Archetypes and Creative Imagination in ‘Ode to Psyche’: A Jungian Analysis

Imdad Ullah Khan

doi:10.32350/llr.71.05

Abstract

John Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ is steeped in mythology and dream symbolism, which encourages us to understand it from the perspective of depth psychology/archetypal criticism. The odes of John Keats have been studied from historicist, feminist, and biographical perspectives. This paper aims to complement these perspectives by elaborating the mythical dream imagery of the poem as referring symbolically to the process of psychic integration and poetic creativity. The paper also views the poem as exemplifying the need for a complementary ongoing communication between the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the mind to maintain a holistic psyche. Archetypal theory is used to frame the figurative structure of the poem as a symbolic mythical variant of the process of poetic creativity. The paper employs three theoretical constructs, namely syzygy or complementation of opposites; active imagination; and individuation, as a framework to analyze the poem from an archetypal perspective. Employing a depth psychological perspective to understand poetry enhances the aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry and enhances the 'healing effect' of poetry by illuminating the psychological connotations of the poem. The paper concludes by attempting to answer two research questions explored in the analysis. First, does archetypal perspective contribute to enhancing readers' aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry? Second, what are the theoretical contributions of the current analysis towards contemporary Jungian literary theory?

Highlights

John Keats’ extraordinary creative outburst in the six lyrical odes ( Odes), composed between March and September 1819, has attracted critical literary analyses from different theoretical perspectives
A psychological perspective helps readers enrich their interaction with a literary work through engagement with its hidden symbolic structure (Tariq, 2019)
The constructs are: (i) syzygy or complementation of opposites in the psyche—in this instance, focused on complementation of animus archetype in the male psyche with energy from the unconscious anima archetype; (ii) active imagination, is used to analyse how the speaker, or the poetic persona in the poem, engages with the dream; and (iii) the will to individuate, focuses on how the poetic persona moves towards individuation through complementation of the male and female principles of the psyche

Summary

Introduction

A psychological perspective helps readers enrich their interaction with a literary work through engagement with its hidden symbolic structure (Tariq, 2019). The energy, and the mythic symbols made available to the poet as a result of better integration of the unconscious, can be considered as the root of creative outburst in the poetic career of Keats His astonishing poetic maturity in a year, i.e. 1819, when all his famous Odes were composed, can be understood in terms of the Jungian concept of complementation of psychic dualities. When ego-consciousness receives energy from the collective unconscious made accessible through the integration of anima archetype, the flow of imaginative outburst can be seen in lines like: Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: (143: V, 50-53) These lines can be viewed to foreshadow the astounding creative outburst in Keats’ poetic career when he was able to compose in a period of a few months lyrical odes which built for him a ‘fane’ among the English poets. The inward journey that began in Psyche, after the persona comes out of a mood of apathy and withdrawal in ‘Ode on Indolence’, foretells a magnificent trail of poetic production in the future in the form of other odes, culminating in the serenity and calm of ‘To Autumn’

Theoretical Implications

His Psyche true!