WILHELM STEKEL

POETRY AND NEUROSIS. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ARTIST

Contents of Article: I. Poetry and Dream, II. Parapathy and Paralogism, III. Criminal Tendencies and the Creative Urge, IV. Goethe and Others, Notes, Bibliography.

I. POETRY AND DREAM

    In his little common school it occurred to Tolstoy one day to put to test the poetic ability of the peasant children. He began telling them a story and before he went very far he asked them to continue it their own way. The first attempt proved so satisfactory that during the succeeding days he was satisfied to assume merely the role of a listener while the children in his charge gave free vent to their flights of phantasy. He was amazed by the keenness of their exposition, their tremendously rich imagery, the sway of their poetic inspiration and the beauty and strength of their imagination as seen in their joint product. He concluded that the most famous writers could not have conceived such wonderful stories as these simple, small, inexperienced village children had playfully knit together.

   This experience teaches us clearly a fact which should have been recognized long ago: that in every child there slumbers a creative artist. The child fills the inanimate world with the products of its phantasy. A bit of wood becomes a doll, the doll a child, the child a king's son; the chair becomes a tram, the turf-ground a tunnel, the little tin soldier his special guard. Next the little artist ventures with lightning swiftness into the wide world. In an hour he tastes the adventures of a hundred live. Like every artist the child dwells in a “second” world of his own creation. “It would be unfair to hold – states Freud – that it (the child) does not take that world seriously; on the contrary, its play is a serious matter and involves most earnest emotional outlay on its part. The opposite of play is not earnestness, but reality” (Freud 1909).

   Adults, too, attempt to fly from the grey, perennial sameness of reality into the variegated, richly coloured realm of the phantasy. For the artistic trend slumbering in the breast of every person and expressing itself so richly in the child, never dies in us. It may withdraw to a dusty corner in the soul, become covered over with the cobwebs of daily life, there to rest secure against the light of consciousness. In the night dreams it awakens secretly to new life and adorned with the ruler’s purple mantle proudly strides forth into the hardy, endless realm of dreams. Every dreamer is an artist. And the artist in him breaks also through the yielding shell of consciousness into the light of dear day. In day-dreams we conjure up before our vision all sorts of adventures which enhance the illusions of happiness.

   Freud rightly remarks that “the happy person is not addicted to fancy weaving, only the ungratified person does so”. But is there in the wide world a man so supremely happy that he has nothing further to require of life? The story about the happy man’s shirt is well known; a king sent in search of it, in order to secure a complete cure for himself. The king’s messengers searched everywhere, until they found at last a happy man, but – that man had no shirt. It means that such a man lives not at all, he is but a vision – the dream thought of an artist. It is a matter of indifference whether the poet was a single person or the people.

   For folk is continuously engaged in artistic weaving of fancies. The fury stories and myths are the people’s dream thoughts. The race remains eternally a child. “The myth represents a retained portion of the infantile mental life of the race and the dream is the individual’s myth” (Abraham 1908). Thus we see that the artistic creations of the race are its dreams. How does that hold true?

   There is essentially no difference between dream and poetry. Any one who masters the art of unravelling the symbolic representations of the dream is continually amazed at the high artistic quality displayed by the average person. The dream of the average person discloses to us his poetic trend. More correctly: The dream unshackles it.

The poets themselves have known this long before psychoanalysis had proven the fact scientifically. For instance, Hebbel, in his diaries remarks concerning “a wonderful but gruesome” dream of Christine, his sweetheart: “My notion that dream and poetry are identical is verified more and more” (Hebbel 3/VI, 1897). We find similar statements by Schopenhauer and Jean Paul (1).

   With their intuitive insight Hebbel and Schopenhauer have discovered a fundamental fact. Dream and poetry are almost identical psychic mechanisms. The dream derives its material from the depths of the unconscious. And does not true artistic talent consist of the ability to draw upon one’s unconscious powers? Goethe relates that he has written down most of his poems at night, in a dream-like trance (2). Other poets relate similar experiences. The artist’s ecstasy, the glowing creative urge, the productive fever are similar states during which consciousness is displaced by a sort of somnambulistic state through autosuggestion, i.e., a dream. The child, too, draws its creative ability from the unconscious. The child also has the ability to dream with open eyes.

