Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History

V. Art and Eros

v Art and Eros P SYCHOANALYSIS has not developed an adequate theory of art. That psychoanalysis has made fundamental contributions to the study of art is a proposition denied only by the willfully ignorant. Psychoanalysis has introduced revolutionary new ideas as to the nature of the thematic content of art. The thematic content of art is always in some sense man; the psychoanalytical contribution to the content-analysis of art is no more than, and no less than, its contribution to the understanding of human nature. Psychoanalysis has introduced equally important , though less generally recognized, ideas as to the technique of art. The technique of art, so radically different from the technique of science and rational discou·rse, is rooted in what Freud called the primary process-the procedures of the unconscious which, Freud insists, are radically different from the logical procedures of the conscious system, and which, though in this sense illogical, are nevertheless in their own way meaningful and purposive. Trilling is justified in saying, "Freud discovered in the very organization of the mind those mechanisms by which art makes its effects, such devices as the condensations of meanings and the displacement of accent." 1 Freud thus opened new possibilities with regard to both content-analysis and technique-analysis in art. But the exploitation of these new possibilities has been hampered by the absence of a general psychoanalytical theory of art. Without such a theory, there is no way of estimating the importance of the discovery of the themes and techniques of the unconscious in art. Trilling's essay "Freud and Literature" illustrates how a good critic can recognize Freud's contribution to content- and technique-analysis in literature and still remain an orthodox Part Two: EROS critic. The discovery of psychoanalytic themes in art is put in proper perspective, as we academics say, by the doctrine that "there is no single meaning to any work of art." By means of this cliche the house that Freud built is absorbed into the stately mansion of traditional criticism. Weare free to recognize a psychoanalytic theme in art, but we are not compelled to; and if we do recognize a psychoanalytic theme, we need not be disturbed , because we are free to drown it in a rich orchestration of multiple meanings. Similarly, the possibilities opened up by the analogues between artistic technique and the processes of the unconscious are put in proper perspective by the traditional tribute to "the formal control of the conscious mind." Thus no Copernican revolution takes place in the mind of Lionel Trilling , and business can go on as usual for professional critics. The ego remains the master in the house of art.2 Psychoanalysis will continue to be no more than a tantalizing or disturbing possibility on the fringes of artistic criticism as long as it has no adequate general theory of art and of the place of art in life. Freud's own statements on this subject are unsatisfactory . Not without justification does Trilling conclude that Freud's general statements bespeak a contempt for art; not without justification does he maintain that Freud's notion of art as a "substitute-gratification" and as an "illusion in contrast to reality" suggests that art is essentially an opiate of the people, an escape into an unreal world of fantasy indistinguishable from a full-blown neurosis, both art and neurosis having the basic dynamic of a flight from reality. Now neither the doctrine that art provides pleasures which compensate for the harshness of life, nor the doctrine that art has affinity with madness, can be ruled out as false or insignificant . But anyone who has had experience of art knows that this is not the whole story. It is clear that Freud himself knows that this is not the whole story: hence the vacillations in his statements about art. Thus in some passages he gives a general theory of art; in other passages he implies that the secret of art is impervious to psychoanalytical investigation.8 In some passages art is assimilated to dreams and madness; in other passages all the recognition that Trilling demands is given to the "social Art and Eros 57 intention and the formal control of the conscious mind" as differentiating art from dreams and madness. Freud's vacillations cannot be discarded by a simple option between the more "moderate" and the more "extreme" position. To do so would be simply...