child is beginning to
explore, with a vengeance, his own wants and needs now, and sometimes he
tries things for their own sake and sometimes he does something because it is
merely different from what the parent wants. From the parents' point of view,
however, there are few clues to any distinctions between various aspects of
the child's behavior. For the mother, it seems as though everything the child
does is in direct resistance to her, or in defiance of her needs and wishes, the
child appears to be opposing her.
Precious little about the child's behavior is really oppositional, however,
and, as a corollary, there is little justification for believing that the child
knows what opposition is, either as an experienced mode of behavior or as a
concept. He probably knows the word, "opposite," and some of its referents
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by nowif not, he has just heard his mother use it to describe his behavior to
his fatherbut such a small part of his behavior is directed against his
mother, and he feels so minimally differentiated as a person that there is little
basis for cognitive and/or affective appreciation of the meaning of the word.5
So far, I assume, there is no quibble with the argument I have proposed.
The child himself does not use the word "opposite" and he is so young that
most would be willing intuitively to acknowledge the lack of comprehension I
describe. But now we come to the more complicated example of the sevenyear-old child who actually uses the word to indicate the place he is going, the
"opposite" side of the room. And here I would insist that there is still no
comprehension of the meaning of opposition, merely the use of a word that
the child has learned, through repeated association, to apply to that position
in space. Furthermore, in order to reveal the full dimensions of this point I am
making, I will quickly add that, in my final example of children performing an
antonym task, there is also no way of being sure whether each of them
understands the meaning of opposition, even when the child performs the
task successfully.
I have chosen these examples of opposition at various stages of
childhood in order to clarify a potential source of confusion. In considering
the development status of a concept or an intellectual operation, it is
important to make a distinction between comprehension or a meaningful
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grasp, and use on the basis of learned association. In other words, when I
raise the question about whether children understand opposition, whether
there is comprehension of the concept of opposition or of its operational
usage, many will immediately respond, "Why, of course, they understand,
they use the word quite early (as shown in the example)." Word use and
comprehension are not equivalent, however. When the child says that he is
going to the opposite side of the room, it is not certain whether he is merely
using the word "opposite" as a synonym for the word "other," the other side
of the room, because he has frequently heard the words "opposite" and
"other" used interchangeably, such as in "cross to the other side of the street,"
or "cross to the opposite side of the street."
In the case of the children performing the antonym task, it is not certain
whether most give the correct answers because they have previously been
told which words were called antonyms or whether they actually grasp the
intellectual operation involved in identifying such antonyms. And it remains
unclear even when they are able to supply the definition of an antonym, many
or most may not understand the idea of opposite in the antonym definition,
they may be repeating from memory.
It is easy to check what is going on in an individual case, of course. The
child using the word opposite to refer to a side of the room or to "other" will
eventually make tell-tale mistakes in usage, and the children supplying the
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right side can never be left side nor vice versa. Fixed are the terms and their
concrete referents and therefore the relationship eventually is grasped.
Depending on the circumstances, however, either or both left and right can be
labeled as opposites, and that is confusing.
Two further research findings, one focused on cognitive development
and the other on language acquisition, tend to support the thesis that
opposition is grasped fairly late in childhood. Piaget and Inhelder, whose
extensive and outstanding research on the development of logic in childhood
can only be touched on here, present findings about the acquisition of the
notion of complementarity, negation, and duality which bear on the issue.
While they have much to say about these concepts in general, I will, for the
moment, focus on their work on the "null class." I will quote their posing of
the question about this classification because their particular manner of
presentation is of interest. For those not familiar with Piagetian terminology,
the term "formal operations" in the following quotation roughly coincides
with abstract or logical thinking and "concrete operations" is a type of
thinking characteristic of a prelogical phase of development.
There is . . . [a] question relevant to the dividing line between concrete and
formal operations: the question of the null or empty class. "Elementary
groupings" of classes imply this notion, for if A = B A', then B A A'
= 0 (or, more simply, A A = 0). Also, A n A' = 0. In other words, a class
becomes empty when subtracted from itself, and the intersection of two
disjoint classes is empty. From a strictly operational point of view, the
child of 7-8 years may be said to understand the operation + A A = 0,
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matter, in some stepwise fashion such as thinking of the null class first and
then picking a word related to the one presented. Nor is the solution found
specifically by thinking of similar words and then deciding which belong
closest to the null class. Words also similar to light are: bright, daytime, shiny,
radiant, and glowing; and it is highly doubtful that such a persity of
associations is evoked in performing an antonym task. Grasp of opposition
involves the capacity to use nullity, negation, and similarity in varying ways,
all together and/or in sequence. The comprehension of similarity required to
understand opposition, moreover, is not merely of the type involved in
concrete operations, the recognition of similarity between objects.
Understanding similarity with respect to opposition, and applying this
understanding to the recognition and production of antonyms or other
opposites, requires what Piaget has called the idea of the principle of
conservation (what logicians call the "logic of relations").10 The child must
have mastered this idea in order to be able to comprehend that the specific
features of two given opposites do not change despite their apparent
differences. Horizontal and vertical, for instance, retain a common feature
called direction despite differences in name and sharp differences in
information, feeling, and effects. Characteristically, according to Piaget,
understanding of this principle of conservation only begins at about nine
years of age. Added then to the difficulty of understanding the null case is the
ten-year-old child's only rudimentary appreciation of the stable feature of
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type. Also, you said earlier that there were multiple oppositions as well as
binary ones and therefore you disclaimed dualism, but don't multiple
oppositions of cut merely consist of repetitions of the very aspect you
disclaim, namely dualisms over and over again? And one more point: I noticed
you used the terms "knowledgeably" and "appropriately" distinguished to
justify your examples of differentiations between scale, cut, qualitative, and
quantitative, but who decides about such knowledge and appropriateness? Is
the physicist talking about degrees of illumination or the electrician
measuring the wattage of a bulb using the terms darkness and light more
appropriately and more knowledgeably than the writer who describes scenes
and sensations? For that matter, why aren't the designations zero and peak
luminosity more appropriate scalar oppositions than darkness and light,
respectively?
Yes, these criticisms and questions are all relevant, though not, I believe,
fatal, because the answer in each case is the same: opposition is always a
matter of context. When darkness and light or hot and cold are used in a
context that highlights or specifies their sensory differences, then they are
related according to qualitative, binary, or cut opposition; when they are
taken out of that context and related directly to each other, the implied
opposition is usually scalar, polar, or quantitative. So, too, most oppositions of
scale can be transformed into oppositions of cut and vice versa, depending on
the context. As scientific and other knowledge increases, the extremes of
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Linguistic oppositions differ from purely logical or conceptual ones in that the
former are linked together by habitual association. Language patterns, in
other words, take primacy over advances in knowledge, ideological shifts, and
other factors playing a role in establishing logical contexts.
Returning now to our earlier controversial example of man opposed to
woman, we see the following take place: man and woman are two
classifications within the category of sex. If we admit into this category
intermediate forms such as hermaphrodite, then we are liable to consider
man and woman as scalar, polar, or quantitative opposites. If we do not admit
intermediates, we have formed a dichotomous category in which man and
woman are binary, cut, or qualitative opposites. For both alternatives, there is
a defined and accepted designation of opposition, an opposition that pervades
linguistic usage in all languages and is incorporated as a grammatical
principle in some, and an opposition that has been adopted into the systems
of philosophers, theologians, scientists as well as electricians. But then logic
intervenes. By logic here I do not mean strict attention to the adequacy of the
gender category and its classifications, questions could be raised about that at
the start. I mean logic as influenced by increases in knowledge and changes in
ideology. Informed by scientific knowledge of intersexuality in anatomy and
physiology, as well as in psychological makeup, and influenced by humanism,
women's liberation, or some other ideological shift of context, logic declares
that man and woman are, by no means, opposite. There is far more in
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common than not. If we compare men and women to rocks and trees, there is
absolutely no doubt about it.
Linguistic opposition is not supravened by such logic, ideology or whathave-you. Most people, despite highly ingrained convictions or extensive
scientific knowledge will, when asked to state the opposite of "man," reflexly
say "woman," and the term "opposite sex" will probably never die. There is no
real reason that it should, moreover. Not only are linguistic oppositions
perfectly respectable, given an understanding of their contexts, but they have
considerable psychological importance. And now, to introduce one more term
at the possible risk of alienating my readers: "psychological opposition" is,
after all, the matter which most concerns us here. Psychological opposition
includes both the linguistic and logical forms.
Psychological Opposition
The factors of contradiction, contrariness, and contrast provide a useful
means for discussing the common ground between linguistic and logical
opposition. Although contradiction and contrariness are both primarily
negative operations, and therefore not actually opposition types, they enter
into the opposition relation as well as the more inclusive relation of contrast.
Far less stringent a relation than opposition, contrast depends less on a
particular context, or an extreme difference. Defined either through
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For the last mentioned, of course, opposition explicitly dominated his entire
philosophical system, and Ogden argues that Kant's expositors have often
missed the general importance of oppositionthat is, Inner-Outer, UnityMultiplicity, Activity-Passivity, Spontaneity-Receptivity, and UnderstandingSensein that great thinker's deliberations and conclusions.16 Continuing an
historical account, Ogden cites in the nineteenth century the works of
Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Rehmke, and Spencer as focused in a large degree
on opposites and opposition. Ludwig Fischer, also of the nineteenth century,
gave the topic systematic philosophical consideration. Finally, there was the
late-nineteenth-century social philosopher Tarde, whose extensive
exploration and classification contained in LOpposition Universale was the
first application to an understanding of social forces.
To extend Ogden's account of the emphasis on opposition in intellectual
history, another important pre-Socratic philosopher, Anaximander, conceived
that the construction of the world consisted of the separating out of elemental
opposites, such as fire and water, from a primitive togetherness, the
"boundless." These opposites were then in constant conflict with each other,
an undeniable fact of nature according to Anaximander, and from this conflict
and the equilibrium between the opposites, all understanding of the universe
arose. Empedocles, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus as well conceived of the world
as composed of opposites. Heraclitus emphasized the unity of opposites or
their constant equality in the face of conflict; he used the term
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Linguistic Opposition
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than a matter of test compliance, however, the difference among subjects and
the tendency to respond in opposites indicate a particular pattern of thinking.
Other psycholinguistic investigators have been interested in opposite
responding as a factor illuminating linguistic meaning, the acquisition of
language, and the structure of associational process. Deese, carrying out an
extensive factor analytical study of word association responses derived from
large samples of subjects, developed patterns of organization of associations
involving different types of English form classes such as nouns, adverbs, and
adjectives.23 The structure of associations to common adjectives, he
concluded, was based on opposition or, as he called it, contrast. Explaining
this association structure on the basis of the "contextual pattern of underlying
sentences," or the relationship of these common adjectives to events in the
natural world, he criticized classical formulations of associational laws that
merely emphasized the effect of word frequency and contiguity, that is, either
direct contiguity in speech and writing or contiguity mediated by another
associated word.
Another psycholinguist, McNeill, using the previously mentioned
argument that opposite word association responses consist of words having
all features but one identical with the stimulus word, also emphasized
contrast rather than contiguity as an explanation of another word association
phenomenon. McNeill suggested that a characteristic change in children's
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patterns of response to word association tests at a certain age was due to the
factor of contrast and not to contiguity.24
Pollio and his associates, interested in assessing the challenge to
classical association theory posed by the previous two investigators, carried
out a series of experiments testing the assumption or hypothesis of identical
attributes or features between pairs of opposite words.25 In one experiment,
judges were asked to rate pairs of opposite words on a semantic differential
scale, a scale allowing for judgments of various attributes of a concept or a set
of words. In another experiment involving subjects learning a series of
nonsense words, interference in learning due to the use of the opposite words
"hot" and "cold" was compared to the interference produced between similar
words such as "hot" and "warm," "cold" and "cool." Both experiments showed
little support for the hypothesis that opposites were markedly similar as
proposed. In the first, judges designated many differences in attributes
between opposing pairs. In the second experiment, subjects demonstrated
less confusion and consequently less learning error in connection with "hot"
and "cold" than in connection with the similar pairs. The authors conclude
that opposites are predominantly divergent rather than similar and they
propose a "law of oppositional word pairs" that reaffirms the associational
principle of contiguity. They suggest that, in the course of language
acquisition, oppositional word pairs are brought together on the basis of
"conceptual convenience," which they define as follows: "For purposes of
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one study, I asked a group of raters to make judgments about a series of word
pairs derived from stimuli and responses on my previous word association
studies.31 Raters consisted of forty-three females and eighteen males ranging
in age from twenty to sixty-four years and ranging in educational background
from high school graduates to persons with doctoral degrees. Presented to
these raters were a series of eighty-six randomly ordered word pairs
consisting of the following: twenty-nine that my co-investigator and I
considered in some sense to be opposites; twenty-five that were made up of a
stimulus word and the primary (most popular on word association norms)
response, thirty-two designated as "chaff" that we chose as having either little
relationship or else a good deal of similarity to each other. They were asked
to rate which pairs they considered to be opposites according to the following
definition: "Two words are in opposition to each other if together they denote
a continuum in which they are at different poles. For example: cold and hot
are opposites because they are at different poles of a temperature
continuum."32 Table 4 shows the number of opposite judgments for each of
the word pairs used. The results are organized in accordance with the
investigators' grouping of the pairs as opposites, primaries (stimulus with
primary response), or chaff. The randomized order of presentation of word
pairs is indicated by the accompanying numbers to the left of each.
The results are of interest, not because they demonstrate high
correlations or unanimity of agreement, but for precisely the reverse reason:
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there was a good deal of divergence of opinion in the raters' response. For
one thing, several raters judged primary pairs and similars to be opposites.
Although there was 50 percent or better agreement about twenty-four
opposite word pairs, 100 percent agreement occurred only with the pairs
"fair-unfair" and "comfort-discomfort;" 90 percent or better agreement
includes four other pairs (hard-easy, quiet-loud, sleep-awake, soft-loud), six
pairs in all.
The results of this rating task reveal the difficulties of applying linguistic
concepts of conceptual convenience and minimal contrast to behavior
pertaining to opposition. Although there was 100 percent agreement on the
opposition between comfort and discomfort, and both words have all
syntactical features in common, "discomfort" is a very rare response to the
stimulus word "comfort" on the Kent-Rosanoff list or on any type of word
association response norm. Furthermore, the minimal contrast principle
alone cannot account for the 90 percent or better agreement on the six word
pairs. All consist of words in the form class of adjectives and all are
contrasting, but these two attributes were not at all limited to the six pairs.
Several pairs of words with both of these attributes received less than 50
percent of the positive opposite judgments. Strikingly, also, only 40 percent of
the raters judged the music-noise pair to be opposites. These words share the
syntactical features of being nonabstract nouns referring to inanimate entities
and they are contrasting with respect to a particular attribute. According to
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Opposites
No. of
Opposite
Ratings
6. hard-easy
58
Primaries
No. of
Opposite
Ratings
Chaff
No. of
Opposite
Ratings
1. table-chair
22
3. deep-soft
15
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8. short-high
52
2. stomachfood
13
5. house-place
to live
9. angersmoothing it
over
35
4. eating-food
7. hand-glove
13. fair-unfair
61
12. foot-shoe
10. carpet-fluffy
17. eagle-St.
Bernard
32
14. citizen-man
11. smoothgentle
25. white-dark
47
15. wish-want
16. table-food
11
26. commandobey
42
18. whistlesound
21. needlesharp
29. beautifulhorrible
49
19. cabbagevegetable
24, fruit-tree
11
30. music-noise
24
20. muttonsheep
27. sour-not
sweet
32. wishcommand
34
22. earth-dirt
31. stomachhunger
34. comfortdiscomfort
61
23. river-water
38. fair-light
35. soldiercivilian
50
28. spider-web
11
39. muttonstew
36. quiet-loud
59
33. mountainhill
13
42. girl-hair
10
37. sleepawake
58
41. windowglass
47. whistle-wolf
13
40. highbottom
39
44. eagle-bird
49. handwarmth
43. man-child
35
46. househome
50. short-low
10
45. soft-loud
57
51. beautifulgirl
55. river-boat
12
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48. butterflyegg
21
54. trouble-bad
56. music-horn
52. workingsleeping
41
59. soldier-man
11
58. spider-black
53. citizen-king
33
61. comfortchair
62. red-bright
57. deep-high
44
63. fruit-apple
67. foot-walk
60. smoothharsh
54
65. anger-mad
69. high-windy
64. girl-man
41
77. sleep-bed
70. man-male
66. sourbeautiful
22
82. commandorder
71. hard-ice
68. eatinghunger
19
84. workinghard
72. soft-fluffy
73. troubleease
51
74. cabbageleaf
76. earth-water
39
75. needlesyringe
78. carpet-high
12
79. white-light
83. mountainmolehill
48
80. butterflycollecting
10
81. window-sill
85. quiet-rest
86. red-color
On the other hand, the results also show the influence of linguistic
factors on the concept of opposition. How else can the surprisingly large
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number of judgments of opposition (20 percent or more) for the pairs deepsoft, table-chair, mountain-hill, stomach-food, whistle-wolf, be explained?
Logically, it is very difficult to conceive of the context in which these word
pairs could denote opposition. Tables and chairs could possibly be considered
opposite in terms of use: one neither sits on tables nor eats from chairs,
stomach and food could be conceived of as being located at opposite ends of
the esophagus while a person is chewing or else dichotomously opposite in
function or action; mountain and hill could be considered to be to some
degree opposite in size. But deep and soft could only be opposite if the hard
rocks or the hard earth of a deep chasm or pit are brought to mind. Wolf and
whistle would not in the ordinary colloquial use of "wolf whistle" be
opposites but, in the context of sound, a wolf's baying and a whistle could
seem to be opposed. And trying to establish the context for the few opposite
judgments on other primary or chaff pairs would be extremely difficult
indeed.33 Remote logical contexts are in fact highly improbable; it is far more
likely that some linguistic quality of these word pairs dictated the opposite
judgment. Minimal contrast is a possibilitythe five pairs from the primary
and chaff list having 20 percent or better opposite ratings could be
considered to have more of a quality of difference than others on those lists.
I believe there is another even more pervasive linguistic factor. When
pairs of words are presented together, they form a binary and potentially
dichotomous linguistic entity. This is especially so for the popular associated
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No. of Opposite
Responses
No. of Opposite
Responses
Test 1 (n = 20)
Careless
Death is long
Repel
Come down
Lucky
Fall apart
Inside
10
Hang loose
Forbid
Wake up
Hindsight
Exclude
Daylight breaks
Output
Speed up
Mobile
First breath
Hopeless
Past
Dark night
Cowardly
Tear down
Dirty wash
Give in
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Subtotal
51
Count me out
New joys
Hurry up
Subtotal
47
Test 2 (n = 18)
Careful
Life is short
Attract
Get high
Unlucky
Pull together
Outside
Up tight
Allow
Sack out
Foresight
Include
Night falls
Input
13
Slow down
Immobile
Last gasp
Hopeful
Future
Bright day
Clean laundry
Hold out
Count me in
Old sorrows
Go to sleep
Go up
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Subtotal
51
Subtotal
23
Total
102
Total
70
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multiple word stimuli on this task generally contained at least two reference
points with regard to the formation of opposite responses, such as "new" and
"joy," respectively, for "old" and "sorrow," or "soft" and "wet" for "hard" and
"dry," and so on.
Forming an opposite to such stimuli, giving a complete opposite
response involving both reference points, would surely indicate a responder's
intent or strategy. In distinction to the ambiguity with respect to an individual
word stimulus with one reference point, responses such as "big time winner"
to the stimulus "small time loser" definitely indicate an intentional conceiving
of the opposite. That relatively few such complete opposite responses
occurred on these tests suggests that intentional opposite responding
strategies are the exception rather than the rule.
Despite some limitations of linguistic studies pertaining to opposition,
contributions such as Deese's suggestion that opposition has something to do
with the structure of common adjectives as a form class are noteworthy and
important. The connection between adjectives and opposition pertains to
issues I shall pursue for the remainder of this chapter. Adjectives belong to a
linguistic form class denoting abstract entities; adjectives are words for the
qualities of things, and qualities always consist of abstractions. To determine
qualities, features that appear salient to the human mind are abstracted from
the concrete world. To some extent, opposition is intrinsic to the structure
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strange and new abstraction. There was another type of entity, he said, that
was exactly opposite to the known entity of matter; therefore, all laws
pertaining to the known entity also applied to the hitherto unknown one.
Thus, he was able to understand and to describe the strange and unknown in
terms of the familiar.
In art, conceiving opposites also serves to help the artist move from the
familiar to the strange. As I briefly mentioned in the previous chapter, styles
in the visual arts especially have undergone many oppositional shifts in the
last century, some gradual and some more rapid. There was a major shift
from representational art to abstract art, the dadaist's reversal of traditional
artistic conventions in what was called "antiart," and the rise of the pop art
movement as another type of reversal both of traditional art and of antiart as
well. Others could be mentioned, but suffice it to cite the development of the
op art movement, a movement producing yet another type of reversal by
definitively shifting the locus of aesthetic creation to the eye of the observer.
Although other artists and art movements had been interested in optical
effects, the op movement produced objects with optical qualities that
required the onlooker to integrate the perceptual experience in his mind
rather than to admire separated qualities of an external art object. Op art
could not, for instance, be reproduced in photographs. In modern literature
also, there has been a shift from naturalism to absurdism as well as the
emergence of the antihero as the major modern literary entity. And in music,
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the development of random, or, as John Cage calls it, antiteleological music,
the supposed opposite of traditional goal-oriented composition, has already
been mentioned. More basically, however, oppositions intrinsic to metaphor,
comedy, and tragedy in all artistic forms play a critical role in producing a
balance, and a shift, between the familiar and the strange. I shall specifically
discuss these more basic oppositions in the final chapter of this book.