   We have been led already merely on the basis of these superficial observations to bring poetry and neurosis into apposition. For the neurosis manifests itself under similar circumstances. A hysterical person possesses the ability of withdrawing from the world of reality subjectively perceived as unbearable and to take refuge in the realm of the unconscious. We physicians call that a hysterical attack. The emotional display of such persons (»attitudes passionnelles«), their lively facial expressions disclose to us that during the attack they find vicarious gratification in a realm of highest emotional tension.

   We also know today – thanks to the glorious researches of Freud – that the world in which the hysterical plunges during the attack is the realm of Eros – an erotism lacking the inhibitions of morals or religion, destitute of the prohibitions of ethics and custom. Plunges? We could say with equal propriety, that the hysterical dreams his way into that realm! The hysterical person conjures up situations which life stubbornly refuses to actualize or which cannot be expected nor even accepted in reality. Following this process one step further we find that every neurotic possesses the ability to live in a second world. He divides his attention between dream and reality.

   We (allegedly) normal persons, too, have our day-dreams, our phantasies which lead us into a second, more harmonious world, into the realm of wish fulfilment. Wherein does the difference consist? Why must the hysterical take refuge in his attack, while the “normal” person indulges in phantasies which merely entice him into the twilight of a half sleepy state without robbing him entirely of the critical power of his consciousness?

   That difference is due entirely to the fact that the neurotics – we may here properly enough use the popular term “nervous” persons – find their phantasies unbearable in consciousness. What is more – they are not even conscious of their cravings. »The neurotic is unaware of the nature of his longings. His wishes are repressed«. As I have shown in my monograph on the “Causes of Nervousness” (3) every neurotic is the victim of a psychic conflict. The longings of the unconscious conflict with the wishes of the consciousness.

   That is true not only of the hysterical, it holds true of all neurotics. Indeed all persons live under the compulsion of repressing unbearable tendencies. The individual extent of ordinary repression constitutes the measure of that degree of neurotic predisposition which may be proven within every one of us. This may be called the “normal” person's “latent” neurosis. But eventually, in the case of normal persons, the repressed tendencies lose entirely their feeling-value. They present themselves as vague and bloodless survivals or appear merely as grotesque emotional relics during our night dreams. The neurotic on the other hand has hanging unto his repressed complexes the lead weights of powerful affects. He is a victim of inexplainable moods whose deepest causes are the emotionally stressed trends welling up from the unconscious. He is a personality divided, dissociated, “broken up” in Nestroy’s sense. Consciousness and the unconscious stand in irreconcilable opposition to one another.

   The repression renders the unconscious too powerful. Beginning with the earliest stages of childhood all the unpleasant affects are repressed into the unconscious, all the forbidden gratifications, all the foolish and burning desires are tightly clamped down in the inner chamber, away from the outside world. Suddenly these subterranean forces begin to rumble and to stir. At first there may be but a light knocking at the walls. Then the inner voices become gradually louder, the cryptic longings press forward, they crave light, expression, and they attempt to achieve mastery over the soul. The “unconscious complexes” break into consciousness. But consciousness prefers to remain “deaf and dumb”. It refuses to acknowledge the hidden wishes. Out of this struggle between the unconscious longings and the conscious inhibitions there arises, as a consequence of half-resisting and half-yielding, the »manifest« neurosis.

   In the case of the artist, too, we find essentially a splitting of personality. The artist also stands under the sway of repression. He, too, is a victim of that dissonance between consciousness and the unconscious which leads to a »psychic conflict«.

   Wherein does he differ from the neurotic? Rank declares: “The continual repression of certain instinctive cravings and the favouring of others, diametrically opposed to the former, becomes in the course of generations a sort of second nature, and involves a gradually decreasing deliberate opposition on the part of individuals; at the same time this process generates a sense of supreme compulsion in those individuals in whom the two natures are still actively at war.

   The conflict does not become conscious in the case of the normal because it is generally perceived by them as something objective and the feeling to which it gives rise is readily purged off through the dream (unconsciously); but these particular individuals – the artists – project upon their »self« in the highest individual potence that conflict and its attendant affect so that in their case, it becomes too powerful for the dream to release, though without necessarily becoming a morbid tension; consequently the artists attempt to free themselves of the conflict by expressing it through their artistic creations, which thus resemble the formation of myths.

