Epistemological Problems and Aesthetic Solutions in Goethe and Jung

PAUL BISHOP Epistemológica! Problems and Aesthetic Solutions in Goethe and Jung Introduction DESPITE THEIR LATER THEORETICAL differences, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and C.G.Jung (1875-1961) shared a common intellectual and literary culture. For example, both men were familiar with ancient Greek tragedy. Freud drew on Sophocles' drama of Oedipus , and Jung in turn coined the term "Electra complex."1 Both men were interested in the Bible in general and the Old Testament in particular: Freud commented at length on the story of Moses in Moses, sein Volk, und die monotheistische Religion (1937-1939), whilst Jung putYahweh on the couch in Antwort auf Hiob (1952).2 And both analysts shared a deep interest in Goethe, the symbolic figurehead of that German-speaking culture to which, as Viennese Jew and Swiss Protestant alike, they were heirs.3 Freud claimed that he decided to study medicine after hearing "Die Natur," a text allegedly written by Goethe but usually attributed toTobler, in the course of a public lecture given by Carl Brühl (1820-1899).4 In a letter of 21 August 1930 to Stefan Zweig, Freud admitted: "Die Phantasie einer näheren Beziehung zu Goethe ist allzu verlockend."5 In this, as in other matters, Jung went one stage further than Freud, propagating a family legend, mentioned twice in his autobiography , according to which Jung's grandfather was a bastard offspring of the poet.6 Whilst apparently denying the authenticity of the legend, Jung nonetheless attributed some importance to it: "Diese ärgerliche Geschichte schlug bei mir insofern ein, als sie meine merkwürdigen Reaktionen auf 'Faust' zugleich bekräftigte und zu erklären schien" (ETG 238). One of Jung's closest associates, Aniela Jaffé, recalls that whilst he described the rumor as "ärgerlich," he never related the story "ohne ein gewisses Behagen" (ETG 400). According to William McGuire, a word test administered to Jung by Goethe Yearbook 279 Ludwig Binswanger in 1907 reveals that Jung had a complex about Goethe.7 And, on the basis of transcripts of unpublished interviews with Jaffé in the BolUngen Foundation Archives at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, Richard Noll has been prepared to make the bold claim that "Carl Jung believed himself to be, literally, the reincarnation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe."8 In this article, I wish to examine two particular aspects of Jung's intellectual debt to Goethe, rather than investigating any possible links in terms of genetics or metempsychosis. First, I shall examine their respective conceptions of science or Wissenschaft, concentrating on its relation to their conceptions of art. And second, I shall discuss the problems of epistemology which both men addressed, arguing that Goethe's conception of the aesthetic may well enable Jungian psychology to defend itself against some of its detractors. One does not have to believe that Jung was the bastard great-grandson of Goethe or his reincarnation in order to appreciate the important , yet hitherto ignored, affinities between the two thinkers. Conceptions of Science and Art Just as Freud analyzed his own dreams as the basis for Die Traumdeutung, so the doctrines of Analytical Psychology constitute one huge commentary on Jung's collapse and recovery. And Goethe, in his autobiography, memorably described his works as the "Bruchstücke einer großen Konfession" (HA 10:283). More specifically , according to Jung's autobiography, the project of Analytical Psychology is a reaction and a response to his experiences of 1912 to 1917: Heute kann ich sagen: ich habe mich nie von meinen anfänglichen Erlebnissen entfernt. Alle meine Arbeiten, alles, was ich geistig geschaffen habe, kommt aus den Initialimaginationen und -träumen. 1912 fing es an, das sind jetzt fast fünfzig Jahre her. Alles, was ich in meinem späteren Leben getan habe, ist in ihnen bereits enthalten, -wenn auch erst in Form von Emotionen oder Bildern. Meine Wissenschaft war das Mittel und die einzige Möglichkeit, mich aus jenem Chaos herauszuwinden. (ETG 196) Significantly, Jung places not just his personal experiences but the products of the archetypal imagination as the source of his psychological theories or, as he calls them here, his Wissenschaft. In the case of Goethe, the relationship between Art and Life...