To return to science, opposition also plays a basic and general role in
the development of scientific creations. As the broad and erudite historian of
science, Gerald Holton, points out, scientific knowledge itself is often
structured in terms of antithesis. I shall quote him extensively and directly:
Not far below the surface, there have coexisted in science, in almost every
period since Thales and Pythagoras, sets of two or more antithetical
systems or attitudes, for example, one reductionistic and the other holistic,
or one mechanistic and the other vitalistic, or one positivistic and the other
teleological. In addition, there has always existed another set of antitheses
or polarities, even though, to be sure, one or the other was at a given time
more prominentnamely, between the Galilean (or, more properly,
Archimedean) attempt at precision and measurement that purged public,
"objective" science of those qualitative elements that interfere with
reaching reasonable "objective" agreement among fellow investigators,
and, on the other hand, the intuitions, glimpses, daydreams, and a priori
commitments that make up half the world of science in the form of a
personal, private, "subjective" activity.
Science has always been propelled and buffeted by such contrary or
antithetical forces. Like vessels with draught deep enough to catch more
than merely the surface current, scientists of genius are those who are
doomed, or privileged to experience these deeper currents in their
complexity. It is precisely their special sensitivity to contraries that has
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made it possible for them to do so, and it is an inner necessity that has
made them demand nothing less from themselves.37
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limits of a sexual attribute scale. Such limits are immovable, totally restrictive,
and absolute; one could not change these limits without redefining the
opposites involved. This limit-setting aspect of formulating oppositions is one
of its most salient and intrinsic features and one that is extremely valuable for
the artist. In seeking stability, coherence, and oftentimes a perspective on
human experience that yields a sense of the absolute, in some cases possibly
absolute truth itself, the artist formulates oppositions and defines clear limits.
Though opposition is essentially relative, for the artist it may not be
necessarily so. He hopes to find basic and even absolute truths, if such exist,
behind and beyond the surface of things. Thus, he formulates and uses
opposites. The artist uses the relativistic device of opposition to find limits
and absolutes in an apparently relativistic world.
Artists, art critics, and scholars constantly allude to opposition and
elements of opposition in artistic works. Indeed, I anticipate little criticism
from those quarters about what I say here about the importance of opposition
in art. Despite the wide agreement about the salience of opposition, however,
it is another matter to identify particular opposites with certainty. In many
art fields, the relativistic aspect of opposition is quite apparent when the
matter is subjected to careful scrutiny. In the visual arts, for instance, where it
might be expected that the originally spatial basis of the idea of opposition
putting against or establishing sideswould make for easy and consistent
use and identification of opposites, agreement in any particular case can be
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quite hard to attain. Only the familiar and definite spatial orientations of left
and right, up and down, and also perhaps inner and outer, concave and
convex, foreground and background, provide a clear and incontrovertible
basis for designating particular oppositions in visual form. Now, I don't mean
to say that thinking about these orientations in connection with varying and
unlimited types of content does not provide a virtual infinitude of possible
oppositions; as a matter of fact, such possibility exists. But the visual artist is
often interested in highly subtle and complex forms of opposition in his
works and it is therefore difficult to identify and obtain definite agreement
about various oppositions of tone and value as well as in-context oppositions
between the form of lines or geometric shapes, such as squares, rectangles,
circles, triangles, or spheres, and the highly relative oppositions of dark and
light or short and long. When visual art is representational, of course,
agreement about particular opposites can be easier to attain. In
representational art, such familiar categories as man and woman, sacred and
profane, rich and poor, downtrodden and uplifted, saint and sinner, or gaiety
and sadness are unequivocally manifest and doubts and questions are stilled.
Hence, when specificity and increasingly abstract categories are possible, the
chances of wide agreement about opposition are increased.
From these considerations, it would appear that literature is the art
form par excellence for producing and identifying definite oppositions.
Literature depends on language and, in comparison to other media, language
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Notes
1 See J. J. Katz and J. Fodor, "The Structure of a Semantic Theory," Language 39 (1963) :170210; D. A.
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McNeill, "Study of Word Association," Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8
(1966) :54857. McNeill emphasizes a minimal contrast feature for verbal opposites to
account for word association results. He does not discuss the conceptual factor of
opposition and, by omission, would seem to suggest that the verbal feature of minimal
contrast is the major factor in opposites. See also discussion in H. H. Clark, "Word
Associations and Linguistic Theory," in New Horizons in Linguistics ed. J. Lyons
(Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970), pp. 275-76.
2 Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1968).
3 Medium is not specifically different from tall because it is different from short as well.
4 Primarily this position has been at times taken in various oriental philosophies, Buddhism, Taoism,
and Hinduism. The idea that opposites flow into one another has been adopted and
forwarded by numerous mystics and mystical orders in both the Western and the
Eastern world. See also an experimental study of similarity in opposition, T. F. Karwoski
and J. Schachter, "Psychological Studies in Semantics: III. Reaction Times for Similarity
and Difference," Journal of Social Psychology 28 (1948) :103-20.
5 There is nothing to suggest that a misapprehension problem would arise later because of the
mother's "mislabeling" of the child's behavior with this word. The child constantly hears
words applied to him which he does not understand or are inappropriate at the time and
no later difficulties in apprehension seem to occur.
6 G. Kreezer and K. M. Dallenbach, "Learning the Relation of Opposition," American Journal of
Psychology 41 (192,9) :43241.
7 B. Inhelder and J. Piaget, The Early Growth of Logic in the Child, trans.E. A. Lunzer and D. Papert (New
York: Norton, 1964), pp. 146-47.
8 Ibid., p. 149.
9 For an excellent review, see R. J. Wales and R. Grieve, "What Is So Difficult about Negation?,"
Perception and Psychophysics 6 (1969) :327-31.
10 J. Piaget, "Principal Factors Determining Intellectual Evolution from Childhood to Adult Life," in
Factors Determining Human Behavior, Harvard Tercentary Conference (Cambridge,
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in a single context in such fashion, they can appear to be incompatible rather than being
merely different from one another. See especially Koestler, Janus, pp. 109-64.
35 See Hausman, Discourse on Novelty and Creation, for a meaningful discussion of the familiar and
unfamiliar in creations; see also, W. W. Gordon, "On Being Explicit about Creative
Process," Journal of Creative Behavior 6 (1972) :295-300. Gordon uses the terms
"familiar" and "strange" with respect to metaphors, although in a different sense than
used here.
36 I do not, by any means, intend to suggest that metaphor or art in general needs to be rendered
comprehensible in logical or prosaic terms in order to be appreciated; I am emphasizing
only an intuition and a sense of understanding.
37 Holton, "On Trying to Understand Scientific Genius," p. 107. See also, L. von Bertalanffy on the
opposites in science in Problems of Life (New York: Wiley, 1952), pp. 176-204.
38 Holton, "On Trying to Understand Scientific Genius"; see also chapter on Bohr in Holton, Thematic
Origins of Scientific Thought, pp. 115-61. For Kuhn, see his, Structure of Scientific
Revolutions.
39 Exploring such matters as opposition between colors, tones, and values is, in fact, a traditional
concern of artists as seen in the remark of van Gogh (quoted in chap. 7 above, n. 34).
40 A. Rothenberg, "On Anger," American Journal of Psychiatry, 128 (1971) :8692.
41 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
42 See esp. R. Jakobson, and M. Halle, Fundamentals of Language (Grauen- hage: Mouton, 1956), and C.
Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963 [vol. 1], 1976 [vol.
2]). The brilliant achievements of Levi-Strauss demonstrate almost single-handedly the
conceptual value of formulating oppositions as discussed below in chap. 13. By
categorizing cultural practices and beliefs into opposites and opposite patterns, he has
been able to provide profound understanding of intra- and inter-cultural relationships.
As a methodology, structuralism has been criticized because of its exclusive use of binary
opposition. Multiple opposition and the broader perspectives on opposition discussed
here could possibly enrich the structural approach.
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9
JANUSIAN THINKING AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL
PROCESS
Throughout this book, I have emphasized the psychological status of
janusian thinking as a conscious, intentional process and as a special type of
secondary process cognition. This emphasis has been necessary because, in
Freud's description of the more primitive form of thought, primary process
thinking, equivalence of opposites was a definite feature.1 Freud's own
recognition of this feature of primary process thinking, this creative leap on
his part, was a product, I would now suggest, of janusian thinking.2 While
there is no reason to doubt the validity of Freud's specific formulation,3
psychoanalytic theorists and practitioners have unthinkingly tended to
relegate all psychological references to opposition to the primary process
realm. Freud himself made this error in his small but enthusiastic work, "The
Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words,"4 written ten years after his
monumental work on dreams. Finding what he thought were numerous
instances of words having bimodally antithetical meaningsfor example,
"cleave," meaning both to separate and to join, "altus," meaning both high and
lowin primitive or historically older languages, he believed he had
discovered additional evidence for equivalence of opposites in primitive or
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primary process thought. Not only were his conclusions incorrect from the
point of view of linguistics and etymology (i.e., words such as "cleave" and
"altus" were not initially bimodal in meaning, such words had homographic
homophonesidentical in both spelling and soundwith different
etymological roots), but he was also unaware of the rather adaptive and
sophisticated nature of the linguistic categories used by so-called primitive
peoples. The latter has since been impressively demonstrated by modern
anthropologists such as Levi-Strauss.5
Freud's errors can certainly be excused on the basis of incautious zeal in
a great first explorer, and buttressed by our understanding of the
complexities and abstractions involved in the conceptualization and
manipulation of opposition, it should now be easier to see how
conceptualization of simultaneous opposites belongs in the realm of high
level secondary process thinking. But more clarification is still needed. Other
types of psychological phenomena, including modes of cognition, affects,
psychological structures, and dynamisms, bear some resemblance to janusian
thinking and, in order to establish the psychological dimensions of the
thought process distinctly, it is necessary to consider several of them. In this
chapter, I shall discuss the following: Jungian psychology, dialectical thinking,
dualistic thinking, conflict, and ambivalence. In order to avoid extensive
digression, my discussion will be, in some cases, cursory and brief. I shall,
however, show some outstanding points of dissimilarity and similarity or
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represents the mystical relationship of male and female forces in the universe
and is the central Taoist symbol of the nature of all things. This symbol
pictorially represents both the opposition and the close affinitywith an
almost fluid interaction between the male and female principles or forces.
For Jung, also, there was often a close affinity between these and other
opposites. Another symbol depicting a relationship between opposites and
dating hack in origin as far as paleolithic times, is the mandala or magic circle.
Mandalas generally represent the transformation of opposites into a third
term or uniting symbol, the phenomenon called coincidentia oppositorum.
Jung often used the mandala as a specific representation for his construct of
the Self, and it commanded his interest so much and in so many different
ways that he and others have sometimes considered it a symbol for his entire
psychology.
Janusian thinking and the pervasive opposition in psychic nature
emphasized by Jung are not the same. Janusian thinking is a distinct cognitive
function operating particularly in the creative process. It is not involved in
other types of processes, nor does it depend on, and necessarily arise from,
human psychic structure as composed of opposites. Surely there is some
compatibility between the construct of janusian thinking and the Jungian
theoretical formulations. If, for example, Jung were correct that psychic life is
perfused with various types of opposites, janusian thinking would have
specially extensive penetration and power, particularly when its effects are
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Jung's interest in the t'ai-chi tu and the mandala, and his recognition of
similarities, confluences, and interrelationships among oppositions great and
small are related to factors in the janusian process. As a creative theorist,
many of his concepts pertaining to opposition, and to other factors also, may
have arisen from his own janusian thoughts and constructs. However,
although psychic life, even cosmic forces, might conceivably operate as Jung
suggests through the confluence and antagonism of opposites, that alone
would not account for janusian thinking as a creative form of cognition,
though it might account for some of its power.
Dialectical Thinking
The greatest source of confusion about janusian thinking concerns its
relationship to dialectics. Many of the finest philosophers, theorists, scientists,
and other outstanding thinkers characteristically have applied a dialectic
approach to some of the most difficult conceptual problems, and the value of
such an approach has been demonstrated over and over throughout the
history of thought. Moreover, the dialectic approach, as a style of writing or of
presenting arguments, is a notably effective one: criticisms and counter
arguments are considered before they are raised by a reader or by an
opponent, polarities are appraised, and this mode of presentation is often
emotionally stimulating and dramatic.
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Though the term "dialectic" has been used in different senses and in
different ways by different philosophers, it is, in its lexical sense, merely the
word for logical discourse or argument. I am here, however, specifically
referring to a type of thinking that has long been recognized and used in
intellectual circles, and was first systematically described and used by Hegel.8
According to Hegel, this type of thinking proceeds by means of a sequence of
steps: an assertion of a thesis or statement of a position, point of view,
problem, or series of facts, followed by the statement and discussion of the
antithesis, the contrary or opposite position or point of view, or the denial of
the thesis,- followed by the synthesis, the combination of the partial truths of
the thesis and antithesis into a higher stage of truths. Once arrived at, of
course, the synthesis can serveaccording to Hegel, it always servesas a
thesis for further progressions.
Now, janusian thinking differs from this type of progression in two
major ways: (1) it does not involve a synthesis; (2) it does involve
simultaneity of opposites or antitheses rather than sequence. The Hegelian
formulation of synthesis is quite specific and clear: elements of the thesis and
antithesis are combined to form another, presumably more valid, position.
Such a combination brings about a reconciliation of opposites because, as the
word reconciliation implies, opposing positions are brought into harmony
with each other and conflicting aspects are resolved. Characteristically, the
synthesis is achieved in one or more of several different ways as follows:
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showing that all of the elements in the conflicting positions are not and never
were truly antithetical; demonstrating that many of the conflicting elements
can be logically combined with each other; or, by taking advantage of the
contextual relativism of oppositions discussed in the last chapter, showing
how opposites may not be antithetical in another, presumably higher, context.
Synthesis and reconciliation of opposites are strongly related and
interconnected; synthesis produces reconciliation of opposites and such
reconciliation is, in turn, an aspect of the wider synthesizing function.
But janusian thinking is not the same as reconciling or as synthesizing
opposites; if it were, it would hardly be a new discovery. The assertion that a
pair or group of antitheses while being in conflict are yet all valid at the same
time does not obliterate or compromise the identity or the integrity of the
component antitheses. No combination or reconciliation is indicated. In many
cases, the assertion can and does lead, by means of logical processes, to the
formulation of a synthesis or reconciliation, but the janusian construct is not
the same as that synthesis or reconciliation. The construct may stimulate and
facilitate synthesis, sometimes in a crucial way, but it is not itself a synthesis.
As a facilitating factor, janusian thinking may enter into a dialectic sequence
and procedure, particularly a creative one. But synthesis, and especially
combination of antithetical elements, is not a necessary outcome of janusian
thinking; the janusian thought may consist of positing a paradox which is
intrinsically unresolvable, unreconciliable, and susceptible to synthesis.
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thinker developed either or both his problems and solutions in the manner as
presented to "the world," so to speak. Frequently it is difficult for the thinker
himself to remember the exact steps and sequences and he cannot report
about this. Simultaneous antitheses and oppositions especially are difficult to
keep in mind and simultaneity soon gives way to sequences and to the
demands of logic, factors that begin the dialectic process. Positing for instance
that sex and death are the same, or that they coexist simultaneously in the
same process, leads rather quickly to a separate consideration of the
attributes of various aspects of sexuality followed by a separate consideration
of the attributes of death.11 Sexual intercourse involves spasmodic bodily
movements, a sense of release, a loss of individuality or a self-annihilation,
and a profound relaxation. Death involves release, an annihilation of self, and
dying can involve spasmodic movements and total relaxation. With further
contemplation, aspects of one are compared to aspects of the other in a
continuing sequence. The requirements of writing something out and putting
it on a page inevitably produce a sequence, for that matter. Initially
simultaneous conceptions are made sequential, straightened out, or
otherwise submerged. Only careful retracing of steps, requiring careful and
sometimes dogged questioning or analysis, will reveal the original structure
of the thought.
Certain types of sequences occur in the janusian process, but sequential
analysis of the nature of the oppositions is not one of them; that is part of the
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or
Sartre's
use
of
dialectic
thinking
to
integrate
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surely are some close relationships between the two forms of thought despite
the separation and distinctiveness of their functions with respect to
creativity. While janusian thinking is intrinsic to the creative process,
effective dialectical thinking, like any other form of effective thinking,
sometimes plays a role. Cardinally shared by both janusian and dialectical
thinking is a concern with opposition and antithesis, and future exploration
may reveal other interesting and important connections.
Dualistic Thinking
Because janusian thinking is a step toward integration of antitheses and
opposites, there is really little reason to confuse it with dualistic thinking, the
tendency to formulate concepts or systems in terms of two exhaustive
categories. However, confusion could arise because of common elements
between janusian and dialectical thinking. Dialecticians are particularly prone
to formulating dualisms and, in assessing a particular dialectic system of
thought, it is often hard to judge whether fondness for duality or the saliency
of the dialectic method has been primary. To this day, there is still much
controversy about the presence of dualistic thinking in the works of such
influential giants as Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Leibniz, Marx, Nietzsche,
and Freud. Are they, for instance, limited by such dualisms as real and ideal,
matter and mind, mind and body, reason and faith, material and spiritual, and
so forth? Are two alternatives or factors emphasized and considered on the
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Conflict
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Ambivalence
The relationship between ambivalence and janusian thinking is highly
complex. Consideration of this relationship leads to the labyrinthian realm of
topics such as creativity and schizophrenia, and creativity and general
psychopathology. I shall not attempt here to pursue the latter issue to the
extent it deserves, but instead I shall touch on some highlights pending a
fuller discussion in the future.
The term "ambivalence" was first applied to psychological phenomena
by Eugen Bleuler in 1919. Derived from chemical terminology, the root,
valence, denotes the "value" or combining power of an atom. By
"ambivalence," Bleuler intended to designate the tendency of his
schizophrenic patients to "endow the most diverse psychisms with both a
positive and negative indicator,"14 and he distinguished three types: affective
ambivalence, ambivalence of will, and intellectual ambivalence. Although he
provided rich and detailed descriptions of apparent instances of the three
types in schizophrenia, Freud and other clinicians restricted the use of the
term to one type, affective ambivalence, and proving more useful and precise,
such restricted use has persisted in contemporary psychiatric practice.
Affective ambivalence consists of the tendency of persons suffering
from schizophreniaand, as we now know, a wide range of other types of
illness are also included, notably the obsessive compulsive neurosisto
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possess strong contradictory feelings, such as love and hate, toward a single
person or object. With respect to janusian thinking, an immediate and sharp
distinction obtains. Janusian thinking involves simultaneous and conscious
cognitions, and it is the nature of affects that they can neither be experienced
definitively and precisely nor simultaneously on a conscious level. Affective
ambivalence is always inferred from a person's behavior by an observer; the
person himself does not consciously experience defined contradictory affects
simultaneously, he feels only a general sense of uncertainty and
indecisiveness. For an observer, the uncertainty is manifest in the person's
actions, and affective ambivalence is assumed to be the cause. Eventually,
concrete feelings such as love and hate may come alternately into the
ambivalent person's awareness, and he then may come to understand the
roots of such uncertainty. It is at that point described in conceptual terms,
such as, "I have mixed feelings," or "I think I both love and hate my mother."
In Bleuler's original description of affective ambivalence, he cites the example
of a patient referring to her lover in the following way: "You devil, you angel,
you devil, you angel."15 Sequential feelings oscillating between opposite poles
are represented. If the patient were able to say, "I feel you are both a devil and
an angel," or even, "I both love and hate you," she would be making abstract
inferences from her own concrete feelings and behavior.
This is not a hair-splitting distinction: it is based on an important
difference between affects and cognitions and helps to specify a probable
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the types. Because the types are similar, ambivalence both of will and of affect
are essentially distinct from janusian thinking in a similar way. Bleuler's
ambivalence of will should more appropriately be considered to be a form of
conflict which, in modern terms, would be designated as a conflict of motives.
In that case, it would have the same relationship to janusian thinking as other
forms of conflict.
Seldom is the term ambivalence applied nowadays to the type of
behavior exemplifying Bleuler's third type: intellectual ambivalence. Here, the
patient says, "I am a human being like yourself even though I am not a human
being."17 But regardless of what it is called, such behavior is still found in
schizophrenic patients and it requires careful analysis because in form it is
close to the conceptualization of simultaneous antithesis of janusian thinking.
The patient's statement, "I am a human being like yourself even though I
am not a human being," taken by itself appears to have all the features of a
janusian formulation. As an assertion of simultaneous antithesis, it seems
pregnant with meaning and somewhat poetic. Taken figuratively, it suggests
many levels of meaning: the patient knows that he is human, but he doesn't
feel human; he is at war within himself, a human aspect clashing with what he
considers to be a nonhuman aspect; you, the other person, do not treat him as
a human being; something about him is lacking; you and the patient both
belong to some mystical or superordinate category where humanness is
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beside the point. As a psychotherapist working with this patient, all of these
figurative meanings of his statement should be taken as potentially relevant.