   From the psychologic standpoint the artist stands between the dreamer and the neurotic; their subjective mental process is essentially the same as in the others, differing merely in degree as well as in accordance with the measure of their respective artistic abilities. The loftiest types of artistic persons – the dramatist, the philosopher, and the »religious founder« stand closest to the psychoneurotic – the lowest type of dreamer” (Rank 1907).

   Thus far we have proceeded on the assumption that the artist is a normal person who stands in a certain contrast to the neurotic. We have seen that Rank is also of this opinion.

   But I cannot wholly approve this view. My investigations have positively convinced me that between the neurotic and the artist there is no essential difference. Not every neurotic is an artist. But every artist is a neurotic.

   I do not propose to be misunderstood. I do not mean to stamp all artists as "abnormal." I do not intend to repeat the error of Lombroso and Nordau. In a very suggestive work Löwenfeld has proven that there can be no question of a “degenerative psychosis of the epileptic type” in the case of genius, in Lombroso’s sense (Löwenfeld 1903). According to this investigator genius has its roots in health not in disease. But who dares draw a precise line between disease and health?

   Where does the normal cease and the pathological begin? I have pointed out from the first that there are in fact no absolutely normal persons. In every one's breast there slumbers a bit of neurosis. That slumbering piece of neurosis is what constitutes the foundation of all creative ability.

II. PARAPATHY AND PARALOGISM

    The neurosis is generated by a process of psychic stagnation. The forbidding forces of our inhibitions restrain forcefully our stirring affects. The latter create for themselves in consequence false pathways, i.e., they break out in neurotic symptoms. Or else they attempt to overcome the inhibitions through artistic sublimation. All creative activity represents a freeing of excessive energies, an outflow of pressing inhibitions. This is perhaps nowhere so clearly shown as in the conceptions of poetry. In the case of the musician the personal element disappears under a form of expression capable of reproducing any mood but no thought. The painter expresses moods as well as thoughts. But in his creations the poet discloses the analysis of his own neurosis. He may wish ever so earnestly to hide his intimate thoughts but he can never succeed. »Every poetic creation is a confession«!

   The mental abnormality disclosed by creative spirits has been known to investigators for a long time. An attempt has even been made of connecting genius with insanity! This hypothesis with which Lombroso’s name is linked had already been precognized by Aristotle (cf. his “nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit”) who attributed poetic inspiration to a powerful onrush of the blood to the head. Nordau particularized the conception by ascribing a number of modern poets to the type of “degenerates”, and other contemporary psychiatrists and neurologists incline onesidedly to the “degeneration” and “psychosis” theory of genius. Poetic genius has also been identified with insanity.

   The attempt to stamp genius as a sign of “degeneration” rests on an erroneous conception of the matter. With the shibboleth “degeneration” the attempt has been made to explain away the deepest problems of creative ability! The contentions of Lombroso and Nordau who in their well known works have dragged down the conception of artistry, border on the ridiculous. Nothing is so puerile as to attempt to judge artists and to justify their existence as it were with the (wholly hypothetical) canons of “normal” man. According to Nordau even Richard Wagner, Tolstoy, Ibsen and Maeterlinck are but “degenerate graphomaniacs”.

   It is high time that we abandon the puerile talk about “degeneration” and “hereditary taint”. Artists are not degenerates. They are neurotics; and neurosis is only a result of the progressive cultural level of existence. Neurosis forges the background for all progress. It leads the philosopher to investigate, it impels the discoverer to solve important problems and it enables the artist to conceive his loftiest creations. In that sense the neurosis is actually the bloom on the tree of humanity. Without the neurotic we would find ourselves in the A, B, C, of cultural progress.

   But shibboleths, once they have become popular, have an enormous vogue. The artistic genius is mentally deranged – that is what the pathographists preach. And what wonderful diagnoses have they not suggested! Lombroso spoke of “mattoids” and “graphomaniacs”. Nordau of “degeneration” (and he always speaks of hysteria as a “degeneration”), Magnan of “dégénérés supérieurs”. Modern psychiatrists have gone even further and have attempted more minute diagnoses.

