Obviously, there is a close relationship between poetry and psychology, because feelings, thoughts, feelings and fantasies provide most of the essential materials for poetry, because spiritual activities are indispensable as a function of responding to poetry. However, people are not clear about the close relationship between them and the application scope of psychology in poetry criticism. This is because it is difficult to draw a clear line between poetry and psychology. If the content and process of all internal activities are regarded as spiritual activities, then everything that can be recognized in reality is spiritual activities, and every aspect of poetry may also become the theme of psychological research in principle. In fact, all critical articles that respect "spiritual reality" can be said to be psychological criticism in a broad sense. The relationship between psychology and poetry is complicated. When Freud named a psychological concept "Oedipus complex", he turned to ancient drama and found the name. It was from literature and mythology that he deduced the concept of psychology. The story about Oedipus and the pattern of meaning Freud saw from it not only existed before this scientific concept, but also took on a mythical color. Equally complicated, many important comments on poetry from the psychological point of view are occasionally mentioned in literary and artistic works, rather than specifically discussed in poetic works. Therefore, it can be considered that psychology describes the nature of any form of psychological activity. The following mainly talks about the various studies on the essence of poetry made by critics consciously using experimental psychology.
Psychology in each era has put forward its own views on the role of human spiritual activities to varying degrees, which are either adopted by poets or opposed by poets. Understanding the psychological viewpoint of the poet's time will help to explain his poetry works. For example, understanding the Elizabethan concept of soul helps to explain Shakespeare's works. For another example, reading Principles of Psychology by W James (1890) and understanding the book's views on "stream of consciousness" will help to explain modern poetry and novels. However, J.L. Ross's research on Coleridge shows that criticism does not necessarily depend on such a systematic discipline as psychology, and criticism itself can put forward many opinions on the poet's psychological activities. The use of psychology to clarify the critical discourse of poetry mostly comes from psychoanalysis; The theory of literary attention began after S Floyd published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. Psychoanalysis reflects a historic and important moment in literary research. K Burke once said: "In the era of great drama, the audience understands why the characters in the drama take the actions they take." Hj * * * also said: "A stable culture produces a stable and standardized behavior pattern; Behavioral motivation is as social as lifestyle. Although the characters in the play may feel confused, confused or even rebellious in a short time, they will eventually realize their motives as clearly as the audience. " During the period of cultural collapse, when D·H· Lawrence and other novelists and poets declared that they would turn their attention from "ancient and stable self" to "allotrope phenomenon" of the same spiritual component, Freud's theory became extremely important and provided a new socialization motivation. Moreover, psychoanalysis also enables literary critics to pay attention to some elements in poetry creation and reaction that have not been paid attention to in the past.
Although Freud occasionally writes about literature and art, most of the theories about literature in psychoanalysis come from his hints in analyzing religious history, cultural history, banter, ugliness, mystery, especially in dreams. Freud was also partially adopted by L Tick, A Schopenhauer, J Paul, F Nietzsche, F Fisher, W Dilthey and others by analyzing dreams and other spiritual products. They found a similar situation between dreaming and literary creation. Psychoanalysis holds that dreaming makes people's instinctive impulses illusory, and art occupies "the zone between the real world where wishes are difficult to realize and the fantasy world where wishes are realized" (Freud). Like dreams, works of art not only have obvious contents of external performance, but also hidden potential contents, which come from instinctive potential consciousness. A large part of early psychoanalytic criticism aims to prompt dynamic potential contents in literary works. Therefore, Freud and later E Jones regard Hamlet as the expression of the protagonist's Oedipus desire and his father's ambivalence, and believe that the dramatic and poetic effect of this work is achieved by arousing and expressing the Oedipus complex in the audience's psychology. According to this view, the meaning of language is mainly used to meet the needs of the inner world for feeling and logical reasoning, so it is necessary to alleviate the opposition to the forbidden wishes and allow them to be met. As N Holland pointed out in the book An Overview of Freud's Theory (1966), "the real pleasure of art forms comes from illogical and absurd things, which show the principle of saving effort in spiritual activities or the state of relaxation from rational repression". Our * * * comes from relaxing or reducing our energy to maintain normal logic and rationality; We have all experienced the feeling of suddenly having more energy and the spiritual benefits of saving energy. "