Presenting one or more in the form of an interpretation of what the patient is
really "saying" can lead to an engagement, an inroad into the patient's
emotional life that produces further clarification and exploration. But is it
correct to say that the patient had all these meanings consciously in mind
when he made the statement? In answering this, I do not mean to presume
that I know exactly what goes on, at any given moment, in a schizophrenic
patient's mind. Nevertheless, I believe I can answer it on the basis of what is
currently known about schizophrenia from various types of clinical
observations. No, it is highly unlikely that the patient has these meanings
consciously in mind when he makes the statement because that would
require a conscious intention for the remark to be taken figuratively. In order
for the patient to intend figurative meaning, it is necessary that he be aware
of the contradictory elements in the statement.18 He must know (and believe)
that he is expressing a literal impossibility because such impossibility alone
denotes figurative intent (for the person speaking as well as the person
spoken to). But, there is little reason to believe that the schizophrenic person
making such a remark is aware of the impossibility and contradiction. In fact,
quite the reverse applies: the patient believes in the literal truth of the
statement that he is both a human being and not a human being at the same
time. This type of equivalence of opposites is a criterion attribute of primary
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Notes
1 Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams."
2 W. Sledge and I have identified numerous instances of simultaneous antithesis in Freud's
formulations. Freud's brilliant analysis of the nature of the uncanny as comprised of two
antithetical aspects, heimlich or familiar and "unheimlich or unfamiliar, is an especially
noteworthy instance of a janusian conception; see S. Freud, "The 'Uncanny'" (1919)
(London, 1955), 17:217-52.
3 As I discuss in the final chapter here, the operation of janusian thinking in producing artistic
creations and their aesthetic appeal supports and lends increased weight to Freud's
formulation about primary process.
4 S. Freud, "The Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words" (1910) (London, 1957), 11:15362. Freud
based this analysis on the work of a German philologist, Karl Abel.
5 C. Levi-Strauss, "The savage mind is logical in the same sense and in the same fashion as ours, though
as our own is only when it is applied to knowledge of a universe in which it recognizes
physical and semantic properties simultaneously" (The Savage Mind [Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1966], p. 268).
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6 See The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series,
1966), esp. The Psychology of the Unconscious, vol. 7; Psychological Types, vol. 6; The
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, vol. 8.
7 Some others who have strongly emphasized the importance of reconciliation of opposites, in art
and/or in life are Coleridge (probably the first), Eli Siegel, and Cyril Connolly. For
Coleridge's discussion of poetry as a reconciliation of opposites, see esp. chap. 14 in
Biographia Literaria. The English critic Connolly said the following: "To attain . . . truth
we must be able to resolve all our dualities [opposites]" (The Unquiet Grave [London:
Hamish Hamilton, 1945], p. 85). Siegel, who founded a movement called "Aesthetic
Realism" states as a manifesto: "The resolution of conflict in self is like the making one of
opposites in art," and "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of
opposites is what we are going after in ourselves"; see, e.g., E. Siegel, The Aesthetic
Method in Self Conflict (New York: Definition Press, 1965), Psychiatry, Economics,
Aesthetics (New York: Definition Press, 1946).
8 See G. W. F. Hegel, "The Science of Logic," in The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. W.
Wallace (London: Oxford University Press, 1965). For a good discussion of Hegel's
dialectic, see J. N. Findlay, Hegel: A Re-Examination (New York: Collier Books, 1962).
9 S. Plath, "Three Women," Winter Trees (London: Faber & Faber, 1971), p. 50.
10 The consideration here should also clarify the relationship of janusian thinking and syncretism.
Syncretism, the attempted reconciliation or union of different or conflicting principles,
practices, or parties, usually involves logic, compromise, or a process of accretion such as
the gradual incorporation of tenets and rites from different religions into a single
religion. While janusian thinking could play a role in developing a particular syncretic
result, syncretic thinking and approaches proceed along many and varying paths. Also,
Arieti's theory of creativity as a "magic" synthesis of primary and secondary process
does not take into consideration the difference between integration, which is more
intrinsic to creativity, and synthesis (see Arieti, Creativity).
11 Connections between sex and death have a long mythopoetic history. McClelland has discussed
these connections in the theme of the harlequin figure which he traces to a time prior to
the commedia dell'arte in the eleventh century. Also, he cites earlier connections in
Greek mythology; see D. W. McClelland, "The Harlequin Complex," in The Study of Lives,
ed. R. W. White (New York: Atherton Press, 1963), pp. 94120. Also, Professor Toby
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Olshin has called my attention to the widespread tendency among Renaissance poets,
particularly John Donne, to equate sexual orgasm and death in both punning and serious
contexts. This long-standing mythic and literary background has not detracted from the
impact of new constructions equating sex and death.
12 Koestler's emphasis is on dualistic factors both in the concept of bisocia- tion and in his recent use
of the metaphor of the god, Janus. He focuses on a two-faced god rather than on
opposition [Janus).
13 See L. Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston, 111.: Row, Peterson, 1957). Cognitive
dissonance consists of a relation of discrepancy or lack of fit between two items of
knowledge or conceptions held at the same time. Festinger emphasized that such
discrepancy produced discomfort and a motivation toward reduction or resolution. This
motivating effect of cognitive dissonance applies to the stimulating quality of janusian
formulations, the motivation and instigation to consider further and to seek further
information when exposed to such formulations. With the simultaneous antitheses and
oppositions, there could hardly be a form of cognition that is manifestly more discrepant
or dissonant.
14 E. Bleuler, Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, trans. J. Zinkin (New York: International
Universities Press, 1950), p. 53.
15 Ibid.
16 See earlier psychodynamic formulations about the author of "In Monument Valley"; see also
Rothenberg, "The Iceman Changeth," and "Poetic Process and Psychotherapy."
17 Bleuler, Dementia Praecox, p. 54.
18 In referring to absence of figurative intent, I do not mean to invoke the complicated and
controversial issue of whether schizophrenics think concretely rather than abstractly,
nor do I mean to propose a systematic formulation about figurative thinking in
schizophrenia. It is well known that persons suffering from schizophrenia do think
abstractly, sometimes "over- abstractly," and that they are also capable of speaking and
thinking both figuratively and metaphorically. I have suggested some formulations about
schizophrenic production of metaphors elsewhere (A. Rothenberg, "Poetry in the
Classroom," American Poetry Review 3 [1974] :52-54), and a full discussion of the matter
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10
HOMOSPATIAL THINKING
Given a grasp of what is so far known about janusian thinking, it is
possible to explore and to clarify further the role in creativity of homospatial
thinking. One function of the homospatial process is to operate in conjunction
with the janusian process in order to produce integrated aesthetic entities,
and scientific discoveries and formulations. I have already emphasized a
preliminary or preparatory aspect of the latter process: the tendency to
operate in early stages of the creative process with a later alteration or
transformation into completed creations. I have pointed out that other types
of cognition operate in conjunction with this one to produce various types of
overt effects in the substance of a final created product. In science,
philosophy, and other types of rationalistic discourse, logical, dialectical, or
technically oriented forms of thinking may operate to render janusian
formulations into formats necessary for communication, consensus, or
experimentation. Such formats may consist of resolutions, combinations,
reconciliations, and syntheses of the particular simultaneous antitheses and
oppositions in a janusian construct. In art, such operations and effects may
function to produce plausible representation, moral and logical consistency,
or effective communication. But both in science and in art, janusian
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Visual Arts
Because homospatial thinking often involves visual imagery, we might
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to recess the house similarly qualified until they appear in the same plane
in the picture. The result of this sort of fusion is partly a denaturing of
house and mountain ... a structuring [of] picture-space without the
influence of representation. But only partly. One does not get entirely
away from seeing the pictorial elements as a roof and part of a mountain.
But . . . the represented distance between them [is overcome] by placement
in the same plane, there is fusion of house and mountain natures. Thus is a
part of the mountain domesticated, and the house (domicile) takes on a
mountainous character. If "organic" unity has ever meant anything as
applied to a work of visual art, it means interanimation or fusion in this
latter sense, where different sorts of things with separate natures in
routine life are transformed into a single (though complex) nature. Such
transfiguration by metaphor is accurately reported in linguistic
metaphors, such as "the roof is a part of the mountain" or the other way
around; though . . . unifications of elements within the content of the
picture are not usually verbally reported but are more an affair of what is
visually sensed.4
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Fig. 32.
Oskar Kokoschka. Courmayeur et les dents des geants, 1927. The roofs of
the houses and the mountains interact with each other to produce a visual
metaphor; the mountain is "domesticated" and the house aggrandized. The
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Let us turn now to the sculpture by Henry Moore entitled Helmet Head
No. 5, shown in figure 33. I chose this particular sculpture for discussion
partly because it will readily be perceived, by both the naive and
sophisticated observer (psychoanalytic or not), as a rather blatant example of
sexual symbolism. The inner solid structure has definite phallic features and
the outer encapsulating portion is clearly reminiscent of the female womb.
We can properly assume that Moore himself definitely had this aspect in mind
as either a satirical or serious aspect of the piece. But the visual metaphor
does not consist of such symbolic representation, the visual metaphors in this
sculpture serve, as other types of metaphors do, to integrate form and
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content.
Fig. 33.
Henry Moore. Helmet Head No. 5, sculpture. Private collection.
Both the symbolic sexual content and the military content referred to in
the title of the work are integrated with form and shape. Note first the
massive nature of the solid aspects of this piece: the elongated structure with
the phallic features and the concave outer structure. Next, focus on the
geometric aspects: the elongated inner solid is rather linear, sharp, and
pointed, while the outer structure is round and partly spherical as well as
partly cylindrical with a suggestion in the crossing band of a somewhat helical
shape. So far, we have paid attention only to qualities of the separate
elements; much more could be said about these. But now I would venture to
say that, after looking at the piece for a short time; it is rather difficult to
continue to visualize the particular elements separately;5 the juxtaposition of
the elongated and concave structure and the spherical, cylindrical, helical and
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linear shapes produce such a powerful impact that we begin to see effects
based on the relationships among the various elements, we see the shapes
and forms operating together as well as separately. At the moment of such a
perception, we begin to be aware of, and to appreciate, the visual metaphor.
There is a dynamic effect: viewing the inner phallic structure together with
the outer, the former has an unmistakable quality of upward thrust while the
latter appears just as unmistakably to be heavily rooted and moving
downward toward the base or ground. This effect, it can be stated
categorically, does not arise either from the inner structure or from the outer
considered separately. If the viewer performs a visual trick of alternately
imagining the inner structure and then the outer structure standing isolated
somewhere and separate, he could then see the inner structure as heavy and
rooted to the ground despite the tendency of upright linear forms to seem to
move upward. On the other hand, when visualizing the outer structure or
shell standing free and alone, the rather delicate curves at the base impart a
sense of lightness and upward movement to this heavy form. All these
complexities of the forms, taken both separately and together, surely add to
the richness and complexity of the visual metaphor, but the major point to
consider is that the sense of upward and downward movement together is
derived from a perception oriented toward interaction or even fusion of
forms, a way of seeing that begins to bring forms together toward a common
location in the same space. The structures are seen both separately and
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structure, the equal and downward force of the latter, and a merging of the
two aspects across the "empty" space. Many will see more and more in all of
this. The actual sculpture rather than the photograph yields other and deeper
visual metaphors, the further merging of form and content characteristic of a
perfect work of art.
The gestalt psychology description of the visual field in terms of a
significant and discrete "figure" and a less significant, more diffuse "ground"
does not provide an adequate basis for understanding the visual metaphor.
The gestalt perceptual laws require that each aspect of the sculpture be seen
in terms of a particular discrete and defined figure, say the phallic structure
here, while the remainder is at that moment perceived as the more
amorphous ground. As one continued to look at this sculpture, different
aspects would accordingly be perceived successively as figures while other
portions successively became the ground. Thus the womblike helmet would
alternately become a figure and the empty space or even the phallic structure
would become the ground. When an element previously seen as a figure, such
as the phallic structure, becomes the ground, gestalt psychologists speak of
figure-ground reversal. For gestalt psychology, the rather immediate
integrative effects I just described would not occur because the visualizing
operations would consist of successive figure-ground reversals. Major aspects
of the visual field could never be perceived in the same spatial plane, and they
could certainly not be perceived as occupying the same spatial location.
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together. The tasks constantly emphasize the interactions among colors and
the interaction between colors and shapes. His verbal designations, though
necessarily far less eloquent than the visual tasks themselves, give some of
the flavor of his presentation:
Fig. 34.
Rubin's double profiles. According to gestalt principles, the two faces in
this drawing can only be seen successively. The homospatial perception
involves seeing both on the same visual plane, and interacting with one
another.
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translucence, then the optical reception in our eye has changed in our
mind to something different. The same is true when we see three colors as
four or as two, or four colors as three, when we see flat, even colors as
intersecting colors and their fluting effect, or when we see distinct onecontour boundaries doubled or vibrating or just vanishing.7
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general focus, because of the expression in the lady's eyes? Surely all these
factors play a role, but a careful viewing of the entire painting (see fig. 24) in
accordance with the perceptual principles outlined here shows some other
particular and crucial factors at work as well. If the so-called background of
the painting10 is viewed on the same visual plane as the woman, if, in other
words, the foreground and background are considered superimposed upon
one another, neither being dominant nor secondary but both occupying the
same space, much of the effect of the painting can be understood and
intensified. The two sides of the landscape are seen as sharply in contrast
with each other: the left side consists of a rather gentle undulating road
amidst somewhat rounded softened forms while the right side consists of a
rough, tumbling river amidst sharp, angular rocks, the road on the left seems
to move upward while the river goes down, the scene on the left is set in a
much warmer season than the one suggested by the whitened peaks of the
mountains on the right.
It could seem that, in comparing the attributes of the two sides of the
landscape, one's eye is moving back and forth and one therefore is not
experiencing a superimposition. If, however, the superimposition properly
includes many different planes at once, that is, left and right, horizontal and
vertical, foreground and background, such a reservation can be dispelled.
Superimposing the left and right sides of the landscape especially should
show most of the contrasts described. Such sharp contrasts, seen in direct
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were factors in Leonardo's thinking and working is evident from many of his
preliminary and final productions. In figure 35, the preliminary drawing or
cartoon for the famous painting St. Anne with Virgin (fig. 35A) shows two
bodies superimposed and fused to the
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Fig. 35A.
Leonardo da Vinci. Cartoon for St. Anne. The bodies are superimposed or
fused to the point that there appears to be one body with two heads.
Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees, The National Gallery, London.
extent that there appears one body with two heads.11 In the final
painting (fig. 35B), the effect is continued and the child is included so that the
three figures of Mary, Anne, and Jesus appear to form a single unit. Figure 36
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shows two drawings. One is the widely known anatomical illustration of the
proportions of the human body (fig. 36A),
Fig. 35B.
Leonardo da Vinci. St. Anne with Virgin, ca. 1498-99. The figures of Saint
Anne and Mary are virtually fused in this final painting. Louvre, Paris.
Photo Giraudon.
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Fig. 36.
Leonardo da Vinci. Superimpositions and fusions. A. Leonardo's famous
drawing illustrating the proportions of the human figure shows two men
superimposed on each other. Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice. B. "Beastly
madness"horse, lion, and man's head in successive fusions of each with
the others. Royal Library, Windsor Castle, copyright reserved.
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This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of,
and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it
were, inside his headhe thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were
holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally
visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at
one side what the other side is like. [Italics added]13
As Moore describes it, the sculptor has a mental image involving the
multiple aspects of a form and of masses "completely enclosed" in a single
spatial area, the figurative "hollow of his hand," a clear instance of
homospatial thinking. Unlike ordinary perception involving a general sensing
of other (nonvisualized) sides of a form, he indicates the bringing together of
complex and detailed features into a single image. Though we lack exact data
linking this thought process to any one of Moore's particular works, such as
systematic observations gathered during the creative process, Moore's
description of his conscious creative thinking can be readily related to those
effects stipulated for Helmet Head No. 5. Kokoschka, with whose painting
Aldrich explicated the visual metaphor effect, also made comments indicating
conscious awareness of visual metaphor effects and of the experience of
discrete entities occupying the same space. The following are remarks taken
from a letter by Kokoschka to his friend, Hans Tietze, about his painting in
progress, Gamblers:
It represents my friends playing cards. Each terrifyingly naked in his
passions, and all submerged by a color which binds them together just as
light raises an object and its reflection into a higher category by revealing
something of reality and something of its reflection, and therefore more of
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both.14
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Fig. 37.
Claes Oldenburg. Typewriter-Pie. A typewriter superimposed onto a pie.
From Claes Oldenburg, Notes in Hand (London: Petersburg Press, 1972).
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evidence gleaned from the creative work of Klee. Klee, cited earlier in
connection with endotopic and exotopic perception (chap. 7), provides a
stepwise account of the nature of the homospatial process (see fig. 40)20
though he does not call it thatinvolved in his creation of the watercolor
entitled Physiognomic Lightning (and other works). As the material comes
from his notes for teaching art students, the conception is presented in
sequence and alternatives are discussed analytically. Fie first presents the
problem of how to fuse a circle and a line. Then he differentiates between
combination (fig. 40a), repetition (fig. 40b), transposition (fig. 40c),
compromise or "evasion" (fig. 40d), and the active striking of the middle (fig.
40e) that is the solution of the problem and the fusion of homospatial
thinking. As this is a didactic format, there is little reason to believe that Klee
himself developed the conception for the painting in the plodding, stepwise
fashion described. On the contrary, it appears to be Klee's retrospective
explanation of his own more spontaneous cognition.
Another leading German expressionist painter, Max Beckmann, less
analytic and didactic than Klee, described a rather global bringing together of
discrete entities into the same space in his creative work: "What helps me
most in this task is the penetration of space. Height, width, depth are three
phenomena which I must transfer into one place to form the abstract surface
of the picture."21
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Fig. 38.
Claes Oldenburg. Circus Girl on a Big Ball, 1958. Ball and body are fused.
From Claes Oldenburg, Drawings and Prints (London: Chelsea House
Publishers, 1969, p. 25).
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Fig. 39.
Claes Oldenburg. Material and Scissors, 1963. The material and the
scissors are fused. From Claes Oldenburg, Drawings and Prints (London:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1969, p. 127).
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eloquence of any one of them by the presence of the others and to construct
with these elements, combining them without reducing their intrinsic quality;
in other words, to respect the purity of the means. [Italics added]22
As I discussed earlier, combining without reducing intrinsic quality is
the essence of integration. In integration, elements retain their identity within
a whole. Hogarth advocated a similar approach in his discussion of the
creative use of color in his classical treatise on art: "By the beauty of coloring,
the painters mean that disposition of colors on objects, together with their
proper shades, which appear at the same time both distinctly varied and
artfully united, in compositions of any kind." And also, "the utmost beauty of
coloring depends on the great principle of varying by all the means of varying,
and on the proper and artful union of that variety."23
Homospatial thinking in the visual arts is not connected to particular
styles, time periods, schools, or movements, it is intrinsic to the creation of
art. Neither is this type of thinking limited to visual imagery or mental seeing.
Although visual imagery is frequently a major ingredient of homospatial
thinking in the visual arts, as I stated earlier, all sensory modalities and all
types of sensory imagery are also involved. Discrete kinesthetic, tactile,
gustatory, olfactory, auditory as well as visual sensations are also conceived
as fused, superimposed, and occupying the same space. Kinesthetic
sensations of moving both frontways and sideways in the same space, tactile
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or
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our forms into matter. Then we might conceive of a row of unequal sticks, a
bit like piano keys, each with the top of a tin lying over it.
In this case we no longer have unified objects but rather two material
items without visible relation between them, just one on top of the other,
quite meaningless."
Fig. 40.
Paul Klee's steps toward the creation of the painting Physiognomic
Lightning, from Klee's The Thinking Eye (New York: Wittenborn Art
Books, 1961).
d. Adaptation by evasion; in the first case they go round on one side [1],
in the other they split and go round on both sides [2], Or the circle avoids the
battle by adapting itself to the straight line and becoming an ellipse [3]."
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the artist works is crucial in every type of visual art. The painter visualizes
lines, colors, and shapes all occupying the same space or spatial location as
the textured canvas itself, and he allows visualized images and texture to
interact, mutually modifying and influencing each other. The creative artist
brings into a single mental precept the qualities of his material together with
his conception; his work develops from the intense unbridled co-mingling of
image and object and results in an integration of qualities of line, color, and
texture. The paintings of Rembrandt, where the striking sense of emergent
soft light results from both dark and lighter pigments mixing with the finely
textured but flat surface of the underlying canvas, surely suggest that such
conceptions are necessary. In another type of fusion of image and material,
the heavy swirls of paint characteristic of van Gogh must have derived from a
mental conception in which the qualities of paint and brush were as distinct
and prominent as the subjects and scenes they depicted. Indeed, numerous
artists after van Gogh have intentionally focused on just this particular fusion
and this type of visual interaction. Covering large canvases with a single color
or with a simple arrangement of lines and colors, they celebrate the
interaction of these colors and lines with the texture and shape of the canvas,
the qualities of the paint, and the action of a brush or other implement.
Graphic artists, especially, approach their task by superimposing visual
conception with tangible material at every step of the way. Working with
wood, metal, glass, or stone, they are constantly mindful of grains and
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surfaces and they capitalize on the nuances of shape and shadow produced by
every cut or scratch they make. Every aspect of the materialsmoothness,
hardness, blemishes, and linesprovides continual sensory impressions and
feedback that intermingle and interact with the artist's mental image. Totally
immersed in his material, the graphic artist continually touches, looks, and
smells wood, rose paper, or rice paper as he goes along. At times, he even
seems to have a sense of the material's taste.