   There has been no agreement reached regarding the actual nature of the insanity in question. Some investigators speak of Dementia Praecox, or of Paranoia, others favor the diagnosis of Cyclothymia (manic-depressive insanity). Möbius who saw in every genius a degenerate in Magnan’s sense (Oh, what evil that man has introduced in psychiatry!) divided genius into three groups, all belonging alike to the category of “degenerations”; Cyclothymia, Dementia Praecox and Paranoia. He states: “Luther, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Cowper, Gérard de Nerval were Cyclothymic; Lens, Hölderlin, C. F, Meyer, Robert Schumann, Scheffel suffered of Dementia Praecox; while Tasso, Rousseau and Gutzkov suffered of Paranoia (Dementia paranoides)” (Möbius 1907).

What a meagre list in comparison to the endless chain of men of genius! Tasso, Rousseau and (what strange company) Gutzkov – it is hardly sufficient to base on so scant a number of representatives such a far reaching hypothesis! If one permits oneself such arbitrary choice it might be just as easy to prove that the shoemaker's trade has some relations to Dementia Praecox! It is possible to find a certain proportion of mental disorder among a given number of persons in any vocation.

   The artist is not insane! He is a mentally abnormal personality, like every neurotic. His brain functions in normal fashion. He even shows an excessive productive energy. But his soul does not possess equilibrium. I do not propose thereby to draw a contrast between brain and soul. The soul, in popular expression, as the center of affective processes – is but a functional form of our brain. The brain is anatomically sound in the neurotic, and so are also his nervous structures. »Psychosis is a disease of the intellect and of the affects« (Bleuler).

   The neurotic shows merely a change in his affectivity. His disorders are due merely to a false psychic mechanism. Similar mechanisms play also a role in psychosis. Nevertheless certain differences are traceable in the rough. The mentally deranged is one who has lost the critical faculty with reference to his insane notion. There is no bridging over from his mind into the world of reality. The neurotic appears insane only on superficial examination. His compulsive acts, illogical in our eyes, are logically motivated in his unconscious. The bridge linking him to the realm of reality still persists. The connection is merely covered up and invisible from a distance. Moreover Jung and long before him Freud have discovered the presence of connecting links between the subject's mind and the world of reality even in cases of insanity (Dementia Praecox). There are disorders, as melancholia, for instance, which stand on the borderline between neurosis and psychosis.

   Unfortunately our confusing nomenclature renders difficult a sharp distinction between mental and nervous disorder. It is a habit, which has long since become an anachronism, to speak of “nervous” complaints in the case of neurotic persons. The nerves as such, have in reality nothing to do with the condition ordinarily designated as nervousness. “The nerves proper – says Strümpell rightly – are merely connecting paths and although they are subject to disease, as a matter of fact they have nothing to do with what is commonly called in professional language »nervousness«, or very little and only in a secondary sense. The letter carrier is not responsible for the content of the message entrusted to him for transmission; nor is he responsible for the impression made by the message he delivers” (Strümpell 1908).

   The designation “neurosis” therefore gives us no clue to the nature of the ailment. Freud's term psychoneurosis is much more suitable because it hints at the character of the trouble as a disorder of the soul.

    The designation “psychosis” certainly does not fit altogether the mental disorders. For psychosis means disorder of the soul, and the neurotics too are soul-sick. Of course, the insane is also a victim of soul sickness. But the characteristic feature of his illness is the disorder of the “intellect”.

   It is necessary to resort to more fitting nomenclature. Everything that has been designated thus far as “nervousness”, being essentially a disorder of affectivity should be called “parapathy”; mental disorder, in which the intellect becomes subservient to the affects, should be called “paralogy”.

   But new names introduce themselves with difficulty into common use. Therefore we shall still adhere to the old nomenclature but in a different sense. Under “neurosis” we refer to the “psychoneurosis” in Freud’s sense, or Janet’s “psychasthenia” while “psychosis” is a term we reserve for any disorder of the intellect.

   Neurosis is most intimately linked with the subject’s infantile experiences. It is only to a very small extent the result of hereditary transmission. For the most part it is due to environmental influences. If a person is brought up in an environment which requires continuous repression on his part, which compels him to fight down his instinctive cravings, there arises, under a certain constitutional predisposition – a neurosis. In psychosis the repressed cravings overcome the inhibitions of consciousness. The unconscious achieves mastery over consciousness.