Recent literary criticism reflects the development of psychoanalytic theory founded by Freud since the 1920s. The main researchers are: A. Freud, H. Hartman, E. Chris, M. Klein, etc. These developments mainly involve: the power of self to maintain its own activities and achieve a feasible balance under the influence of internal and external factors. Psychoanalytic literary criticism reflects these interests, and it begins to regard literary works not only as the hidden expression of forbidden wishes, but also as the reflection of different strategic ways and means adopted by the "self" in dealing with these wishes and perceived morality. Therefore, the explicit content in literary works reflects the transformation of fantasy in potential consciousness; The form and meaning of the work not only cover up the potential fantasy, but also serve this transformation process. Art can make people's spiritual vitality change from one level to another, and this change itself can give people * * *. Moreover, these changes and transformations are very similar to the process of successful sublimation of irrational fantasies of potential consciousness. As Holland pointed out, literary form "plays a defensive role for us-it splits, isolates, destroys, transfers and eliminates (by suppressing or denying) the happy but anxious factors in fantasy". Psychoanalysis involves the important concepts of poetic form, such as "cohesion" (that is, an image or role has different psychological tendencies) and "transfer" (that is, a psychological tendency has different concrete manifestations, such as Freud's view that Macbeth and his wife belong to the same psychological tendency but have different concrete manifestations).
Some psychoanalytic literary criticism is called "psychological biography"-that is, using psychoanalysis or psychodynamics to comment on someone's life. In some literary biographies written in this way, such as B Meyer's Biography of Joseph Conrad, we have convincingly glimpsed the hidden parts of the writer's life and works. Some people have analyzed several poets in this way, including M Bonaparte's analysis of Poe and J Cody's analysis of E Dickinson. Cody reached his conclusion based on psychoanalytic theory and clinical theory of psychosis. In Rilke's analysis by P Detering, we can find a precise correlation study with psychoanalytic theory. He traced the poet's creative motivation not only to the traditional Oedipus complex, but also to the pre-Oedipus development discussed by psychoanalysis in recent decades. Rilke's "narcissism" is regarded as a complicated inducing mode, which is manifested as a complex, changeable and unfolding poetic symbol, including the symbol "angel". In recent years, researchers such as Chris, Holland and A. Ehlenz Wiig have discussed the issue of literary induction in a more subtle way than previous critics. Psychoanalysis has now touched some areas to be explored, which may be of great significance to poetry criticism. For example, J.A.M. Melo put forward an undeveloped premonition that the rhythm of poetry expresses the ancient reaction of creatures in infancy and expresses the inherent biological signal code. Another field was put forward by H. kohut, who believed that narcissism predicted self-development and formed the basis of this development; Narcissism is also implied in some creative activities and forms of intervention. Another field was put forward by Ehlenz Weger, who noticed some arrangement processes that helped to form art forms and were beyond the control of consciousness. Moreover, psychoanalysis has formed a complete system, which can provide some psychological explanations for various important literary phenomena, and no other school can match it in this respect.
In addition to Freud, the famous figure who criticized from the psychological point of view was Jung. Different from Freud, his main interest is the transpersonal factors in literature; And the focus of this interest is the spiritual prototype. Because the spiritual prototype is roughly equivalent to Aristotle's so-called physical cause (essential cause) but different from motivation (proximate cause), it is the object of psychoanalytic literary criticism. Therefore, the concept of spiritual prototype can help psychological critics communicate the lower level and higher level of poetry structure. Jung believes that poets have the ability to predict prophets; His views on art make him come down in one continuous line with Plato, Sidney and Romantic critics who emphasize the relationship between poetry and prophecy. He holds a prescient or fatalistic view of the process of mental activity. He believes that the subconscious is composed of group factors, which makes him have a different explanation of the relationship between the poet and the subconscious than psychoanalysis. M. Bodkin believes that what can explain the form of a work and its influence on readers is mainly the spiritual formal creativity and its mysterious expressive force. Therefore, art does not achieve its effect mainly by partially relieving the sense of oppression; On the contrary, artists often express what is fully formed in the subconscious but not known to the "consciousness". These contents have the nature of compensation, which not only provided the poet with the necessary materials to correct the one-sided worldview in his time.