Interaction with the object, spatial fusion or superimposition of mental
precepts of the work in process with mental images and conceptualizations, is
a crucial aspect of the creative process in other areas beside the visual arts.
But before leaving the visual arts to discuss other art forms, I will again
consider architecture, the complicated enterprise that defies strict
categorization as a type of art. Even a cursory reflection on architecture
should, in the light of what I have shown so far, suggest that homospatial
thinking is very important there. Architects are preeminently concerned with
space and they conceptualize in spatial terms. Functional considerations of
developing "multiuse space"27 and artistic considerations of keeping in mind
multiple spatial aspectssimilar to conditions of sculptural creation all
suggest the operation of homospatial thinking. Just as in valued sculpture,
empty space is an object to be manipulated by creative architects. But, in
addition to considering its perceptual interaction with solid massive areas,
the architect must manipulate empty space for functional use.
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The final ground plan Kahn developed is shown in figure 41 (right) and
it details his idea of a circular center merging with longer areas to allow for
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Fig. 41.
Louis Kahn's development of a design: diagrammatic representation of his
first conception of the Congress Hall in Venice (left) and Congress Hall,
ground plan (right). The superimposition of a circle onto parallel lines
resulted in the design allowing for participation. From Conversations with
Architects by John W. Cook and Heinrich Klotz. Copyright c 1973 John W.
Cook and Heinrich Klotz. Praeger Publishers, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Praeger Publishers, Inc., a division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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Music
Because music is an auditory and temporal art, consisting of sounds
occurring in time, it is difficult to discuss in terms of spatial experience.
Primarily, this is because we tend to think of space as consisting only of
visually perceived phenomena. While there is a fascinating and continuing
philosophical controversy about the spatial attributes of music as well as
about the nature of space itself, I shall for the moment bypass those issues.29
With respect to psychological experience, we characteristically perceive
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I carry my thoughts about with me for a long time, often for a very long
time, before writing them down. I can rely on my memory for this and can
be sure that once I have grasped a theme, I shall not forget it even years
later. I change many things, discard others, and try again and again until I
am satisfied; then, in my head, I begin to elaborate the work in its breadth,
its narrowness, its height, its depth and, since I am aware of what I want to
do, the underlying idea never deserts me. It rises, it grows, I hear and see
the image in front of me from every angle, as if it had been cast, and only the
labor of writing it down remains. [Italics added]31
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but rather an active interaction between auditory and visual imagery in his
mind, a superimposition of entities from discrete sensory modes. As Richard
Wagner stated in an interview with his colleague, Englebert Humperdinck: "I
see in my mind's eye definite visions of the heroes and heroines of my music
dramas. I have clear mental pictures of them before they take form in my
scores, and while I am holding fast to those mental images, the musicthe
Leit-motives, themes, harmonies, rhythms, instrumentationin short, the
whole musical structure, occurs to me."39
Active or purposeful superimposition, fusion, and interaction of discrete
entitieswhether purely auditory, or auditory and visual, kinaesthetic, or
other sensory modality togetheris a criterial feature of homospatial
thinking in music just as in visual and other arts. Because the superimposition
and fusions are often very rapid and, for many composers, completely
routine, the willful and intentional aspect tends to escape their notice. In
conceiving such musical organizations as polyphonies, or even the simple
concatenation of rhythmic patterns executed by multiple drums, the
integration produced is not random or accidental, but willfully conceived.
This is true whether the music is improvised, as in jazz, or carefully
constructed before it is performed; in both cases, consistently successful
integration is "composed" or made. In improvised music, the
superimpositions and fusions are carried out in ongoing and split second
fashion; in written music it is merely somewhat more leisurely done.
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Although John Cage and other proponents of so-called random music might
insist that such willful intention is not necessary to produce worthwhile
music, their position does not apply to musical creation as it is customarily
understoodor else the type of integrations they produce exists on a
different level than the one I am discussing here.
That superimposition of discrete entities is intentional is evident on
careful reading of the following statement by Hindemith. This statement is
frequently and erroneously quoted as a description of a mystical unconscious
inspiratory experience, but, despite the sense of an extensive and
comprehensive vision, the key emphasis in Hindemith's account is on the
conscious and purposeful superimposition of the whole structure or form
onto its discrete parts. Moreover, there is the suggestion of a superimposition
of visual (seeing the form) and auditory (the sound details) elements within
the same space.
We all know the impression of a heavy flash of lightning in the night.
Within a second's time we see a broad landscape, not only in its general
outlines but with every detail. Although we could never describe each
single component of the picture, we feel that not even the smallest leaf of
grass escapes our attention. We experience a view, immensely
comprehensive and at the same time immensely detailed, that we could
never have under normal daylight conditions, and perhaps not during the
night either, if our senses and nerves were not strained by the
extraordinary suddenness of the event.
Compositions must be conceived the same way. If we cannot, in the flash of
a single moment, see a composition in its absolute entirety, with every
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pertinent detail in its proper place, we are not genuine creators. . . . Not
only will he [the composer] have the gift of seeingilluminated in his
mind's eye as if by a flash of lightninga complete musical form (though
its subsequent realization in a performance may take three hours or
more); he will have the energy, persistence and skill to bring this
envisioned form into existence, so that even after months of work not one
of its details will be lost or fail to fit into his photo-mental picture. [Italics
added]40
Literature
Homospatial thinking operates in numerous and diverse ways in
literature. In addition to producing metaphors and integrating janusian
formulations, this form of cognition operates in poetry to produce meaningful
and effective rhymes, alliterations, and assonances. Entities which are
connected or juxtaposed, such as the opposites in a janusian construct, words
with similar graphic or phonetic properties, and words that are homographic
homophones yielding double meanings are subjected to the superimposition
and fusion of the homospatial process. In the case of some of these
connections and juxtapositions, such as sound-alike or rhyming words, the
initial coming together may be the result of a trained association process: the
poet teaches himself to remember words with similar phonetic properties
and they come to mind as associations to other words.41 But the homospatial
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process is not associational; here again the principle is based on "ought," the
words are superimposed or fused because the poet wills it. For emotional
and/or aesthetic reasons, the poet wants to unify the words or to elaborate
their intrinsic meanings and relations. After arriving at a juxtaposition of
similar sounding words by association, he superimposes or fuses them in his
mind and the resulting conception generates wordings and ideas.
In the creation of a poem about a scene on a beach, one of my research
subjects had followed the line, "Or lathered magmas out of deep retorts," with
the beginning of a new stanza, thus:
Welling, as here to fill
With tumbled rockmeal, stone froth, lithic fire
The dike's brief chasm and the sill . . .
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he then searched for rhymes for the latter word and thought of "day." Next
and here the particular homospatial conception occurredthe words "day"
and "spray" together produced an idea and image embodied in the following
line, the line that became the fourth in the stanza:
Weathered until the sixth and human day.
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Fig. 42.
Diagrammatic representation of the homospatial conception consisting of
images of watery (ocean) spray and bright day (daylight), day as elapsed
time, and of the printed words themselves led to the poetic line:
"Weathered until the sixth and human day."
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the latter generated the idea: the concrete realization of the idea, the poetic
creation of this line, and the subsequent references to Creation in the poem
were clearly made possible through the homospatial process.
A similar principle holds for the poetic use of homographs,
homophones, and homographic homophones. Words such as "rifle" with two
or more discrete meaningsthe weapon and the act of searchingare
notoriously used in the ordinary construction of puns. But in poetry such
words are also used in a more serious way. Shakespeare, for instance, is often
cited for his copious use of puns in his poetic dramas. But while Shakespeare
and other poets frequently use puns in order to produce a humorous effect,
they also use homophonic and homographic words for more profound and
serious embodiment of aesthetic multiple meanings or so-called ambiguities.
Sometimes these serious and humorous effects cannot be separated because
the artist intends the same words or phrases to serve several purposes at
once. Quite separate, however, are the psychological roots of the pun and of
the aesthetically intended multiple meaning. As mentioned earlier, the pun is
a technique of wit that depends, for its effect, upon what Freud called
"rediscovering what is familiar."42 When, for instance, the punster uses the
word "rifle" in a context that calls attention to its double meaning, we laugh
upon recognition of something we already know. The pun calls our attention
to the fact that one word has two disparate meanings. Used as a joke, a pun is
a manifestation of the primary process mechanism of condensation. It is
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Shakespeare, he often uses the pun both as a joke and in an integrated, more
serious way. In context, the pun produces comic relief or illustrates a
speaker's character and also has a deeper impact. The first effect of producing
laughter gives way to slight discomfort or thoughtful consideration. Note in
Macbeth, for instance, the porter's wry punning comment on drink: "[it]
equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him" (act 2, sc. 3,
line 34).
To return to metaphor, it is in production of metaphors that
homospatial thinking plays one of its major roles in literary creation.
Fortunately, unlike with visual and auditory metaphor, instances of literary
metaphor require little exegesis or explanation. One bit of caution, however:
although particular instances of literary metaphor are readily identified and
agreed upon, there is nowadays a good deal of disagreement in psychological,
philosophical, and linguistic quarters about the nature of metaphor in the
general sense. And an even more important caveat: when discussing
metaphors in literature, one must bear in mind the distinction between the
tired metaphors and clichs of everyday language and the fresh and
penetrating created metaphors in poetry and other types of literary art. Only
in the construction of these latter types of metaphors does the homospatial
process play a crucial role (N.B.: except, as with the integration of puns, it also
integrates clichs into new metaphors).
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with that, a particular emotional sense of there being some form of writing on
the water. His description of this emotional sense and the sequence leading
up to the creation of the first line of the poem is as follows:
I. . . apprehended that these figures weren't in a book but were, at that very
moment, in the most literal sense being written on the sea by the sun, a
being who was a poet. I did not say to myself the sun is a poet but 1 felt the
emotion such a person as myself might be expected to feel were he to find
himself in the presence of a being both capable of doing what 1 now beheld
being done and accustomed to doing it. There was then a fractional pause, a
halt in my attention as if that attention didn't wholly apprehend what was
presented to it, the halt in fact that precedes recognition. . . . On an instant
there was presented to my consciousness a favorite picture-postcard I had
twice or thrice bought at the British Museum. Almost simultaneously there
formed in my mouth the line
Thus, as Nichols described it, the initial line of this poem, a metaphor,
was produced by a homospatial conception: the image of a poet, the sun, and
the words comprising the poetic line were fused and were occupying the
same space. Notice, for instance, that the word "serene" describes both the
idea of the "easygoing" quality of the scene and a quality of the postcard
poet's gaze. And the word "ancient" describes both a poet from an older
civilization and the ageless sun. Notice, too, that the homospatial conception
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was not merely the result of undirected mental associations to the visual
sensations of the scene: despite Nichols's use of passive grammatical
constructions in the description, it is clear that he had an interpretative idea
of a personage which led him to superimpose the image of the postcard poet
onto the scene and to construct the line. A few lines further on in his essay,
Nichols makes the guiding intentionality of his emotion clearer: "Did the
postcard precipitate the line or the line the postcard? Neither. The emotion of
being in the presence of an august personage engaged, as I beheld him
engaged, precipitated both the line and the image."
For the poet, the homospatial conception produces the metaphor and its
specific content. The superimposition and fusion of the postcard poet with the
scene yielded not only the explicit equating of the sun and a poet, the
structure of the metaphor, but suggested the particular words "serene" and
"ancient" as content. It appears that the poet generally brings such images
together into the same space, scrutinizes and savors them for interlocking
features and similarities fitting his emotional and cognitive orientation at the
moment, and then labels these in words to produce the metaphor. I realize, in
saying this, that I seem to be describing a far more plodding, deliberate
process than what Nichols describes as a dramatically sudden event. Further,
Nichols's use of passive constructions such as "there formed" or "the emotion
precipitated" may not seem to jibe exactly with my discussion of a willful,
intentional sequence. I shall again emphasize, therefore, that I am analyzing a
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very complex though momentary event. All the steps I mentioned probably
came together in a flash. Before describing the particular thoughts connected
to the creation of the poetic line, Nichols explicitly stated that he had
intentionally set out that morning to write a poem about the sun. His use of a
passive grammatical construction rather than an active intention- connoting
one need not be taken as a literal description of his thinking, but should be
considered a stylistic device. Finally, when Nichols suggests that an "emotion"
brought about this line and image, our knowledge of mental processes allows
us to insist that conceptual thinking played a role as well.
The final form of the line he used is, of course, slightly different from the
initial wording. In this regard, Nichols merely explained that he thought the
wording "too jumpy" and he therefore changed the order of the adjectives.
Many such judgments were made during the course of constructing the entire
poem and other types of thinking also were applied. But overall, Nichols's
description makes clear that neither the emotion and conception of the
august personage alone, nor the mere association of the sun's reflection with
writing, produced the initial metaphor. A supravening and superimposed
image of the poet on the postcard was required. The indissoluble line and
image he describes was a portion of the homospatial process.
Readers of poetry, literary critics, and psychologists analyzing a
completed poem implicitly assume that metaphors are produced by an
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frequent error. The assumption here is that the work of art is always created
in the same way as it is experienced by a receiving viewer or reader. The
answers as given derive from the associations instigated in the receiving
reader's mind about the poetic scenes indicated by the metaphors. The
answers are derived from the reader's perception of the impact of the
metaphors. But the sequence and circumstances of metaphor creation are
quite different from these perceptions, visualization of a particular scene or
analogizing does not itself produce an effective metaphor. Because of
homospatial thinking, a creative poet brings together elements on the basis of
various types of conceptions. When actually creating the metaphor "the road
was a rocket of sunlight," the creator was sitting at his desk and thinking
about the alliterative properties of the words "road" and "rocket." He was also
visualizing the shapes both of roads and of rocket trajectories and trails.
Other conceptual as well as emotional factors brought the words and images
to mind. Then, through a homospatial conception, he mentally superimposed
the images (and, more vaguely, the words themselves) and fleetingly thought,
"What connects road and rocket?",- "When do they relate to each other or
look alike?" The answer came as, "in sunlight," and almost simultaneously the
full metaphor, "the road was a rocket of sunlight," was conceived.
Similarly, "the branches were handles of stars" was created at a desk
through superimposition and fusion of words and images. Attracted to the
words "branches" and "handles" because of their assonance, their emotional
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and conceptual meanings, and their similarly elongated shapes, the creator
mentally brought them together to fill the same spatial location. The
connecting idea of "stars" was suggested both by the plausibility of branches
and handles looking similar at night and by the sound qualities of the word.
"Stars" is assonantal both with "branches" and with "handles"; mentally
superimposing the two latter words emphasized and intensified the common
"a" aspect and quality, and suggested the word "stars." After the full metaphor
was created, the creatorlike the readerperceived and enjoyed such
associations as the torch-like quality of the entire image, the sense of strength
and supportiveness, connections between near and far, and the sense of
branches reaching. He too visualized a scene of seeing the stars contiguous
with the branches of a tree at night. All these associations convinced him that
he had created an effective metaphor. Thus, a series of mental events, rather
than the perceptions of similarities and contiguities in particular scenes, or of
analogies among elements, served to produce these metaphors. Occurring so
rapidly that the series of mental events sometimes seems to happen almost
all at once, such a sequence is responsible for the creation of metaphor even
when a particular scene seems to be the instigating factor. Even, for instance,
when walking in the country or a park in the evening, a homospatial
conception of a branch and handle occupying the same space is responsible
for producing the effective metaphor.
A similar type of series of events was documented by the American
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Cautiously,
In gown of shabby green
She picks her way unsteadily
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Although I have included only the first half of this poem, the
personification of spring, which is the central image or metaphor throughout,
came, as he says, from filling in the "details" following the "shabby green"
homospatial conception. It was not the result of an association or a
remembrance regarding a particular element in a country scene, actual or
imagined. The construction of the remainder of the poem consisted of a
continual filling in of details generated by the tension in the original
conception.
A particularly interesting aspect of this account is Cane's description of
the emotional elements accompanying the homospatial conception. Here is a
recounting in somewhat elaborated detail of some of the steps in the
homospatial process, a process consisting of a complex interaction of many
types of psychological phenomena, only one of which is the cognitive fusion of
discrete entities. Embroiled in feelings of tension and discouragement, the
poet initially conjures up a country scene in order, it seems, to become more
relaxed and to write a poem. Then he brings himself back to his immediate
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superimposition of the image of the self with the material and vice versa:
words merge with mental images and ideas, and there is mutual interaction
and modification. All aspects of the words, their sounds and associated
images, exert an influence as do all aspects of the mental image of the self. At
the completion of a good poem, both the poet and the words or phrases he
uses are literally altered and changed from what they were at the start. Thus,
this is a comprehensive form of the homospatial process, involving all sensory
modalities at once.
Such a comprehensive form of homospatial thinking operates in other
arts as well. In the performing arts, actors experience a sense of fusion
between the mental image of themselves and the character they portray,
dancers experience such fusion and superimposition of their bodies and the
"empty" space surrounding, and musicians a physical fusion with their music.
And in other forms of literature besides poetry, this general type of
homospatial thinking plays a role. While production of metaphor as well as
creative use of homophony, alliteration, assonance, and even rhyme plays a
role in all types of literary creation, homospatial thinking also tends to
operate in broader ways in the creation of novels, short stories, and plays.
Creating these latter forms of literature especially involves the continual
interaction between the author's conscious image of himself and his
materials, as well as fusions and superimpositions of scenes, sequences, and
attributes of persons.
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experienced the Berkeley and Yale images together, occupying the same
space, did he think of the motorcycle policemen and begin to articulate
further the realm and world of the novel, its scenes and images.49 Though
the images were fused and superimposed, he continued to see discrete
aspects of them as he elaborated the scene. In a later paragraph of the
chapter, he wrote: "for some reason [John was] vividly conscious of the
dirty stone of the heavy nineteenth-century buildings behind him," an
inclusion of something from the Yale scene.
The broader type of manifestation of homospatial thinking, the author's
superimposition and fusion of his self-image with his material, is also
conveyed here in his orientation toward the main character and in his
rather dramatic action of setting his hand at the top of the page as a
barrier against distraction before he could actually begin writing. The
author called my attention to this second matter himself. It could, of
course, be merely considered a means of facilitating concentration. He
seems to have been struggling at that point with the imposed and
distracting task of having to write out his thoughts. In his difficulty,
however, he became hypersensitive to the physical surroundings outside
himself and, in discussing it with me later, he said that he put his hand at
the top of the sheet in order to separate both himself and the work from his
surroundings. He demonstrated the definite gesture with a slam of the side
of his hand on his desk. The action, in other words, conveyed the sense of
this author's blocking out the outside and putting himself in a space
together with the work.
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associated
with
unacceptable
feelingsthe
continual
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They are neither completely derived from persons in real life nor are they
completely invented.
One author, for instance, was consciously aware of modeling a character
after his own son. As he constructed scenes involving the character's
interaction with the father in the novel, the author also thought about feelings
and impressions pertaining to his own father. In writing the scenes, he
brought together images of his son and himself, and images of himself with
his own father. Moreover, the character in the novel had already been
described as having experiences that were unlike both the author's own and
those of his son. The discussions between the son and the father in the novel,
therefore, resulted from a conscious merger and a fusion of words and ideas
of the three types of images and persons: the author's son, the author himself,
and the son character in the novel.
Another instance comes from the creation of All the King's Men by
Robert Penn Warren. The narrator-character in that novel is named Jack
Burden. In a retrospective discussion, Warren told me that he had decided to
have the narrator of the novel be a character in the story in order to avoid
having a removed, omniscient, and impersonal author relating the events, and
also to provide a dramatic center, or "model" for the effect of the main figure
Stark in filling some spiritual or psychological vacuum in othersthe source
of his power. He noted that while creating Jack Burden he had in his mind an
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actual young man he had known. Also, at one point in the writing, he said, he
began to be concerned that the novel would lack a "moral center," that it
might turn out to be merely a thriller. It was then that he gave Jack Burden a
background as a graduate student of history who had decided to turn away
from pursuing his doctorate [Warren: "Trying to find an indication of the
point of the novel, I made up the story of the historic document of Cass
Mastern. Jack, from a sense of contrast between the moral sense of this, his
own family's document, and his own condition, gave up his doctorate. Or, at
least, this was his alibi"]. Strikingly, at an important turning point or "moral
center" of his own life Warren himself had decided to give up his graduate
studies as well: during the period at Oxford, where he was taking a B.Litt., he
had begun to write fiction as well as poetry and began to envisage a primarily
literary career by which he could live, and so he resigned a fellowship at Yale
which would have allowed him to return there to do a dissertation for the
doctorate. He "swore" never to write even an article for a learned journal
[Warren: "swore, perhapssuperfluously"].
That writers have not heretofore come forward to describe the process
in these terms does not mean it is out of awareness. Introspection about the
precise nature of mental events during the creative process is a hindrance
and writers have wisely avoided it. Under the circumstances of my interviews
with writers as research subjects, recall of thoughts in conjunction with a
day's work in progress is high. There is sometimes a good deal of motivation
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Notes
1 Needless to say, the oxymoron is only one type of metaphor, and sometimes a rather banal type as
well.
2 I have not, and shall not, systematically discuss here such art forms as dance, theatre, film, or the
opera. This is not because such forms are less important but only because all are partly
covered through consideration of the broader areas of visual arts, music, and literature.
All, particularly dance creation, in which homospatial thinking plays a large role, deserve
extensive further comment and consideration.
3 V. C. Aldrich, "Visual Metaphor," Journal of Aesthetic Education 2 (1968) :73-86, and "Form in the
Visual Arts," British Journal of Aesthetics 11 (1971) :215-26.