   The psychotic individual destroys the bridges which link him to reality and withdraws within the realm of the obsessive “complexes”. His overstressed feeling-judgment destroys all competitive or antagonistic ideas. Psychosis is the last extreme of neurosis; the neurosis represents a compromise between instinct and inhibition, between craving and repression, while the psychosis stands ultimately for the peace of the graveyard. Naturally this excludes the borderland cases between psychosis and neurosis.

   Every form of genius shows a certain – often merely apparent – relationship with both, neurosis and psychosis. Attempts have been made (as already stated), to connect genius with “degeneration”. But the shibboleth “psychopathic inferiority” does not fit the picture of all-embracing genius. Nevertheless we still encounter attempts at linking genius and insanity – highest “creative ability” and “degeneration”.

   The psychoneuroses show us a definite genetic mechanism in which sexual traumas, repressions (unconscious complexes), and psychic conflicts play a tremendous role. But what we have learned thus far about the psychic mechanism of the psychoses points to

similar origins as the neurosis. Both categories of disorders have similar beginnings. Of course after a shorter or longer period their pathways divide. We do not know as yet the reason why the same causes bring forth in one instance neurosis and in the next a psychosis. Jung is of the opinion that in the case of Dementia Praecox the factor of intoxication plays an etiologic role; other investigators place greater weight on the somatic factors – the general constitution (Jung 1906).

   Perhaps the conformation of the skull to the developmental needs of the brain plays a certain role in the sense recognized by Buschan who has often found that in the skulls of gifted persons the sagittal fissure remains unclosed (Buschan 1906). Buschan considers “metopism”, i.e., the persistence of an open frontal fissure, the physical sign of a strong brain development. The skull with loose frontal fissure makes for brachycephaly. It happens that Buschan himself was able to prove that the “short heads” are preeminently among the mentally superior persons. According to this investigator persons with metopic skulls must have been the ones who raised themselves to a level of mental development higher than their fellow men. According to Mühlmann the brain grows continually up to the twentieth year (Mühlmann 1900). The growth is naturally more marked in mental workers than in others. The open sagittal fissure permits free growth.

   The neurosis naturally places the brain under great strain. The tremendous amount of mental work performed by an obsessive dreamer, for instance, is incalculable; such a subject performs as much work as a philosopher. He is sometimes a philosopher. His tremendous mental activity must influence materially the growth of the brain. If the bony skull is so formed as to permit the necessary growth, the subject becomes merely a neurotic. But if the spatial ratio is surpassed he necessarily drifts into psychosis.

   At any rate it is a striking fact that so many victims of Dementia Praecox show suddenly arrested development around the tenth year. Of course it would be necessary to investigate the relations between cranial capacity and psychosis on the basis of a far larger amount of data than is available at present in order fully to justify the hypothesis. It is particularly important to determine definitely whether metopic skulls actually lessen the incidence of psychosis.

   The sagittal fissure has been found unclosed in Kant, also in Gauss. Metopism would thus appear to be nature’s provision favouring the growth of the brain in genius. But that is after all only a hypothesis, though I must emphasize, a hypothesis which I am inclined to consider highly probable. Possibly certain disorders of the internal secretions (sexual glands, thyroid, etc.) also play a certain role, in the sense in which I have assumed they must influence the development of anxiety neurosis and anxiety hysteria (Stekel 1923).

   Unfortunately there is a widespread tendency in modern psychiatry to ascribe various neurotic disorders to insanity. Such clinical entities are currently spoken of as “neurasthenic insanity”, and “anxiety psychosis”; compulsion neurotics are regarded as insane, whereas the investigations of psychoanalysis show that there can be no question of insanity in such cases, since the subjects still preserve an insight into their condition and their overstressed feeling-attitude may be reduced down to a “normal” feeling-value through psychoanalysis upon being cleared of the excessive emotional ballast.

   What the artist exhibits is neurosis, not actual psychosis. Psychosis indicates abandonment of the struggle with the forces of the unconscious. The intellect becomes subjected to the sway of the affects. It is no longer capable of exercising its judgment-function. It ceases to be serviceable.

   We shall see later how the neurosis inspires the artist to take pen in hand and precisely in what sense his artistic creations are attempts at sublimation. Creative activity is virtually a process of healing through auto-analysis. The psychoanalytic method for the treatment of the neuroses which we have been taught by Freud consists of rendering the unconscious complexes conscious; it brings about a release of the old affects which slumber embedded in the depths of the soul and solves the psychic conflicts.