The artist may indeed have the characteristics analyzed by psychopathology, but this fact cannot be used to explain his works; From the perspective of psychoanalysis, works serve themselves by strengthening self's control over the forces that threaten self. On the contrary, Jung believes that artists are often in distress, because his genius and duties require the extraordinary development of some psychological functions, thus ignoring other functions that are of great significance to normal life. Juana used Jung's view of spirit (197 1) to analyze Eliot's poems. Kirchhoff once made a more general discussion on "Poetry and Spirit". Shuanna also tried to clarify the use of the term "spiritual prototype" in literary criticism and analytical psychology (1970). Jung's point of view seems to be more suitable for literary criticism than for the analysis of literary biography, but K Wilson uses Jung's point of view to deeply discuss Keats' Ode to the Nightingale and clarify its important significance in Keats' life creation. In her view, this poem is based on the self's experience of the spiritual prototype and the deepest center of personality, which leads to the change of Keats' view of poetry and his relationship with his own source of inspiration. Wilson also used Jung's theory about the types and functions of psychological attitude to clarify the uniqueness of Keats' poetic language. According to Jung's theory, Bachelard founded a "phenomenology of soul" which transcends individual parts. He believes that the image of poetry is the product of "dream consciousness"; In this state of consciousness, "the duality of subjectivity and objectivity is constantly changing, flashing rainbow-like brilliance."
The views of K. Kaufka and other morphological psychologists are sometimes adopted by critics (such as Mill), but they are not common in literary discussions. On the basis of inheriting and expanding the comprehensive study of cognitive function in morphological psychology, peckham put forward a comprehensive view of art (including poetry). He believes that what people "want most is a predictable and orderly world ... because people's yearning for such a world is very strong, he will inevitably reject any prediction that his ideal cannot be realized, reject any misleading of his efforts, and oppose any doubt about his beliefs. Only when he is protected, that is, isolated from the outside world by a high wall of spiritual insulation, can he realize the difference between his interests (that is, his expectations or goals) and his thoughts formed under the influence of the real environment. " Peckham believes that the function of art is to provide such an experience. According to developmental cognitive psychology, Love analyzed the mythological features in Woolf's novels. Psycholinguistics has also been applied to poetry criticism. Poetry is also used as a means of psychotherapy, because it is full of insight into the state of the world, which can arouse certain emotions and provide methods to treat them. However, psychotherapy mainly emphasizes the comfort and enlightenment of poetry and prose, rather than making poetry empty rather than straightforward; So literary researchers won't learn anything from it.
The potential similarity between dreams and literary creation and reaction has a lasting influence on literary criticism. For example, Burke and N. Frye still use the term "dream" in their criticism. Since Freud, the interpretation of dreams has been developing and changing. Jung, A. Adler, E.S. Taubel, K. Horney, B.S. Robbins, E. Fromm, W. Bonin, etc. Having done research in this field, their views are of great help to some psychological criticisms. Therefore, Jung thought: "Dream is an experience of self-confrontation, and its purpose is to reveal rather than cover up. The symbolic things that exist in it are not used to deceive or show off, but as a figurative reference. " According to Jung's view on dreams, Freud's difference between the potential content and the obvious content of dreams can be basically ignored; The content and structure of dreams can not be considered arbitrary, but a necessary condition to dominate drama materials; Therefore, the function of dreams can't be regarded as mainly realizing wishes, but adjusting psychological activities by compensating a one-sided and conscious view and maintaining the unity and integrity of personality. Adler and other scholars pointed out that "the dynamic meaning of dreams can be preserved without the concept that the subconscious mind is the repository of aggression and sexual impulses." ..... The strange thinking activity of dreams can be understood as a strange expression of personal experience, rather than a sudden emergence of subconscious thinking. "(ullman) These seem to be related to the ancient view that dreams and poems are similar. More generally, they can be related to the source, nature and function of poetry and fantasy, which is the basic factor of poetry. Some of these viewpoints have little response in literary research, which may indicate that the possibility of applying psychological viewpoints to literary criticism needs further exploration.
Jung once pointed out that every psychological viewpoint contains an important component of subjective confession, and it is impossible to produce a unified psychology that is recognized by people. But on the whole, the discussion on the relationship between psychology and poetry has become a fruitful and established research field in the critical field.