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4 Aldrich "Form in the Visual Arts," p. 223. References to Aldrich's overall philosophy of art involving
first, second, and third orders of formulation are deleted in the quotation. The visual
metaphor concept clearly is an autonomous one.
5 This effect is apparent even though looking at this photograph of the sculpture; it is far stronger
when viewing the sculpture itself.
6Anton Ehrenzweig, the brilliant and discerning art teacher, also had recourse to this diagram in his
attempt to show the limitations of the traditional gestalt figure-ground formulation as
applied to art. Ehrenzweig formulated an unconscious "dedifferentiated" perception to
account for artistic "seeing." A suggestive concept, possible points of contact with the
processes I am describing are altered and weakened by the emphasis on unconscious
perception. The homospatial process is conscious, as should be evident after applying
the visualizing principle to the Rubin profiles; see Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Ait
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).
7 Albers, Interaction of Color, p. 73.
8 Ibid., p. 72.
9 Ibid., p. 44.
10 Some controversy exists about whether this is an actual scene of Florentine countryside or merely,
as Kenneth Clark states, a typical da Vinci background. Regardless, it is not a scene that
would have been directly seen and copied from such a room as in the painting. Its
particular visual features are the important issue, whatever the source; see Clark,
Leonardo da Vinci, pp. 118-19. Anna Maria Brizio takes the following position: "It is not a
real landscape, but a kind of geological composition in which, in the stratification of the
rocks, in the shape of the waters, the temporal stratification of centuries past is
reflected" ("The Painter," in The Unknown Leonardo, ed. L. Reti [New York: McGraw-Hill,
1974], p. 24).
11 Both Freud and Neumann, the discerning explica tor of the Jungian aesthetic, focused extensively on
this cartoon and painting and both emphasized psychological factors pertaining to the
content rather than the formal perceptual effect. Neumann saw the archetypal image of
the Great Mother in these forms and Freud saw the two mothers of Leonardo's childhood
(E. Neumann, Art and the Creative Unconscious: Pour Essays, trans. R. Manheim [New
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York: Harper St Row, 1959]; S. Freud, "Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His
Childhood" [1910] [London, 1957], 11:59-138). In passing, Freud even gauchely
criticized the fusion and the artistic form as follows: "One is inclined to say that they are
fused with each other like badly condensed dream-figures, so that in some places it is
hard to say where Anne ends and where Mary begins. But what appears to a critic's eye
as a fault, as a defect in composition, is vindicated in the eyes of analysis by reference to
its secret meaning [i.e., the two mothers]" (p. 114).
12 Brizio, "The Painter," p. 44.
13 H. Moore, "The Sculptor Speaks," Listener 18 (1937) :338.
14 Quoted from a letter written by Oskar Kokoschka to Professor Tietze (ca. 1917-18), in E. Hoffman,
Kokoschka: Life and Work (London: Faber St Faber, 1947), p. 158.
15 Quoted in J. Cladel, Rodin the Man and His Art: With Leaves from His Notebook, trans. S. K. Star (New
York: Century, 1917), p. 108.
16 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sonnet 15 and Madrigale 12, quoted in J. A. Symonds, Life of Michelangelo
(London: John C. Nimmo, 1893), 1:110.
17 C. Oldenburg, Notes in Hand (New York: Dutton, 1971), p. 47.
18 C. Oldenburg, Drawings and Prints (London: Chelsea House, 1969), p. 24.
19 Ibid., p. 126.
20 Klee, The Thinking Eye, pp. 328-30.
21 M. Beckmann, From a lecture given at the New Burlington Galleries, London 1938, quoted in
Protter, Painters on Painting, p. 211.
22 H. Matisse, "La Chapelle du Rosaire," quoted and translated in A. H. Barr, Matisse: His Art and Public
(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1951), p. 288.
23 W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty (London: J. Reeves, 1753), p. 113, and pp. 119-20.
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24 A. Gleizes and J. Metzinger, "Cubism," in Modem Artists on Art, ed. R. L. Herbert (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964; orig. pub. 1912 by Figuiere).
25 Moore, "Sculptor Speaks."
26 Moore [Untitled], in Unit 1.
27 See the architect Bertrand Goldberg's use of this term and a related term, "kinetic space," in J. W.
Cook, and H. Klotz, Conversations with Architects (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 122-46,
esp. pp. 130-31, "kinetic space," and p. 142, "multiuse space."
28 Ibid., p. 203.
29 Some of this controversy derives from what recent philosophers have pointed to as a Western
tendency to spatialize time (see chap. 12 below). As music is primarily temporal,
figurative spatial terms applied to music produce serious conceptual problems,
particularly when they become reified and are used as though such dimensions directly
apply. Moreover, there is a tendency to think of space in music as equivalent to
something static, stationary, or abstracted, in distinction to the dynamic, moving,
concrete quality of time. This, I believe, is an invalid polarization of attributes and it
derives in part from conceptualizing space solely in visual terms. Erwin Straus has
developed an excellent analysis of the phenomenology of space in music in which he
posits that music "homogenizes" space,- it is experienced as overcoming a boundary
between inner and outer space and fills the distance between the hearer and the source.
While I think Straus's discussion is valid, and strongly recommend a careful reading of it
(E. Straus, "The Forms of Spatiality," in Phenomenological Psychology [New York: Basic
Books, 1966], pp. 3-37), it cannot be used as a basis for the consideration of space in
music specifically, because the homogenization he describes occurs in other art forms as
well. I shall discuss his analysis later in chap. 13 in discussing homospatial thinking and
the basis of its creative effect. For the definition of space used throughout the remainder
of this chapter, see chap. 12.
30 The model for the definition of the nature of metaphor must be the linguistic metaphor. As used
here, visual and auditory metaphors differ from linguistic metaphors only because the
latter, being composed of words, have clear and specific referents.
31 L. van Beethoven, From a written conversation with Louis Schlosser (1822 or 1823), in Beethoven:
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Letters, Journals and Conversations, trans. and ed. M. Hamburger (New York: Pantheon,
1952), p. 194.
32 Quoted in M. Agnew, "Auditory Imagery of Great Composers," Psychological Monographs 31 (1922)
:282.
33 A student of mine has suggested that the musical staff represents vertical and horizontal
relationships in music together. Such a formulation, though it could conceivably
incorporate a hitherto undefined intrinsic psychological factor in music, is essentially
restrictive because it tends to identify the spatial aspect of music with the purely visual
matter of notation. The perceptual laws discussed in this section apply both to visual and
auditory experience and are more basic than the visual notation scheme. Moreover,
many alternative notation procedures not using vertical and horizontal are possible for
music.
34 Schoenberg, Style and Idea, p. 113. Deletions in this quotation of Schoenberg's reference to
Swedenborg's heaven and an absence of absolute direction in musical space are made for
the purposes of clarity.
35 A. Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 156. v
36 Schoenberg, Style and Idea, p. 162.
37 J. Beckwith and U. Kasemets, The Modem Composer and His World (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1961), p. 117. The word "combination" used in this context suggests interactions
rather than a compromise or reconciliation of the horizontal and vertical relationships.
38 A. W. Thayer, The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven (New York: Schirmer, 1921), 2:316.
39 Quoted in A. M. Abell, Talks with Great Composers (Garmisch-Parten- kirchen: G. E. Schroeder,
1964), p. 184.
40 P. Hindemith, A Composers World (New York: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 70-71. I have referred to
Hindemith's comprehensive image earlier in the chapter on janusian thinking. For
janusian thinking to he involved, it would be necessary to assume that Hindemith was
also referring to simultaneity of opposing temporal orientations. While it is difficult to
ascertain such a reference in the above, it is, in any event, quite common to find both
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'brought forward' in a human being, but that he is his past at every moment and that the
present is merely that which his past is capable of noticing, and smelling and reacting to"
(Arthur Millers Collected Plays [New York: Viking, 1957], p. 23). The passage represents
the matter essentially as Miller did to me personally. What is of some additional interest,
however, is the shift of emphasis and consequent omissions. In the above passage, Miller
doesn't mention his conception that Willie, the salesman, was inside his own head. He
stresses in the written passage the stage setting and the abstract meaning of the idea.
This emphasis is clearly appropriate here as Miller is discussing the aesthetic issues in
the play, not recounting the steps in the creative process to a researcher.
49 The author's use of the passive grammatical construction "comes together" with respect to the
Berkeley and Yale scenes is more equivocal than an active construction such as "I
brought together," but the latter type of phraseology is seldom applied to personal
mental events. Nevertheless, it is certain that this author was consciously searching for
ideas and he intended to construct a scene from the images in his mind. Moreover, he is
not describing a process of free association nor a regressed state of consciousness. These
assertions and my formulations in the text have been corroborated by the author himself
after reading the material here.
50 A. S. Hoffman, Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1923).
51 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 1:50 ff.
52 Freud, "Creative Writers and Daydreaming."
53 G. G. Williams, Readings for Creative Writers (New York: Harper, 1938), pp. 181-87.
54 E. Bowen, Collected Impressions (New York: Knopf, 1950), p. 251.
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11
HOMOSPATIAL THINKING AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL
PROCESS
Because homospatial thinking involves fusion, imagery, multiple
sensory modalities, identity, and similarity, it can be confused with so-called
primitive, pathological, and concrete modes of thought. Moreover, one of the
characteristics of primary process thinking is the lack of ordinary spatial
restrictions, so-called spacelessness. In dreams, this characteristic is
manifested by the bringing together of concrete elements without regard to
their ordinary locations, dimensions, conformations, or their integrity in
space; there is defiance or exaggeration of the limitations and effects of
gravity, size, and structure. Thus, flying, enormous feats of strength, or
excessive exhaustion, as well as composite images of places, people, and
things appear. Sometimes, as we well know, the composite images in dreams
can be phantasmagoric. This primary process feature of spacelessness is
mirrored in consciousness by homospatial thinking. Both operate to defy the
ordinary restrictions of space but they function in a reverse cognitive and
psychodynamic manner. The primary process characteristic functions to
express wishes in concealed form, while homospatial thinking functions to
unearth and reveal unconscious material as well as to integrate and unite
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saying, "spilled tea is anger," there is frequently a belief that a person's anger
literally caused the tea to spill. This is not because schizophrenics cannot
think abstractly. They most certainly can and do, and when they do they are, if
predisposed, capable of homospatial thinking. But most often, they are
focused on the concrete and literal meanings of their words and expressions.
Here, the condensation mechanism predominantly holds sway.
With respect to other forms of psychopathology where there are
intrusions as well as aberrant types of mental images, such as in hysteria,
condensation rather than homospatial thinking is involved. And not only
psychopathological forms of thought but psychopathological dynamisms are
distinct from the psychological dynamisms of homospatial thinking. A
particular case in point is the factor of fusion. In schizophrenia and other
types of psychopathology, an excessively interdependent or interlocking
relationship between parent (or parents) and childsymbiosisis often
implicated as a possible causative or attenuating factor. This interdependence
is so extreme that young child and parent are psychologically virtually fused,
a factor playing a role in the child's later difficulties in developing
psychological boundaries between himself and all others, as well as his
inability to distinguish categories. Other types of fusion that have been
described are the narcissistic fusions associated with a wide persity of
psychopathological conditions.2 Hellmuth Kaiser has described an underlying
fantasy of fusion consisting of a wish to incorporate oneself or to be
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perceiving, and it has been reported that mescaline and d-lysergic acid
diethylamide (LSD) produce such synaesthetic experiences regardless of any
previous endowment.5 So dramatic and so stimulating are these experiences
for the drug ingestors that the drugs are frequently touted as instigators and
facilitators of creativity.6 However, despite the rather dramatic qualities of
this type of imagery and of the synaesthetic experiences during drug
ingestion, no definite connections to creativity have been established.
Although some musicians and other artists have occasionally used terms
suggesting synaesthetic experiences, there are no data to suggest that such
experiences played any direct role in their creations.
Primarily based on associational cognitive processes, synaesthesia is
clearly distinct from homospatial thinking, an active process leading to
integration. Also, synaesthesia involves only qualities of entities rather than
entire entities or images of entire entities. It involves interchangeability of
sensory modes rather than fusion or superimposition. Because synaesthesia
derives from associations between experiences in different sensory
modalities, such as a particular sound calling up a particular color sensation,
it differs from homospatial thinking in involving sequential images. The color
green, for instance, follows the appearance of the sound stimulus; the color
and the sound do not occupy the same space.
Although some seemingly effective metaphors, such as "a yellow voice,"
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same as the particular ability to use and fuse visual images. Eidetic images,
which are reproductions of actual physical scenes, are not at all required for
the homospatial process.
Special capacity with auditory and other nonvisual forms of imagery
are, however, probably quite important in homospatial processes involving
these other forms. Composers, for instance, surely have greater capacity to
generate auditory images than the rest of us. The major issue is characteristic
function and use. Special capacity with visual imagery is not ordinarily
necessary because a tendency to think in visual images is already fairly highly
developed in the general population. This is probably the result of a number
of factors: developmental, evolutionary, and social. The intense contemporary
bombardment of visual images from motion pictures and television surely
plays a role. Only a reduced tendency to use visual imagery in comparison to
the average, therefore, would be of pragmatic importance. Those who seldom
think in visual terms would very likely seldom engage in the homospatial
process. Those who frequently think in visual terms do not necessarily
engage in homospatial thinking except perhaps by chance or because they
apply their visual imagery creatively.
With respect to Coleridge's previously mentioned distinction between
fancy and constructive imagination, mental images derived from ordinary
everyday thinking, daydreams and fantasies, or directly from nocturnal
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Americas and with the future, High Tor concerns a similar but reversed
confrontation. In the Anderson play, new world values emphasizing
industrialization and materialism are confronted both by a young man
wanting to preserve the natural life and ways of the past, and by ghosts from
the old world. There are, moreover, many particular similarities in structure
and content between the two plays, including an almost identical humorous
sequence involving the seeing of a monster in the doubled set of protruding
limbs and heads of two people sleeping under a common blanket. Because the
play was clearly a literary creation and because original manuscripts were
available, I undertook an empirical study of the creation of this work.7
In the earlier study of the creation of a play based on analysis of
manuscript drafts, the study of O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, I developed a
methodology focused on textual errors and revisions by the author.8 First
draft revisions provide a written documentation of the dynamic, changing
aspect of a work in progress. Study of revisions, therefore, is a reliable means
for retrospective analysis of the process of literary creation. Furthermore, by
extending the principle of unconscious and preconscious conflict as the basis
for errors and slips of the tongueone of Freud's most scientifically valid and
widely accepted discoveriesto literary revisions as a related category,
revisions become the means for understanding preconscious and
unconscious influences operating during the creation of a particular work.
Although Freud himself never extended his discoveries about slips and errors
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to the realm of literary revision, the basis for such an extension is the
following: just as ordinary slips and errors represent a discrepancy between
intent and executionthe person making the error wants to say or write the
correct thing but doesn'tliterary revisions also represent a similar
discrepancy. An author has a particular aesthetic goal in mind and frequently
he does not achieve it on the first try; hence, when he later recognizes a
discrepancy between his intent and the execution, really an aesthetic mistake,
he makes a revision or a change. Or, using a broader approach, constant
change and revision focused on particular types of content or structure
indicate an author's anxiety and conflict about those types of content or
structure, regardless of whether a change is merely grammatical and lexical,
or is more ambitious and aesthetic in nature.9 Statistical analysis of revisions
connected to written references to the central symbol of "the iceman" in
O'Neill's play showed a significantly higher rate of revising in sentences
containing direct references to "the iceman" than in all others, and content
analysis of revisions indicated the nature of O'Neill's preconscious
preoccupation and conflict. Content of revisions indicated O'Neill's
preoccupation with the idea of a real rather than a symbolic iceman. Because,
as indicated in other material from the play itself and from other documented
sources, a real iceman was the same as an adulterer, the finding pointed to
O'Neill's preoccupation with sexual matters and with a friend's suicide
apparently precipitated by a wife's adultery.
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revision.
A major initial finding was that the dialogue of certain characters in the
play or the mere presence of these characters on the stage was positively
correlated with revision. Sentences spoken by these particular characters or
in their presence tended to contain one or more revisions each, while other
sentences did not. The association of revised sentences with these characters
was statistically significant (chi- square = 9.706, df = 1, p < .01). The particular
characters were the ghosts or dead persons in the drama. Further statistical
calculations of chi-square associations were then made, grouping the
individual characters into two larger categories of living and dead characters.
On the basis of this second calculation, findings were that the following
categories or variables were all significantly associated with revision: dead
characters speaking or on the stage, longer (both medium and long)
sentences, presence of poetic metaphors, verbs of giving and receiving,
references to darkness or light, and references to death. Sentences having any
or all of these characteristics tended to be highly revised in the first-draft
manuscript of the play.
The findings of associations between revision and longer sentences,
presence of poetic metaphors, verbs of giving and receiving, and references to
darkness and light are all of interest but I shall focus here only on the
statistical associations having the most definite content implications, the
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association between revision and the dead character categories and the
association between revision and references to death. The associations with
the categories of reference to darkness or light and of verbs of giving and
receiving do, in fact, also have a connection to the meaning of these findings
but the connection is too involved and is unnecessary for this summary.
According to the psychological rationale for the study of revision
patterns described above, the association with dead characters and with
references to death in sentence contents indicated that the playwright was
preoccupied with death during the writing of the play. Alternatively, of
course, one could say that the dead characters were merely hard to create,
their lines difficult to formulate, and that constructing sentences referring to
death in a play is always difficult. But, keeping to the idea that the reason for
Anderson's consistent revising here was a conflict and preoccupation about
death, I reasoned that someone very close to him had probably died at or
around the time the drama was created. This I made as a prediction of what
I might further find out about Anderson despite the fact that it was
primarily a comical rather than a tragic play. And after some extensive
detective worknothing but a very brief biography exists and Anderson gave
out very little personal information during his lifetimeI discovered that his
father died three months before he began writing High Tor.
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in New York State named High Tor and it can surely be assumed that Van
Dorn was partly derived from him. Young Van Orden inherited and held on to
the mountain for a time.
In order to gather further information about Maxwell Anderson,
particularly any information pertinent to the writing of the play, I made
contact with Quentin Anderson, the playwright's oldest son. Enormously
helpful to me from the first, when Mr. Anderson learned that I was interested
in High Tor, he directed me to a 1952 novel entitled Morning, Winter and
Night.10 This novel, it is not generally known, was written by his father under
the pseudonym of Michaelson. The pseudonym, it seems, was motivated both
by the highly autobiographical material in the novel and by the need or desire
to include explicit sexual scenes and sexual slang that might in 1952 have
affected or hurt his literary reputation. Quentin Anderson believed that the
novel was based on actual experiences in his father's life. Through this book
and the findings of the revision study, the creation of the Van Dorn character,
among other things, could be explicated and clarified.
The story concerns a year spent by Maxwell Anderson, then twelve
years of age, on his grandmother's farm. This grandmother was, according to
Quentin Anderson, a very important person in his father's life, often being
described by the father as the person who virtually brought him up. Focused
a good deal on the young Maxwell Anderson's relationship to his
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grandmother, the novel also vividly recounts his painful awareness as a boy
of the onset of puberty and his first sexual experience during that particular
year. But a major event in the story is the death of an old man living in the
grandmother's house. This man, referred to as the "old coot," appears
throughout the story only to be somewhat of a handyman, living in the house
on the grandmother's good graces as he does precious little work. A climactic
revelation, then, is that this same man actually had once been the
grandmother's lover and with her he had fathered her beloved child who died
in infancy. Much of the final portion of the novel is devoted to the details of
this man's death and burial. In a final scene, the old man lies dead in his coffin
while, due to circumstances, the young Anderson and his girlfriend engage in
a strange attempt to have intercourse in the same room. The attempt fails.
The specific connection to the characterization in the play High Tor is
that the "old coot" was, like Van Dorn, a hunter. Throughout the novel, in fact,
this man is pointedly described as going and coming as he pleases and living a
good part of the time alone in the woods, just as Van Dorn does. Most
important, it is strongly and quite dramatically emphasized that the "old coot"
stubbornly held on to his way of life, never marrying the grandmother and
never giving up his long trips to go hunting. These characteristics are point
for point the same as those of Anderson's character in High Tot. Not only is
Van Dorn devoted to hunting and living as he pleases, but he significantly
temporizes about marriage. And the main dramatic focus of the play is Van
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Dorn's stubborn refusal to give up his land and way of life. That the "old coot"
was himself important in Anderson's life is unmistakable from the
descriptions and climactic events in the autobiographical novel.
The revision patterns indicating Anderson's preoccupation with death
during the writing of the play point both to his father's death and the
(psychologically connected)11 death of the "old coot." The life history
information and circumstances indicate that at least three distinct persons
came together in the character of Van Van Dorn: Anderson himself, the real
owner of the mountain High Tor named Van Orden, and the hunter-lover of
Anderson's grandmother. Anderson's conscious and intentional bringing
together of the three persons is indicated by the following considerations: (1)
Van Dorn is exactly in Anderson's own circumstance at the start of the play:
he has just lost his father; (2) Van Dorn has the "old coot's" occupation as well
as his personality characteristics described explicitly sixteen years later in the
novel of 1952; (3) not only is Van Dorn's name almost the same as Van Orden,
but among Anderson's literary effects12 there is a newspaper clipping
concerning the man who owned and lived on the real mountain, High Tor; (4)
Anderson himself had earlier been, according to his son, actively involved in a
dispute with a power company about his own land. This dispute was
analogous in many ways with Van Dorn's dispute with the trap rock company.