   The artist-writer through his artistic creations similarly relieves himself of the affects and conflicts which beset him. This is the very thought which Heine expresses when he states: “May poetry be perchance a disease of man, like the pearls which are really the product of a disease of the oyster?” (“Romantische Schule”). And Grillparzer who has perhaps gone more deeply than any other writer into the relations between neurosis and poetry, states:

   “Dichten heisst denn freilich eben

Im fremden Dasein eig’ne leben”.

   The same thought is expressed in a more completely rounded out form by Grillparzer, in his wonderful poem entitled, “Abschied aus Gastein”:

   “Und wie die Perlen, die die Schönheit schmücken

Des wasserreiches wasserhelle Zier,

Den Finder, nicht die Geberin beglücken,

Das freudenlose stille Muscheltier;

Denn Krankheit nur und langer Schmerz entdrücken

Das heissgesuchte traur’ge Kleinod ihr,

Und was euch so entzückt mit seinen Strahlen

Es ward erzeugt in Todesnot und Qualen”.

   We observe here the striking similarity with Heine’s thought; and the end of the poem:

   “Was ihr für Lieder haltet, es sind Klagen

Gesprochen in ein freudenloses All;

Und Flammen, Perlen, Schmuck, die euch umschweben.

»Gelöste Teile sind’s von seinem Leben«”.

    »Here we find clearly the thought expressed that every artistic creation of the writer rises out of conflict: out of the unconscious; that the neurosis is the goddess which bestows upon the artist the gift of expressing what he feels«.

   Having brought out in general outline the relationship between poetry and neurosis we must now bring forth specifically the proofs for our contentions. First we must describe the symptoms of neurosis and investigate whether these symptoms are also found in connection with artistic productiveness. We shall next be confronted with the task of proving that the specific products of artistic creations owe their particular forms not alone to external stimuli but that they are also conditioned by the neurosis.

   There is noticeable a tremendous confusion in the particular field of neurosis. Usually the concept “nervous” is confused with “neurasthenic” and any one who shows some nervous symptoms is forthwith stamped as a neurasthenic. Möbius very properly opposed this abuse of the term neurasthenia. In my experience I find that neurasthenia proper is a very rare occurrence. The more common manifestations are anxiety neurosis, anxiety hysteria, conversion hysteria and compulsive neurosis.

   But I do not propose to burden the reader with a professional description of the various forms of neurosis. Briefly I may state that my analysis of various artists and writers has always yielded the same result. I found everywhere a definite background of hysteria. This disorder, whose widespread prevalence among persons of the female sex has long ago attracted the attention of observers, occurs also among men in a typical form which, in accordance with the suggestion made by Freud, may be properly called “anxiety hysteria”. The nucleus of this disorder is formed by the feeling of dread, a feeling which manifests itself under various forms and which arises out of the repression of sexual cravings.

   But – what is hysteria? Since we have acquired insight into the psychic structure of the neuroses we know that it represents the emotionally stressed complexes which have become split off from consciousness and thus disturbs the psychic balance. Hysteria is virtually but one of the special forms under which representation manifests itself. This splitting up of the consciousness expresses itself in a number of symptoms – anxiety states, compulsive thoughts, and bodily manifestations – baffling to the consciousness. »The hysterical symptoms are creative formulations of the unconscious«.

   Artistic creations are subject to the same law. The writer creates out of his unconscious and that is why it is possible for him to formulate so many varying creations true to nature and to take completely into account so many different emotions. The average neurotic becomes ill because he represses forcefully the cravings which well up from the background of his instincts. His repressions stifle him. On the other hand the artist frees himself of his neurosis, because like Vulcan he throws off his inner flames.

III. CRIMINAL TENDENCIES AND THE CREATIVE URGE

    Modern psychoanalytic treatment accomplishes its cure by rendering the patient aware of his unconscious mental life – by demonstrating to a certain extent »ad oculos«, as it were, the criminal trend in his inner make-up. The writer carries out a similar psychoanalysis on his creations. Through these outside pictures he holds a mirror before his soul. By allowing his wild instinctive cravings to follow their own course in the artistic creations of his phantasy he rids himself of the inner tension.