That the bringing together of the three persons was a continual process
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more of concern to Anderson himself. In the final version used, Van Dorn tells
his young girlfriend he will sell the Tor if she stays with him. This, a new and
more softened position, leads to a selling of the land in the last act with a
climactic philosophical pronouncement about the future activity of the trap
rock company: "Nothing is made by men but makes, in the end, good ruins."
The creative solution, in other words, developed during the writing of the
play. Anderson had not decided beforehand when or how the Tor would be
sold or, perhaps whether it would be sold at all. Van did not follow the "old
coot's" way, but out of a fusion of three discrete persons, Anderson was
enabled to produce a vibrant, new and integrated character.
To recapitulate the probable sequence: as Anderson was preoccupied
with his father's death before and during the writing of High Tor, an early idea
for the play very likely consisted of the ghosts of the Hudson palisades. Now,
while ghosts are assuredly dead, it is of interest that there is much discussion
in the early portion of the play (and in the first formulations on the
manuscript) of their wish to be alive or to go back to a previous state.
Although this is not in itself remarkably new, it does suggest, along with the
overall structure of the dramaa romp involving both the dead and living
that the idea of portraying life and death simultaneously was an early
conception in Anderson's mind. Ghosts could be considered "living dead."
This, of course, would be a janusian conception. With respect to the Van Dorn
character, therefore, the initial conception would also have been janusian: the
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dead hunter together with the living playwright as well as the living owner of
High Tor in one character simultaneously. In conjunction with this janusian
conception, the homospatial process then operated throughout the writing of
the play, fusing and superimposing images, sequences, and actions. In this
way, the homospatial process played a significant role in the creation of a
dramatic character.
Because of the nature of the real persons fused and superimposedthe
writer himself, the living owner of the property, and the old man whose
characteristics are explicitly described, and because of the handling of the
characterization in the playthe character's finding a new solution, the
process of fusing or of homospatial thinking seems to have been an ongoing,
conscious intentional one, operating together with high-level logical and
critical mental faculties in creating the High Tor drama.
Notes
1 E. Caruth and R. Ekstein, "Interpretation within the Metaphor: Further Considerations," Journal of
Child Psychiatry 5 (1966) :3545; R. Ekstein and J. Wallerstein, "Choice of Interpretation
in the Treatment of Borderline and Psychotic Children," Bulletin of the Menningei Clinic 2
(1957): 199-207. The schizophrenic use and production of metaphor is a complicated
matter, and is a topic in my "Creativity: Pure and Applied," in progress.
2 G. J. Rose, "Fusion States," in Tactics and Techniques in Psychoanalytic Therapy, ed. P. L. Giovacchini
(New York: Science House, 1972).
3 See L. B. Fierman, ed., Effective Psychotherapy: The Contribution of Hellmuth Kaiser (New York: Free
Press, 1965), esp. pp. 117-41, 208-10.
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4 Definition by M. D. Vernon in Visual Perception (London: Cambridge University Press, 1937), p. 205.
The discussion following here is not meant to pertain to the use of the term synaesthesia
in the literary movement associated with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Huysmans, as I am
concerned with the psychological process rather than with any particular aesthetic
approach or the advocacy of a particular aesthetic idea.
5 See P. McKellar, Imagination and Thinking (New York: Basic Books, 1957), pp. 60-64, 192-93.
6 R. E. L. Masters and J. Houston, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience (New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1966).
7 Original manuscript written by Anderson is at the Beinecke Rare Book Library, Yale University. It
consists of a legal-size ledger book in which the play is written on the recto sheets with
some revisions on the verso sides. I acknowledge my gratitude to Donald C. Gallup,
curator of the Yale American Literature Collection, for making the material extensively
available to me. Some later revisions by Anderson are also deposited at the University of
Texas Library at Austin. Help with method and statistics on this study was provided by
George F. Mahl and with statistics by Barry Cook.
8 Rothenberg, "The Iceman Changeth." The methodology was in part devised as a means of empirical
study of literary creation in which an interviewer or observer could not exert any
inadvertent influence.
9 In an experimental study by Bruce Nagle and myself using latency of reaction time on a word
association test as an anxiety measure, subjects showed significantly higher levels of
anxiety when presented with words connected to their own revisions than to other
words from their own and others' writings (p < .05; A. Rothenberg and B. Nagle, "The
Process of Literary Revision," in prep.; see also B. Nagle, "The Process of Literary
Revision: A Study of Its Psychological Meaning in the Writing of Normal, EmotionallyDisturbed and Creative Individuals," M. D. Thesis, Yale University School of Medicine,
1969).
10 J. N. Michaelson, Morning, Winter and Night (New York: William Sloane Associates, 1952).
11 The novel clearly indicates oedipal overtones between young Anderson and his grandmother. The
"old coot" was therefore also a displaced type of father figure.
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12
TIME, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY
I have presented the evidence and described the mirror-image
processes; the task is now to understand and to establish the nature and
extent of what has been achieved. Have we indeed discovered the cause or
causes of creativity? How do the mirror-image processes operate, precisely,
to produce creations? Considering the matter of arousal in the creative
process emphasized earlier, what is the evidence for such arousal and how
does it function in created products? Are there other qualities of the mirrorimage processes, beside their arousal function, that lead to the production of
creations?
I shall, in this and the following chapter, be concerned with the answers
to all these questions. To some extent, the full answers await further
empirical research, but something needs to be said now about the nature of
the mirror-image processes in relation to creations and to creativity. Their
role and their extensiveness must be pinned down and clarified more
precisely. In these two chapters, therefore, I shall relate the mirror-image
processes to the factors intrinsic to the definition of creation that I stipulated
in the introduction to this book, the factors of newness and of value. Some of
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through which a new and valuable entity or quality is brought into being.
Consequently, I have focused fairly steadily on creations that are generally
considered to be among man's most valuable achievements, those in art,
science, religion, philosophy, and other intellectual endeavors. I admit it is not
necessary to be so stringent about the matter; one could provide some
suitable criteria for what is valuable that encompass a far broader range of
activities. Sheer productivity could be considered valuable, and in the narrow
sense that people produce particular things that never existed before, one
could start with the assumption that productivity and creativity are
synonymous. Also, internal psychological experiences are new and valuable
for the person experiencing them. There are creative cooking, creative
discourse, and creative performance in sports, physical labor, and other areas.
However, such broad criteria for the valuable seem too relative and
intangible, and I have deemed it difficult to obtain a scientific consensus
about them. Consequently, I have been left with a definition of creations and
creativity that comes close to excluding everything but the achievements of
genius. Genius stands virtually alone as the unchallenged perpetrator of
creations,- only the products of genius are widely accepted as unquestionably
valuable and truly new. As Kant said, "Genius is the talent (or natural gift)
which gives the rule to Art."2 The relationship between genius and the new
and valuable is actually reciprocal: when a product is hailed as being an
unquestioned creation, its author or producer is designated as a genius. To
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some extent, the matter is completely circular and tautological; I bring in the
word "genius" only to highlight the nature of the task I must consider. One
way of asking the question here could be: have we found the cause of genius?
To some extent, I have tried to meet the challenge of such a question by
citing the works and testimony of unquestionable geniuses such as Einstein,
da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso, Darwin, Freud, Pasteur, Poincare,
Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, O'Neill, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. But I
seriously doubt if my severest critic or the strictest methodologist would
require that I limit my discussion of creation and creativity to the works and
acts of the very few such as these. Moreover, the idea of genius as the only
true creator goes beyond the requirements of a strict definition of creativity
and of creation, because the term "genius" suggests certain factors of genetic
endowment, extraordinary intellectual capacity, and the repeated production
of highly valued thoughts and works. Such factors need not enter if we focus
merely on the production of any single creation and on creativity either as a
potential for, or a state of, bringing forth creations.3 After all, it is hardly
necessary to answer all the questions about genius or to be limited to
considering the extraordinarily high levels of success associated with genius;
nor is it actually clear that genetic endowment or extraordinary intellectual
capacity is required for every type of creating.4 More to the point in the
present consideration is the question of whether we can speak of finding the
"cause" of creativity in any sense, whether it be the workings of genius,
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New, think about the word "new." What is the sense in which we mean
it here? In what way is something new? I have connected "new" with the
quality of being unprecedented but surely alternate meanings and
interpretations come to mind: (1) Nothing is really new under the sun,- things
that seem to be new are merely reappearances of past substances or forces
(remote, obscure, or forgotten). (2) Things are merely new in a particular
context; something that already existed in another context is brought to our
awareness or into our sphere, and therefore seems to be new. For the native
bushmen of Australia, almost everything in the civilized world is considered
new, including what has existed for centuries. (3) New things result from
combinations and recombinations of things that existed before. Perfectly
respectable are all of these alternate interpretations of "new," and all provide
an approach to much that is considered new in human experience. Scientific
discoveries may surely appear to be new as a result of these factors and a
good deal of what appears as new in artistic and intellectual creations also
results from one or other of them. Possibilities for shifting contexts are almost
limitless in art, and, a far cry from the naivet of the native bushmen of
Australia, sophisticated art audiences have been exposed to newness
resulting from a shift of context throughout the history of art. Shift to a
classical mode during the Renaissance, a shift to primitive modes during
modern times, and the more specific context shifts in the experiments of the
dadaists in the 1920s, and the continuing present emphasis on "found" art
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surprise, the culmination and overall impact of the suspenseful journey the
creator has given us.6 Effective metaphors resulting from homospatial
thinking or from janusian and homospatial thinking operating together
always produce surprise when first encountered and often continue to do so
on later encounters. Think, for example, of what would have been the initial
impact of metaphors such as "black holes in space" or Marianne Moore's
famous "the lion's ferocious chrysanthemum head"7 with their overtones of
impossible contradiction and equivalence. The more one thinks of a literal
equivalence between a lion's head and a chrysanthemum flower or of actual
holes in outer spaceovertones and implications that must have played a
role in their initial impactthe more surprises and interesting connotations
appear.
Both homospatial and janusian thinking produce effects that satisfy
interpretation 2 and 3 (above) of the new as combination or recombination of
the old, or as the result of shifts of context. Although I have emphasized the
integrating rather than the combining function of homospatial thinking, there
is no necessary contradiction. Combining is not the same as integration, but
the former is still included in the latter. Some degree of combining occurs in
producing integrations and therefore the bringing together of previously
existing discrete entities in a homospatial conception, and of previously
existing opposites and antitheses in a janusian conception, involves
combinations or recombinations of the old in the sense of the interpretation
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reveal hidden connections between known objects, events, and ideasa view
I consider quite limitedthe mirror-image processes would also be primarily
involved. Hidden connections usually involve unconscious material and the
mirror-image processes function consistently and effectively to unearth such
material.
If we use the stricter and more literal definition of the new, the new as
the completely unprecedented,8 the matter of designating the factors
responsible for creationsthe cause of creativitybecomes far more
complicated. Nevertheless, it is necessary to come to grips with the dilemma.
For there are surely types of creations that appear to be unprecedented, not
in the sense that every single feature is new but in their significant aspects.
Every creation must have known or familiar aspectswith the possible
exception of creations attributed to a deityor it would not be understood or
recognized. Moreover, much of the value accorded to creations derives from
their effective representation of the familiar. Both artistic and scientific types
of creations must faithfully present known internal or external reality.
Science reproduces exactly both the past and current state of events and laws,
and art represents the qualities of sounds or movements or sights or words,
the manifestations and functions of ethics and morality, the role of thoughts
and feelings and social forces, and the appearance of the changeable and the
inevitable. Nevertheless, in designating something as a creation, we suggest
that it is in some way or in some respect truly unprecedented and new. We
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suggest there is, in some fashion, complete discontinuity from the past. This
newness may consist of a new particular factor such as a new sound, a new
value, or a new perception of reality. It may, as Hausman suggests, consist of
the full presentation of a new form, a form that initiates a new class of
entities. In art, such far-ranging newness is most clearly exemplified by the
works of Homer, Cervantes, Haydn, Beethoven, Cezanne, Braque, Joyce,
Strindberg, Picasso, Schoenberg, and other innovators. This issue is not
semantic; regardless of definitions and terms used to discuss creations, we
must acknowledge our intrinsic belief in a real or actual unprecedented
aspect, and, in many if not all cases, our realization to some degree of what
appears as actually or truly new. Surprise is not enough to account for what
appears as truly new.9 For one thing, surprise does not explain the impact.
We do not return to a work of art, or relisten to a piece of music, or go again
to a well- known play primarily because we want to recapture an earlier
experience of surprise, but we do return to such works partly in order to reexperience our initial sense of their newness or novelty.
Over and beyond the experience of newness in the observer or
audience, we must consider the newness experienced by the creator. After all,
the observer could be deceived; regardless of his belief about the
unprecedented nature of a particular creation, he may merely not know
enough to be able to detect all its forerunners and precedents. A creation may
initiate a new form merely through chance or through selection as a result of
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space. Time and space. We have arrived at the most basic factors we know.
Causality, creativity, everything in experience, must eventually be related to
these two basic factors. Let us then look at time and space, each in turn.
Particularly, we shall look at the mirror-image processes in relation to time
and space and see if we can answer the question raised at the beginning of
this chapter.
Time
There seem to be virtually as many approaches to the matter of time as
there are years in recorded history. There are distinctions made between
clock time and real duration; cosmic and human time or physical and
psychological time; actual and possible becoming. There is time considered as
motion, time as duration, time as only an abstraction, time as change, time as
aging. There are concerns about measuring time appropriately and there are
attempts to reverse time, speed it up, or slow it down. The list goes on and on,
but in an interesting development during the current century, philosophers
have turned their attention directly to the terms applied to time. They have
decried the tendency, in Western thought especially, to spatialize time, that is,
taking metaphorical terms derived from spatial relations such as long and
short, near and distant, and using them in a literal way to define qualities of
time. Since Einstein's discovery of relativity, physicists and philosophers have
been particularly interested in relationships between time and space, and
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they have raised important questions about a real space-time continuum and
about the irreversibility of time.11
I do not propose to enter here into any of these intriguing questions and
approaches to time. Nor do I intend to develop a definition of time that will
necessarily satisfy the many issues, metaphysical and scientific, raised in the
various approaches. I will merely emphasize some aspects of time that
pertain particularly to causality, elemental aspects that can still be considered
as intrinsic to time. As the philosopher-scientist Waismann, in a modern
paraphrase of Saint Augustine, said: "The queer thing is that we all seem to
know perfectly well 'what time is,' and yet if we are asked what it is, we are
reduced to speechlessness."12
The first aspect of time I will discuss is sequence, or succession. Intrinsic
to time, both as an experience and as a notion, is the appearance of sequence.
Events clearly follow each other; something comes first and another comes
after. We distinguish between these: before and after, then and now; now and
later; past, present, and future. We observe sequences in complicated events,
not merely noticing that one drop of water falls before another but seeing that
long series of events precede and follow one another. Though we sometimes
project a sequence onto the elements in a static object, say, when viewing a
painting, we are aware (when challenged) of the differences between such a
mentally projected sequence and an actual physical or perceived succession.
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extremes, and polarities, the creator brings together the outer limits of what
is known or he moves from the known to the unknown through one of the few
means available to the human mind.
The sense of timelessness in the creative process is, therefore, a special
one. It is due not merely to intense concentration but to the characteristics of
the janusian process, with the specific formulations that are produced along
the way. Janusian formulations are out of time, out of sequence and
repetition, and the janusian process produces discontinuity.
Space
As with time, there are myriad approaches and considerations with
regard to space.14 A particular confusion arises even in learned discussions
because of the common tendency to think of space in terms of an empty area
rather than the all-inclusive "expanse in which all material objects are located
and all events occur."15 Even when focusing exclusively on the latter sense of
the term, philosophers and scientists alike have a good deal of difficulty
arriving at a consistent definition of the nature of space. In recent years, these
thinkers have reconceptualized space in a manner consistent with nonEuclidean formulations and with discoveries about the nature of the cosmos
and the universe. The perspective on relativity has replaced Newtonian
notions of absolute space. For psychology, a particularly important
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Because it brings one or more entities into the same spatial location, this
process induces subjective experiences of lack of differentiation and of
spacelessness. This form of thinking transcends the intrinsic elements of
space. As space is a principle of differentiation, the initially undifferentiated
elements and sensations in a homospatial mental conception are not within
space, but are, in perhaps the only way available to the human mind, beyond
the spatial dimension. Just as the janusian formulation is out of time, the
homospatial conception is outside of space or spatiality. Just as the janusian
formulation transcends sequence, the homospatial conception transcends
differentiation. Moreover, the homospatial conception is out of space or
spatiality in a double sense: not only does it transcend the principle of
differentiation, but in totally filling the space, or the field, of consciousness, it
also transcends space. When space is totally and diffusely filled, there are no
longer any internal locations or boundaries. Once the filling reaches the limit
of a spatial enclosure, it is on the outsideat least in partof that enclosure.
This filling of mental space or the field of consciousness is one of the factors
responsible for the dizzying sense of spacelessness often accompanying
homospatial conceptions. It sometimes allows the creator to plumb the very
limits of spatial experience.
The
subjective
feelings
of
spacelessness
and
timelessness
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features allow the dreamer to express wishes from various portions of his life
in a condensed and disguised manner. Such wishes are thereby kept and
preserved in their original form and they neither develop nor change.
Timelessness and spacelessness in the creative process, on the other hand,
are intrinsic to radical change and creation.
Can we now turn back to the question at the start of this chapter and say
that, with the discovery of these two processes, we have found the cause of
creativity? We are perilously close to a conceptual tangle. Surely it is fair to
say that the homospatial and janusian processes account for many
phenomena associated with creating and with creativity. Surely we can now
assert that both processes are major conditions for the appearance of a
creation and that they set the stage for the appearance of the new. Both of
these thought processes together allow the creator to move from what exists
and what is known to the limits of knowledge, spatiality, temporality, and
experience, and therefore to move into the realm of the unknown. He moves
from the familiar to the unconceived, the new, and sometimes the decidedly
strange; possibilities for simultaneous antitheses and oppositions allow for
unlimited formulating of previously unimagined ideas and entities. If, say, we
were ever to derive a clear notion of soul or mind or even behavior, we might
find a way to formulate meaningful notions of anti-soul, anti-mind, or antibehavior, existing or operating or having validity at the same time. Or, with
respect to temporality, physicists have already begun to formulate ideas of
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time both running forward and, with the same characteristics and regularity,
running backward.
The homospatial process allows for innumerable formulations of
previously unimagined ideas and configurations of physical reality. Think, for
a particularly mind-bending example, of what might be derived and
discovered about the nature of the universe if one were able to conceive all
the discrete elements fused and superimposed and the entire dimension of
physical space as totally and diffusely filled. It is entirely likely that only
through progressing in such ways from the realm of the known can human
consciousness and intelligence reach into the realm of the new and unknown.
In designating janusian and homospatial thinking as major conditions
for creation, it is difficult to say how close we have come to a cause. These
surely appear to be necessary conditions, but cause in a strict sense is a
matter of conditions that are sufficient as well as necessary. Can these
processes account for all the created qualities of a particular work, theory, or
discovery? Can we predict that a creation will always result or, more
reasonably, occur with significantly greater frequency than would be
expected by chance alone? In part the answers must await definitive
empirical research. Also, there are other aspects of creations to be accounted
for than those I have indicated so far, and I shall attempt to outline those in
the next and final chapter. But a general and inclusive answer arises from
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what I have already discussed and, though this answer still leaves traces of a
conceptual tangle, I shall state it now and return to it more fully another day.
Insofar as the specific elements in a janusian or a homospatial
conceptionthe specific opposites, antitheses, and discrete entitiesare
unique to a particular creator, there are unique aspects of resulting creations
that cannot be predicted. Thus, Shakespeare chose the opposites, antitheses,
and discrete entities that he used for Hamlet, and the precise appearance of
all the specific qualities of Shakespeare's Hamlet could not be predicted.
Einstein chose a man falling from the roof of a house, and neither that
instance nor all the elaborations and ramifications of Einstein's general
theory of relativity could have been predicted. We can, however, describe
some of the structure necessary for the appearance of such creations. We can
state that we know what is necessary for the appearance of the new.
Homospatial and janusian thinking transcend the dimensions of space and
time, respectively, and are conditions for the discontinuity with contiguous or
antecedent factors that occurs whenever the truly new appears. These
thought processes are conditions for producing creations. When they are
employed, we can expect with a fair amount of certainty that a creation will
appear.
Notes
1 For that matter, I think it is patently true that philosophical matters are important for all scientific
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discourse.
2 Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 188.
3 The reader will be aware by now that there will be no direct or extended consideration of genetic,
social, or personality factors involved in the capacity to use the mirror-image processes.
A direct formulation of the features of a creative personality or of environmental factors
in creativity is beyond the scope and purpose of this book.
4 There is, in fact, some evidence that high or very high intelligence, as measured by standard
intelligence tests, is not required for various types of creation. Standard intelligence tests
primarily measure verbal intelligence, however, and this could account in part for these
results, especially in connection with creation in the visual or nonverbal arts. For rather
extensive research, as well as controversy, about this and related matters, see the
following: J. W. Getzels and P. W. Jackson, Creativity and Intelligence (New York: Wiley,
1962)} F. Barron, Creative Person and Creative Process (New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1969), pp. 39-51; M. A. Wallach and N. Kogan, "Creativity and Intelligence in
Children," in Human Intelligence, ed. J. McV. Hunt (New Brunswick, N. J.: Transaction
Books, 1972), pp. 165-81; M. A. Wallach and N. Kogan, "A New Look at the CreativityIntelligence Distinction," Journal of Personality 33 (1965) :348-69; M. A. Wallach and C.
W. Wing, The Talented Student: A Validation of the Creativity-Intelligence Distinction (New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969).
5 See J. Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Minton, Balch, 1934); Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in
Music, and more recently, Explaining Music (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1973). Also, for an excellent discussion of surprise and the unexpected in psychological
and aesthetic theory, see Berlyne, Aesthetics and Psychobiology, pp. 143-49.
6 The Aristotelian definitions of tragedy as based on reversal, along with recognition and suffering,
support this.
7 M. Moore, "The Monkey Puzzle," in Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 80.
8 Hausman has used the terms "novelty proper" and "radical novelty" to refer to this stricter or more
pure understanding of newness. Hausman's incisive analysis of the problem of newness
in creation is an important background for the discussion here (Hausman, Discourse on
Novelty and Creation).
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9 Berlyne makes this point by citing a passage from the philosopher Home in which Home states that
surprise depends on the unexpected while novelty can be appreciated even when it is
expected. Home uses the example of a traveler to India who expects to see an elephant
but is still moved to wonder when seeing it because of its novelty. Although this
distinction between the surprising and the novel is valid, the example is actually not
appropriate. We expect to find novelty when confronted with a work of art, seeing a play,
etc., but we may still be surprised about the specific details of the novel entity (see
Berlyne, Aesthetics and Psychobiology, p. 146). On the teleology of surprise, see
Rothenberg and Hausman, Introduction, Creativity Question.
10 From the time of Aristotle, several types of causation have been recognized and emphasized. For a
concise review and discussion of types see H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honore, Causation in
the Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), especially pp. 1-78. I shall not engage here in a
discussion of these alternate types of causation, because the concept of efficient
causation I have outlined is of primary interest to the scientist. For the same reason, I
shall only focus on antecedent causation rather than teleological causation. Moreover,
formulations about creativity in terms of teleology have their own difficulties. See
Rothenberg and Hausman, Cieativity Question.
11 See R. M. Gale, ed., The Philosophy of Time (London: Macmillan, 1968); M. Capek, ed., The Concepts of
Space and Time (Boston: Reidel, 1976).
12 F. Waismann, "Analytic-Synthetic," in Gale, Philosophy of Time, p. 55. Also, see St. Augustine,
Confessions (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936), p. 262.
13 The presence of the subjective state of timelessness during the creative process has been a major
consideration in regression theories of creativity such as that of Kris (see his
Psychoanalytic Explorations). Withdrawal of cathexis from the external world, according
to Kris, facilitates the upsurgence of regressive primary process modes of thought. And
timelessness, a cardinal feature of id and other unconscious processes, holds sway. Such
a formulation ironically recreates a problem facing Freud, Kris's direct mentor, in his
approach to the interpretation of dreams. For Freud raised the question of whether the
pictorial and other representations in dreams resulted primarily from the suspension of
conscious perceptual processes during sleep. Resolutely, he pointed out that the need for
discharge of unconscious processes, the expression of wish fulfillment, rather than
suspension of conscious perception was primary. With respect to the creative process, I
follow Freud's type of resolution rather than that of Kris. Janusian thinking, for reasons
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indicated here, is responsible for the timelessness in creativity, rather than withdrawal
of cathexis from the external world and subsequent regression. Janusian thinking is
again not a manifestation of regression and primary process thinking, hut it directly
produces an effect of timelessness.
14 See Capek, Concepts of Space and Time.
15 The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged ed. (New York: Random House,
1967), p. 1362.
16 M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith (London: Routledge &. Kegan Paul,
1962), pp. 243 ff.
17 H. Bergson, Time and Free Will (New York: Macmillan, 1912), p. 95.
18 It is interesting that, other than compasses and highly technical gadgets which we do not regularly
use, there are no everyday instruments for this purpose.
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13
GODDESS EMERGENT: CREATIVE PROCESS AND
CREATED PRODUCT
Creation involves intense motivation, transcendence of time and space,
concentration, and the unearthing of unconscious material. The creative
process is the mirror image of dreaming with special types of structurally and
functionally reflecting and obverse cognitive operations producing creations.
Dreams keep the dreamer asleep but creative processes and resulting
creations arouse both creators and recipients. We value creations because
they enlighten us, arouse us, excite us, awaken us, and enlarge our
understanding of and our participation in waking life. With opened eyes, we
are more adapted to the past, present, and future.
The picture of the goddess emerging is admittedly somewhat refined
and abstracted. Missing are the richly detailed and concrete depictions of
lives transformed and organized in the substance of creations, the day-to-day
shaping and revising, the feats of memory and to some extent of intelligence,
and the intense and rewarding love of materials including paints, sounds,
words, formulas, test tubes, optical and electronic equipment, flow sheets,
and ideas. That there is such persity and richness in creation is one of the
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and, while they may not work through or resolve elements of unconscious
conflict, they often arrive at some form of insight. Subjects of mine have
reported a knowledge of searching for an adequate father, concern with
ambivalent feelings toward a brother or a mother or a son, and concerns
about heterosexual and homosexual feelings reflected in particular
productions and throughout the corpus of their art. Visual artists also become
focused on both content and formal factors having important psychological
roots. The process of moving toward insight or uncovering unconscious
material is gratifying in itself, regardless of the outcome.2 Thus, it must
properly be considered an unconscious, preconscious, or semiconscious goal
of the creative process in art.
The unconscious material uncovered by the artist during the creative
process is often incorporated, somewhat transformed, into the art work and
this is one of the factors in the aesthetic appeal. Reassurance, identification,
and insight, as well as a stirring of basic wishes, motivations, and emotions,
seem to play a role. The appearance of what are usually frightening feelings
and impulses in publicly exhibited form and the knowledge that the artist and
other human beings share such feelings and impulses is reassuring to the
recipient audience. There is also a heightened sense of recognition and an
identification with the universal feelings and impulses presented; these
produce a sense of expansion and a relatedness between the audience and the
work, between the audience and the creator, and among the members of the
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emptiness" will, for several, evoke unconscious sexual feelings and conflicts.
Visual and auditory metaphors with nonlinguistic or nonspecific content will,
if viewed and heard intently, produce subjective experiences reminiscent of
the spacelessness of dreams and of the vividness resulting from the spatial
compressions and distortions of the primary process. Fusion of elements in
metaphors and in other aspects of artistic creations is particularly interactive
with the unconscious level because it is isomorphic with primitive wished-for
fusions of the self with others, such as the narcissistic fusions mentioned
earlier. And as the homospatial process produces meaningful connections in
art through rhymes, rhythms, double meanings, assonances, and alliterations,
the primary process uses the same kind of sound similarities and ambiguities.
Neither homospatial nor janusian thinking, it should be emphasized, are
exact mirror images of particular primary process qualities or operations.
Janusian thinking roughly mirrors equivalence of opposites and homospatial
thinking mirrors so-called spacelessness and certain aspects of condensation
and displacement. Janusian formulations sometimes inversely resemble
condensations in that extensive areas of opposition are juxtaposed and
compressed. Also, abstract symbolization in art, which is sometimes traceable
to homospatial and janusian thinking and sometimes is an independent
mirror-image function, is roughly the reverse of primary process
symbolization. While concrete entities and situations are used as symbols
representing abstractions in art, abstract symbols are used by the primary
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again and again, usually taking up another creative task as soon as he has
finished the last one. Why? There are several answers to this question, but I
shall focus primarily on one of them, a biological factor relating to both the
creative process and the created product.
Anxiety is closely related to arousal, both physiologically and
psychologically. Which one of the two factors is more basic is difficult to
determine definitely at the current state of our knowledge. Generally, there is
an admixture of the two factors; while arousal may be the more general
undifferentiated state that initially gives rise to anxiety, experientially there is
a quantitative factor in the interrelationship between the two. Moderate
anxiety is virtually synonymous with arousal. We feel aroused when anything
stimulates (at least) a moderate degree of anxiety; anything that arouses us
can also make us moderately anxious.17
In chapter 2, I pointed out some of the ways anxiety and arousal are
experienced as gratifying in both the aesthetic experience and the creative
process. Crucial are both the manner of generation and the extent to which
these factors are produced. Merely instigating arousal and anxiety, regardless
of the manner and degree, is not necessarily gratifying in creation or in
aesthetic experience. As a mirror image of dreaming, the creative process is
more stimulating and arousing than ordinary modes of experience and the
created product can instigate fairly elevated levels of anxiety as well. But
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neither the process nor the product produce overwhelming anxiety, for just
as nightmares wake the dreamer and force him to end the dream, too much
anxiety forces both the creator and the audience to abandon the creation.
In a major treatise on the psychology of art, Berlyne has set down an
impressive amount of evidence indicating that arousal is a key factor in
aesthetic appeal.18 Generation of arousal by a work of art is, according to
Berlyne, related to "collative variables" of novelty, expectations, complexity,
conflict, ambiguity, and multiple meaning, as well as other psychophysical
and ecological variables. In addition, he cites evidence that too much arousal
is uncomfortable and that there are arousal limiting and modulating factors
contributing to aesthetic appeal. He distinguishes between phenomena he
describes as "arousal jags" and as "arousal boosts," a distinction based in part
on the role and type of relief of arousal factors. Arousal jag refers to "a kind of
situation in which an animal or a human being seeks a temporary rise in
arousal for the sake of the pleasurable relief that comes when the rise is
reversed."19 Arousal boost, which somewhat overlaps with arousal jag, refers
to pleasure derived directly from moderate increments of arousal, a pleasure
that is independent of subsequent relief and reversal. Underpinning Berlyne's
formulations are some relatively recent neurophysiological discoveries
regarding the mammalian brain, particularly the functioning of the reticular
formation and the presence of what appear to be primary and secondary
systems for reward and gratification.20 Based on Olds's experiments with rats
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original conceptions.
With this introduction of the formal conceptual attributes of the mirrorimage processes, I can now turn to other types of created products beside
artistic ones and consider more general aspects of the relationship between
the creative process and creations. While anxiety and arousal play a role in
scientific and other types of creation, it is a rather subtle and recondite one.
Therefore, the function of anxiety and arousal in other fields is best
considered within the more general context to be elaborated next.
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scientist but it is also enormously useful for any creator in the task he faces.
Though creating by human beings is surely not a matter of bringing
forth something out of nothing, there are analogies between human creation
and those mysterious and universal events that have given the word
"creation" such honorific significance. For the human creator surely faces
some type of chaos at the start. Knowledge and experience, despite the
notable backlog of achievement stored up by civilized man, are always
essentially the "blooming, buzzing confusion" characterized by William James.
For artists and scientists as well as others, the task of creating is always, to
some degree, the bringing of order to some area of knowledge and experience
where chaos and the blooming, buzzing confusion reigned before. Small as it
may seem in the face of such an enormous undertaking, the specification and
organization provided by formulating and designating the opposites and
antitheses pertinent to a particular area of knowledge and experience greatly
help in the task of creation. For the scientist and theorist, designating salient
opposites and antitheses is an important aid in conceptualization. Though he
may move away from and modulate formulations structured in such terms, in
early phases they are extremely valuable. And they are no less important for
the experimentalist within any field, because crucial experiments are seldom
performed without a previous formulation of clear and specific, if not
exclusive, alternatives. For the artist, designating opposites and antitheses
seems, as I said earlier, to function as his only method of arriving at absolutes,
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requirements of reality.
I have throughout this book given numerous examples of oppositions
and antitheses conceived in the early phase of theory building and of artistic
creation. Here, I want merely to point out a connection between opposition
and creation that implicitly suggests a verification of the principles I have just
described. In their accounts of the creation of the world and of the creation of
all things, virtually all of the pre-Socratic philosophers described some type of
separating out and interplay between various opposites: hot and cold, wet
and dry, bounded and unbounded, fire and water, earth and sky. And creation
myths throughout the world and throughout the ages have very frequently
emphasized formation of opposites of various types.23
Such ubiquitous connecting of opposition with the creation of the world
does not, of course, necessarily point to an underlying fact about the nature of
reality or about the origins of the world. Just because so many have
postulated the idea does not mean it is intrinsically true. But the consistent
connecting of opposition and creation could arise from a psychological fact.
Human beings may have unwittingly connected opposition and world
creation because they have, in their own creative activities, started with
opposites.
Looking, for instance, at the account in Genesis as a product of human
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minds, such a factor seems to be operating. From the first words, the Creator
is described as formulating and separating the oppositions of "heavens" and
"earth."24 There is "darkness upon the face of the deep," and the Creator
produces light; next, He separates the light from the darkness and calls the
light, "Day," and the darkness, "Night." Immediately following, He separates
the waters above from the waters below. Then, gathering the waters below
into one place, He creates the "dry land." The sequence of oppositions is
dramatic. Hardly an accidental sequence, it seems to represent a projection of
human thought processes onto the first creation. Considering it a product of
the mind of men, some might relegate it to a dualistic or more primitive mode
of thinking characteristic only of ancient pre-civilized times. However,
without even considering the importance and any particular metaphysical
interpretations of these lines, the durability of the passages throughout the
history of Judeo-Christian civilization suggests acceptance at periods of highly
sophisticated levels of thought.
Formulations of opposites are an aspect of the janusian process, and
such formulations function in creating to bring specificity out of
undifferentiation and chaos. The specificity achieved during the process of
creation, though it is later modulated and transformed, helps to determine
the eventual shape, clarity, and order of the created product. These resulting
qualities are intrinsic to the value we accord to creations in art, science, or
any field; they help provide definition, communicability, vividness, and
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more numbers than the other. And this symmetrical quality, or, if you will,
this thrust toward symmetry, is an aspect of janusian thinking that
contributes to the construction of creations.
In science, symmetry characteristically plays an important role in
conceptual model building. Scientific theories constantly move in the
direction of formulating symmetries regarding each and every aspect of the
physical world. Thus, there are levo and dextro molecules and compounds,
dominant and recessive genes, anabolic and catabolic processes, and so on.
Whether this tendency is derived from a deep intuition into the structure of
the world, an anthropomorphic type of projection of the symmetrical
qualities of our bodies onto the physical world, or an aesthetic feeling is not
clear. Following the principle of constructing symmetrical models, however,
has resulted in a great deal of scientific advance. An interesting case in point
concerns the theory of the "conservation of parity," the postulate that the
laws of nature applied equally to both left and right particles. When the Nobel
Prize-winning physicists Lee and Yang produced evidence disproving and
overthrowing this theory, there was consternation and shock throughout
scientific circles. In recent years, however, new theories and new evidence
have developed which seem to point to another more inclusive principle of
symmetry in the physical world. Janusian formulations, as they may postulate
the simultaneous existence of heretofore unknown opposites and antitheses,
facilitate the discovery of new symmetries.
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and motion in music, congruence between the bounded and unbounded in the
visual arts, or coordination in various aspects of a scientific theory. The
symmetrical structure of the janusian formulation leaves its mark.
Both symmetry and specificity are constant properties of opposites and
antitheses, taken together or in sequence. Because of the simultaneous
opposition and antithesis in janusian formulations, however, there is also a
distinct tension among the elements. Both the symmetry and specificity,
therefore, are in dynamic states; there are forces tending toward diffusion
and reduction as well as toward elaboration and enhancement of these
characteristics. Properly speaking, there is dynamic symmetry and dynamic
specificity. Generative of other forms and formulations during the creative
process, the dynamic specificity and symmetry produce constant shifts of
affective and conceptual tensions and relationships. In art especially, the
dynamic factor contributes to a constant interaction among elements that is
retained in the final creation. Dynamic symmetry and specificity, rather than
static balance, harmony, and fixed meaning, characterize the artistic work.
Beyond this, the simultaneity of opposition and antithesis in the janusian
process relates to another creative function of this form of cognition, the
function of encapsulation.
Although encapsulation potentially involves highly complicated
enfoldings within protected boundaries, the janusian process only serves to
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provide the basis and structure for this phenomenon. The encapsulation
function of the janusian process is best understood by focusing on opposites
and antitheses as polarities or extremes. Polar opposites, such as liberty and
slavery, good and bad, hard and soft, top and bottom, are the limits,
respectively, of their categories: restraint, value, consistency, vertical
direction. More complicated polarities, such as radical and reactionary, are
the limits of complex dimensions of human ideation and behavior: politics,
ideology, Weltanschauung, artistic preference. Regardless of the nature of the
dimension or context, polarities are, by definition, the limits, and reference to
polarities helps to define a context. Thus, we ask: "What is temperature?" and
both our usual association and our answer are: "hot and cold, a scale from hot
to cold." And: "What kinds of ideology are there?" Answer: "They range from
radical to reactionary." Or: "What is vertical direction?" Again: "Going from
down to up or vice versa." Of course, many variations on these answers are
possible, but my point is that our understanding of a context, category, or
dimension is inextricably connected to limits. Asked in the reverse way:
"What are hot and cold?", the succinct answer would be: "The limits of
temperature." Or, "What are radical and reactionary?" and a specific succinct
answer would be: "Extreme types of ideology." And: "What are up and down?"
Answer: "Verticality." Reference to limits and polarities, in other words,
implies an entire dimension.
Reference to limits is one of the most economical or concise ways to
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and right or man and woman may not necessarily be polarities, a set of such
opposites does define a context, a dimension, and a world. Rather than
defining limits only, opposites based on dichotomy define the halves of a
dimension or contexts in a general way. Within the creative process, such
opposites might be brought together first and the contents of their
encapsulated type of world or dimension later elaborated. As there is such
ready shifting between oppositions of dichotomy and oppositions of scale
left and right halves thought of as left end and right end, for instancethe
difference can either be negligible or it can be used by the artist creator to
formulate and work with more than one type of context. When an artist
visualizes a scene for a landscape painting, left and right, for him, may
encapsulate both the context and the contents of the scene entirely. And a
poet may conceive both that left and right hands and that radical and
reactionary are the same.
In scientific creation, the structure of encapsulation is, along with
symmetry and specification, an exceptionally valuable tool. The scientist
brings an entire dimension of knowledge into a unitary conceptionDarwin
brought the entire domain of adaptation and maladaptation together when
reading Malthus28and he thereby pinpoints and resolves basic questions.
He formulates underlying polarities and dichotomies in an area of confusion,
brings specificity and symmetry through particular salient opposites and
antitheses, and through encapsulation his solutions incorporate and
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verse . . . do you think it breathed . . . ?"30 Although many factors surely come
into play to produce such perfect lifelike unity as Dickinson asked about, the
homospatial process functions importantly in the production of organic unity
in works of art. Through the homospatial process, discrete entities are fused
and superimposed without losing their distinctiveness; they continue to
interact and relate to one another. Both particular opposites and antitheses
forming the encapsulations of the janusian process and other types of discrete
entities are integrated into unified artistic images, conceptions, and
metaphors. Horse and human are fused as the central unifying image of a
poem. The coming of an iceman and a Bridegroom (Christ) are fused into the
metaphor the iceman cometh," a metaphor that embodies the central
unifying conception of a playthat men need illusions about sex, faith, hope,
and salvation but deception and death are the only realities. Fusion of
particular rhymes, and sound similarities relate meanings with poetic images,
producing unified form and content within a poem. In music and the visual
arts, discrete sound patterns and visual entities are fused and superimposed
to produce compositions in which elements interact and relate throughout.
Unification in all forms of literature of the factors of concrete events of plot,
values, and characterizations results from the fusion of author's self-image,
images of other real persons, and plot constructions. And throughout all art
forms, abstractions are rendered into related and interacting concrete forms
through the homospatial process.
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Metaphors, both the particular linguistic, auditory, and visual ones, and
the more general type characterizing an entire work of art, exemplify the
unity produced through the homospatial process.31 As shown in chapters 9
and 10, metaphors are unities consisting of discrete and oftentimes disparate
elements that interact and relate to each other within a larger context or a
whole. The metaphor "the branches were handles of stars" has an impact as a
whole unified phrase, suggesting a feeling of upward striving or an image of
tapers and torches, and, at the same time, the particular elementsbranches,
handles, and starsinteract with each other and call our attention to
particular qualities of sound, shape, and meaning. So, too, the play Hamlet and
the character Hamlet can both be considered to be metaphors: they each have
an impact as a whole. Also, there are the discrete interacting qualities of
contemplation and action arising from defined sequences within the play, and
the character Hamlet has discrete interacting features. Moreover, like all
metaphors, both the play and the character Hamlet have no literal meaning;
they are figurative representations of reality rather than direct or literal
copies. The metaphor "the branches were handles of stars" surely does not
indicate an actual equation of branches and handles; it represents an idea or
experience. So, too, Hamlet, though he seems quite real in the play, is not the
product of a tape-recorded transcript; he, like any artistic product, represents
far more than the literal facts portrayed.
Auditory and visual metaphors also have representational qualities
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because they are derived in some way from real sounds and sights. As sounds
and sights are far less specific than words, however, representation is more
diffuse. By and large, auditory metaphors are unities derived from the context
of a particular work; they are fusions and superimpositions of patterns
appearing in the particular work although these patterns also relate to, and to
some degree represent, other works of music and other sounds and rhythms.
But the differences between the various types of metaphors are matters of
degree rather than of kind. Linguistic metaphors are highly referential and
therefore they, more than auditory metaphors, relate to phenomena outside
the work. Thus, also more than other types of metaphors, linguistic
metaphors can be understood and to some extent appreciated outside of a
particular work. Reference and representation, however, are not primarily
responsible for their aesthetic effect. Just as with other types of metaphors,
linguistic metaphors unify discrete and disparate elements in the work itself.
They represent other elements in the piece as well as specific elements in
reality, and they derive their fullest power as unifiers within the particular
context of the work. The general Hamlet metaphor I described can only be
fully appreciated by reading or by seeing the play.
Because metaphors both relate discrete and disparate elements in a
work of art and are intrinsically related to the context of the work, they play a
crucial role in producing organic unity. This unity is organic in a double sense:
first, metaphorical elements are in a dynamic relationship with each other;
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they modify, interact, and relate within a larger whole. In this, they are quite
analogous to the nourishing, enhancing, and interacting qualities we associate
with organisms. Second, because metaphors are never literal, can never be
understood as purely literal or as purely referential statements or structures,
they do not have a one-to-one correspondence with reality. As noncorresponding and nonliteral statements, metaphors are sharply distinct and
separated from reality. Thus, they help separate the work of art from the
reality outside and around it, the world of actual sounds, sights, and doings.
With this separation, metaphors help impart boundaries to the work of art,
boundaries that are not merely the frame around a painting nor the beginning
and end of a play, novel, or musical work, but psychological and aesthetic
boundaries. They form an integument around the artistic work analogous to
the skin and other boundaries separating and defining a living organism, they
separate the work from everything in its environment and interrelate with
nourish and are nourished byother elements within the work.
When metaphors are developed from the encapsulation structure
produced by the janusian process, the janusian and homospatial processes
function concomitantly. By fusing and superimposing encapsulated elements
and boundaries developed from janusian thinking, the homospatial process
imparts integration and organic unity. In a sense, the homospatial process
animates the boundaries and encapsulations derived from janusian
formulations by interrelating them within a larger whole, a particular or a
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of spatiality, Straus pointed out that all perceptual experience has spatial
aspects.35 With particular reference to the auditory sphere, he developed a
distinction between the spatial characteristics of noise and music. Noise, he
said, puts us in mind of particular locations in space while music does not;
music therefore homogenizes space. When we hear a noise, we are distracted;
we turn to find the source of it and we are put in mind of a specific location, a
particular source from which the distracting sound arises. When we hear
music, we know that it is produced by an instrument or by instruments in a
particular place, but, in distinction to the experience with noise, we do not
search nor are we expressly mindful of definite and distinct location. Music
homogenizes space in the sense that it seems to fill uniformly all space in our
immediate environment. Moreover, music seems to penetrate our bodies and
to fill our consciousness, obliterating all felt distinctions between inner and
outer space and producing a sense of uniform continuity everywhere. The
quality of distance between the hearer and the source of music is overcome.
Straus went on to state that all forms of art produce a similar
experience: "art is able to overcome apartness and distance and to create a
second world by proclaiming the harmony of appearances."36
His analyses and formulations regarding music and other types of art
are surely cogent and meaningful for anyone who has introspectively
contemplated the nature of the aesthetic experience. Although Straus himself
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made no explicit distinction between the effects of good and bad art, we can
most assuredly consider that the homogenization of space and the
overcoming of distance he described are connected only with successful
creation. There is nothing intrinsic in merely producing musical tones or
rhythms, nor merely putting visual forms on a canvas, working on novels, and
the like that would automatically produce such experiences. Therefore, to
extend his analysis, this homogenization of space can be explained on the
basis of a fusing of elements in a good work of art, a fusing that obliterates
boundaries and separations. In listening to a good musical composition,
fusions of discrete patterns of sound and rhythmnot only tones or other
individual elementslessen the distance and homogenize space. In viewing a
good painting, the viewer's awareness of the fusion of background and
foreground, of sides, and of juxtaposed patterns of shapes, textures, and
colors, intensifies and brings to consciousness an exciting sense of the
painting transcending the boundaries of the canvas and the frame, filling the
surrounding space, and "moving" toward the viewer.37 In a complex way,
literary metaphors and other fusions in literature produce a similar
overcoming of the sense of distance.
Though a good art work is bounded and unified, it also has these
properties of transcending its boundaries, interacting with the consciousness
of the viewer or audience, and overcoming the sense of distance. In this
respect, art is also analogous to a living organism, for, while we are aware of
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consists of more than these types of capacities and approaches. Not only is it
seeing how an error changes an initial conception or belief, there is a special
allowing of, almost a courting of, errors and mistakes. There is sometimes
even some pleasure connected with their appearance because of past
successes. They are not purposely introduced, but as soon as they appear the
creator engages in an active process of making in which errors are
transformed into something else.
The creator's willingness to articulate whatever arises, to commit errors
and to range far and wide in any direction during the creative process,
connects to and, once again, mirrors, the experience of dreaming. Dreams
appear also to be extraordinarily free forms of thinking in which anything
happens and any image can appear. In distinction to the virtually limitless
freedom of the creative process, however, there are definite limits and
restrictions in dreaming. Representations in dreams appear free and wideranging but the underlying forces producing these representations are not at
all free. When, as mentioned earlier, dreams come too close to revealing
unconscious wishes and impulses, they are abruptly terminated and we wake
up. In this respect, the creative process is a good deal less restricted. Because
of the structural control of the mirror-image processes and because of the
creator's willingness to articulate anything that comes up, he can often
explore more perilously close to forbidden unconscious wishes and impulses.
And he can tolerate considerably more anxiety in waking life than is possible
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on the type and the content of a particular process of creating, are, at different
times, variously involved. Curiosity, for instance, could be said to arise out of
a diffuse, alerted state of anxiety, both before and during the creative process.
The creator is curious because of a diffuse feeling of mild or moderate anxiety
that alerts him to the need for information or action. Sexual impulses aroused
during the creative process might induce conflictual anxiety because they are
forbidden or because they require discharge. Or the alert, moderately tense
state connected to creating gives rise to feelings of attraction and the need for
sexual discharge. Little documentation of the manifestations and
permutations of these factors is possible because little is known about the
complex interrelationships of particular emotions, alerting and arousal, and
particular impulses. With respect to the general emotions and motivations of
the creative process, however, one matter surely returns yet again from the
early portions of this book: why does the creator seem to court anxiety? Why
does he engage in an activity and a process during which he could readily be
overcome with anxiety when most people avoid such risks?
In emphasizing the progression toward uncovering unconscious
processes, I have throughout this book drawn no sharp distinctions between
artistic creators and scientific or other types of creators. This may, for some,
have been surprising or possibly outrageous. The artist's search for personal
truth and insight is readily apparent; both the artist and his audience are
interested in confronting and understanding, to some degree at least, an
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especially, consists of the artist's dim or overt recognition that the material
with which he had been dealing related, in some type of significant way, to his
own unconscious concerns. He realizes that the "problem" of a poem or
painting, or the anger expressed in a piece of music, was his own. Or he
realizes that the discovery he was seeking was also some discovery about
himself. When the creator has a significant psychological problem, it is
touched on and emerges to a small or large extent during the creative
process. But it is not worked through as it is in therapy, and the creator often
returns to it again and again in subsequent works.
Progression itself, however, the progression toward uncovering
unconscious processes, is beneficial. Regardless of whether meaningful
personal insight is ultimately achieved, the uncovering progression involves
an internal freeing up and a movement away from the stifling effects of the
creator's own past. Unconscious material, steeped in distortions based on
past experience, exerts an enslaving effect on the creator, as well as on all of
us, because of its inaccessibility. During the progressive unearthing of this
unconscious material in the creative process, there is an articulation
consisting both of separating away the past and of bringing together of
present with past. To the degree that this articulation is successful, to the
extent there is some separation from the enslaving hidden impact of past
experience on present behavior and thought, as well as some bringing
together of a meaningful continuity of past and present, some psychological
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meanings and truths. But it never embodies them fully worked out, nor does
it resolve their nagging tension. The great work shows us that the world we
perceive has both separations and unifying relationships, that our feelings are
both distinct and fused, and that our relationships to others are characterized
both by total separateness and by beingalmost joiningtogether. But none
of this is static or complete, there is a constant struggle with appearances and
with past experience the past experience of the artist himself and the
shared past experience of the raceand an attempt to overcome and move
on. In Hamlet, for example, we are exposed to a man dealing with, among
other things, an unconscious oedipal conflict and matricidal and patricidal
impulses. The embodiment of such universal conflicts and unconscious
impulses is certainly one of the bases of its touching universal chords. But the
touching of these chords alone is not the basis of the play's appeal; it is
Hamlet's struggle to free himself, his vacillation between the demands of his
inner world based on antecedent experience and his understanding intellect
focused on the present. Faced with the inevitability of death and punishment
because of inner compulsion and external circumstances, he struggles to
overcome and, in the end, he must succumb. We remember his death, and are
saddened and moved by it, but we return to see the play or reread it, or think
about it over and over again, not because of the reaffirmation of the
universality of the oedipal conflict or the inevitability of death but because of
Hamlet's (and Shakespeare's) struggle. We read or go to re-experience the
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ironies, the contradictions, the paradoxes, and the fusions in the structure of
the play and in the poetry. We are interested in feeling and perceiving words,
the flow of time, concrete and abstract spatial elements brought together and
separated, and we experience both the rigid diffuseness of our unconscious
world and the artist's attempt to use it, to structure it into connections and
separations and, by so doing, overcome it.
In painting, even the most representational painting, the creator's
struggle for freedom is incorporated. Forms, colors, and objectsall rich in
unconscious associationsare juxtaposed and rearranged, producing
separations and fusions not seen in ordinary perceptual experience.
Rembrandt's faces in his self-portraits alternately seem to look more inward
than outward, to look more outward than inward, to fuse with their
surroundings, to resemble his father (or another significant person) more and
less. Light and shade are in continual dynamic tension with each other. Each
portrait bears the marks of struggle, struggle with forms and colors and with
what they represent internally as well as struggle with the limitations
imposed by nature. The face of Leonardo's Mona Lisa takes on the qualities of
harshness and softness representative of that painter's ambivalent view of
women, but the smile in the creation is a fusion and an attempt to understand,
alter, or otherwise develop the view. Remembered landscape scenes in the
painting take on human qualities of harshness or softness, but also human
separateness from nature is emphasized.
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our images of sleep and our forbidden and frightening impulses and
emotions. On the other hand, unconscious material and the perceptual and
cognitive characteristics of artistic structures, imparted by the mirror-image
and other processes, produce moderate anxiety and arousal. Effective art
arouses us and makes us anxious in this way, we remember it, we talk about
it, and we apply it to our lives. We articulate and develop the unconscious and
conscious processes embodied in the work. Anxiety is one of the most
powerful motivating factors we know; it instigates patients to seek therapy,
others to seek power or safety, and all of us to savor, re-experience, and think
about art. We are, moreover, aroused by the creator's struggle for freedom,
his exposition and definition of values, and his perceptions and reorderings
and restructurings of experience. We follow his model and his achievements,
and we adopt and learn from his values, his conceptual formulations, and his
perceptions about nature and the world. The work of art stays with us and, as
we articulate its impactseparate and bring together all the facets,
intellectual and emotionalwe are also engaged to some degree in a struggle
for psychological freedom, freedom from our own unconscious distortions
and the stifling aspect of past experience.
Newness itself is anxiety provoking to us all. While we inevitably seek
newness and noveltyindeed it seems to satisfy a basic need of which the
emotional component is, in all likelihood, arousalwe are always somewhat
discomforted in the face of it. Accepting newness and clear-cut novelty always
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free of the highly elaborated particular substance and data of both gravitation
and electromagnetic induction. It involved the essential elements, from both
domains, of a person falling and of motion. It also contained Einstein's
magnificent addition of the element of rest and the simultaneous
manifestation of rest with motion. Darwin's breakthrough conception
consisted of going beyond Malthus's presentation of the negative effects of
population growth. He very likely conceptualized the maladaptive essence of
the struggle indicated, and with daring freedom he conceived the neverbefore-postulated grand antithesis and the idea that this noxious
circumstance was at the same time adaptive. These constructs of Einstein and
Darwin are the quintessence of simultaneous opposition in that they contain
both conflict and harmony. In our current ignorance of direct or reciprocal
connections between a motive to freedom and cognitive operations, it is
necessary only to emphasize the continuing stimulation and self-propelling
power of such dynamic constructions. And despite our ignorance of the
enormous panoply of particular sources of wisdom and intellect transmitted
within great worksthe scope and intricacy of the novel, scientific theory,
philosophical exegesis, painting, or sonatawe can focus on the relationship
between freedom and the overall genesis, development, and structure, the
created aspect of these achievements.
Creation and freedom are inextricably connected because a creation in
any field is a testification to, and an embodiment of, freedom and
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independence. Creations always stand apart from nature. They derive from
nature, they represent nature, and they refer to it, but they are independent
entities. The work of art is a unity unto itself, and the scientific creation
stands above and outside of nature with its own internal coherence. The work
of the creator is the result of free and independent thinking; regardless of
whether the product is a work of art, a scientific discovery or theory, or
another type of creation, it bears the stamp of his uniqueness. Watson and
Crick's discovery of the double helix structure of DNA bears the
characteristics of Watson and Crick's unique formulation; others would have
described it differently, or even emphasized different aspects, such as the
single-strand functioning more recently uncovered. And Einstein's general
theory of relativity is surely Einstein's alone. Each person carves out the
particular dimensions of the blooming, buzzing confusion he or she will
articulate. Freedom itself resembles creationit always consists of
separateness along with bringing together or connectedness. As human
beings, we are neither free nor independent unless we observe, and are
mindful of, our contacts and connections with others and with nature. And we
must be mindful of our intrinsic separateness, uniqueness, and individuality.
When we glimpse the goddess emerging from the head of the creator, it must
remind us of the nature of our freedom.
Notes
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1 Some contemporary artists consider art and the representation of unconscious contents to be
synonymous. In their attempts at attaining a direct outpouring of unconscious material
through personally directed free association or drugs, they often are going about
unearthing unconscious material in the wrong way.
2 It is doubtful that the artist is driven to work on the same themes over and over only because he
cannot work them out and therefore must repeat them. This explanation would be
appropriate if art were merely a symptom of psychological illness and, like all symptoms,
bound to be repeated. But good art, as we know, shows progression of theme, both
within a single work by a particular artist and in the corpus of his productions. In the
light of this, and the other evidence presented throughout this book, the emphasis
should be on the gratifications of progressing toward insight (see section below,
"Articulation and Freedom," and Rothenberg, "Poetic Process and Psychotherapy").
3 Lesser, Fiction and the Unconscious; N. Holland, The Dynamics of Literary Response (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1968); F. Crews, ed., Psychoanalysis and Literary Process (Cambridge,
Mass.: Winthrop Publishers, 1970).
4 To some extent, the above critique applies to Jungian as well as Freudian theories of art. Jung talked
about the artist's use of autonomous complexes to structure the content of the Collective
Unconscious, but never explained the nature of these complexes very fully. As the
Jungian theory of dreams differs from the Freudian, however, the above comments
applying to condensation and displacement do not apply to Jung's conceptions. See the
following by C. G. Jung: "Psychology and Literature," The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol.
15, ed. H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, and W. McGuire, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York:
Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series, 1966), pp. 84105; Psychological Types (New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1946), reprinted in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 6, ed. H. Read,
M. Fordham, G. Adler and W. McGuire, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, Bollingen Series, 1971); "On the Relation of Analytic Psychology to
Poetic Art," British Journal of Psychology 3 (1923) :213-31, reprinted as "On the Relation
of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," in Collected Works, vol. 15. See also Neumann, Art
and the Creative Unconscious, for a theory of art based on Jungian psychology.
5 Or Jungian archetypes.
6 See, e.g., Arieti, Creativity. Although Arieti postulates a "tertiary process" as responsible for creativity,
he considers artistic structures to be derived from primary process mechanisms.
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7 See R. Novey, "The Artistic Communication and Recipient: Death in Venice as an Integral Part of a
Psychoanalysis," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 33 (1964) :25-52; S. Schreiber, "A Filmed Fairy
Tale as a Screen Memory," Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 29 (1974) :389410; E.
Buxbaum, "The Role of Detective Stories in a Child Analysis," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 10
(1941):373-81; J. L. Rowley, "Rumpelstilzkin in the Analytical Situation," International
Journal of Psychoanalysis 32 (1951): 19095; S. Freud, "The Occurrence in Dreams of
Material from Fairy Tales" (1913) (London, 1958), 12:279-87.
8 See review of such experiments by M. A. Wallach, "Thinking, Feeling and Expressing: Toward
Understanding the Person," in Cognition, Personality and Clinical Psychology, ed. R. Jessor
and S. Feshbach (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1967), pp. 141-72. See also review of
experimental work pertaining to unconscious factors in art in H. Kreitler and S. Kreitler,
Psychology of the Arts (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1972), esp. pp. 286-93.
9 H. M. Voth, "The Analysis of Metaphor," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 18 (1970)
:599-621.
10 Of course, in the face of overwhelming danger from some threatening source in reality, such as a
predatory animal, flight might well be the only appropriate response.
11 Rothenberg, "Poetic Process and Psychotherapy."
12 A. Rothenberg and B. Nagle, "The Process of Literary Revision/' and A. Rothenberg, "Anxiety in the
Creative Process," manuscripts. So far thirty- one subjects have participated in these
experiments.
13 The use of latency of response on word association as a measure of anxiety is well established; see
C. G. Jung, Studies in Word Association (London: William Heinemann, 1918), reprinted in
Collected Works, vol. 2 (1973) ; D. Rapaport, "The Word Association Test," in Diagnostic
Psychological Testing (Chicago: Year Book Publishers, 1946), 2:13-84. For the principle of
using the word association technique to measure anxiety associated with written
documents, I am indebted to George F. Mahl, personal communication, and G. F. Mahl and
L. McNutt, "Disturbances in Written Language as a Function of Anxiety," manuscript.
14 Creativity ratings were made by teachers, and also independently by Robert Penn Warren and by
James Moffett (educator and designer of curricula in the language arts), both of whom
have had considerable experience with assessing creativity in students.
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15 I. Roxon-Ropschitz, "The Act of Deleting and Other Findings in Writings of Neurotics," Psychiatry 9
(1946) :117-21.
16 For all three groups, creative and control high school students and proven creators, mean latency of
responses to words from other sources roughly paralleled mean latencies in that group's
lower latency of response category (either deleted or substituted).
17 Cultural factors surely play a role as well. In Anglo-Saxon culture, the nonresponsive steady mode is
prized and sensations of arousal are viewed with suspicion or outright guilt. In such
cultures, there is anxiety about becoming or feeling aroused.
18 Berlyne, Aesthetics and Psychobiology.
19 Ibid., p. 136.
20 The terms "primary system" and "secondary system" should not be construed to have any
connection to primary and secondary process thinking discussed throughout this book.
21 G. Orwell, 1984 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949).
22 R. B. Sheridan, "The Rivals," in Twelve Famous Plays of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century, ed. C.
A. Moore (New York: Random House, 1933), p. 849.
23 See M. L. von Franz, Creation Myths (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1972), esp. pp. 61-86, 150-69;
Allen, Greek Philosophy; Bleeker and Winden- gren, Historia Religionum, vols. 1 and 2.
24 "Heavens" or "sky" and "earth" are generally rated as opposites in most experiments and rating
tasks. Quotations here are from the Revised Standard Edition of the Bible.
25 Specificity in janusian thinking sharply distinguishes it from perception of incongruities (see Burke,
Permanence and Change) or bringing together of habitually incompatible modes (see
Koestler, Act of Creation, Janus) mentioned earlier. More precisely, the distinction from
both Burke's and Koestler's formulations is that both incongruity and incompatibility are
potential aspects of the janusian process. They areso to speakway stations toward
the construction of simultaneous antitheses.
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26 See discussion by Albert Solnit, regarding the problem of exclusive reliance on symmetry in theory
building in psychoanalysis, particularly with regard to the theory of aggression. Solnit,
"Aggression."
27 Pollio et al. (see n. 25, chap. 8) also refer to opposites as defining a dimension in their notion of
"conceptual convenience." However, opposition is too abstract, and the types of
oppositions discussed here especially are too extensive and complex to be considered
only as convenient memory storage factors. Moreover, janusian formulations
characteristically engender cognitive strain rather than qualities of ease and
convenience.
28 See Gruber and Barrett, Darwin, pp. 105 ff. for Gruber's discussion of this point.
29 I abjure using the word "condense" in this context because of its use in connection with primary
process, and because of the specific differences between janusian thinking and primary
process condensation I have already described. It is compression rather than
condensation because elements are kept discrete in janusian thinking, not combined or
entered into compromise formations.
30 E. Dickinson, letter to T. W. Higginson, April 15, 1862, in T. H. Johnson and T. Ward, eds., The Letters
of Emily Dickinson, (.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), 2:403.
31 It should be emphasized that here, as throughout earlier portions of the book, the idea of metaphor
is used in the sense of an effective, vital entity. It is not used to connote the merely
figurative or nonliteral entity that also is commonly designated as metaphor.
32 H. Crane, "Voyages II," The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose of Hart Crane, ed. B.
Weber (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966).
33 Beardsley, "Metaphorical Twist"; Hausman, Discourse on Novelty and Creation; M. Black, Models
and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1962); Burke, Permanence and Change.
34 See S. C. Pepper, "The Concept of Fusion in Dewey's Aesthetic Theory," Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 12 (1953) :169-76. Also see M. Beardsley's discussion in his Aesthetics:
Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958), pp. 299 ff., of
what he calls the fusion theory of art which he attributes to Walter Abell and a
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