   In fact all neurotics suffer of a disharmony between their powerful cravings and the limited range of opportunity for expressing them. Strict conditions of living require them to repress their instincts. The poet betrays early the roots of neurosis – overstressed cravings – in common with the ordinary neurotic. With the tremendous primordial instinct, the sexual, all the pent-up cravings tend to break through the barriers set up by culture. Popular belief takes cognizance of this fact by permitting the artist a certain measure of sexual freedom which is denied to the average person. A woman artist may permit herself certain liberties which would mean “civic death” (social ostracism) for any other woman.

   The overemphasis of instinctive cravings is something that may be traced back to the early stages in the lives of all artists. Of course, the early life of most artists is rather obscure. Only a few have had the courage to examine themselves. How instructive it would be if there were more Jean Jacques Rousseaus among them!

   In his “Confessions” Rousseau states: “Great is the power of my passions and when they are stirred within me I am restrained by no considerations and no love. I hardly note the object of my excitation. The sight of a sheet of drawing paper stirs me more than the sight of the money with which I might purchase that paper. I see some object and I am seized with the temptation to appropriate it; but the means whereby I might attain ownership of the coveted article leave me cold. To this day I prefer to pick up some trifling object that strikes my eye, rather than ask the owner for it” (4).

   Goethe, of whom we shall speak at greater length later, once said to Eckermann: “The chief thing is to learn self-mastery. Were I to let myself go, I should easily destroy myself and those around me”. Since I propose to trace at some length the relationship between artistic creations and neurotic conflicts in connection with one of Grillparzer’s great works (“Dream is Life”), I shall refer preferably to this writer and only in lesser measure to some others.

   We know relatively a great deal about Grillparzer’s early life. He himself has related some interesting incidents in his diaries. He went through the fate of every man of genius. He was the victim of an overpowering domination of instinctive cravings. Grillparzer’s confession about the force of his cravings is particularly stirring (cf. his “Diaries”, No. 6.) The following quotation dates from his seventeenth year. What must the poor young man have gone through till then!

   Grillparzer states:

“»Am I a good man or not?« I do not dare determine this point. True, sometimes I imagine I am a good man but next minute my experience teaches me otherwise. Often I give money to the poor, – might say: at least you are charitable! But I am not, for I don't feel that I would help one through a third person – at least I should not do it very easily. I give alms to get rid of troublesome thoughts; indeed, often I do it as a means of salving my heart as when I have reason to reproach myself with hardness of feeling and lack of sympathy.

   I am not truly charitable, although I give more alms than any one, perhaps more than a hundred others, for I do not give under all circumstances, nor do I give away everything. I should readily give my brother one half of my money but I would perhaps never yield to him something for which I particularly care. I am not candid, or rather I may be called that only when I make a special effort. I am capable of covertly keeping something from my friend, – I may even make fun of him in his presence, render him ridiculous and – I am ashamed to confess it – I have once slandered even Mailler, who at one time, at least, was very devoted to me, and I have done this before a person whom I hardly knew – uttering slanderous statements which I well knew to be groundless and false.

   Perhaps I would not treat thus a true friend, if I found one? I do not know; but in the case of Mailler, too, that conduct was inexcusable. Not only do I lack most good qualities, but, what is more, the evil, the wrong ones, have such a tremendous power over me, that I am often reduced to cringing when I contemplate myself. I lie – not only in jest; this is a predisposition, a case of finding pleasure in lying. I have an almost invincible desire to steal, a desire that is held in check only by my sense of honour which, in its turn, is so keen as to border on the ridiculous.

   When I lack money (but only at such times) I feel an inclination to abstract anything whatever which I see at home. I am revengeful, so much so that I am beside myself if I am unable fully to gratify this passion. I believe that to find myself unable to revenge an insult would kill me. This passion for revenge is particularly strong in me when jealousy is at play. The last is the one strong passion I feel in my heart above all others so that neither love nor gratification, in themselves strong passions with me, can match with it. Jealousy in my case shuts out entirely the voice of reason and I am ashamed when I think back and recall incidents which really put me on a level with the wild beasts.

   An animated conversation between my beloved and some stranger makes me mad; if she is praised by some one. I feel angry with the stranger who dares utter her praises; if she so much as mentions some other person with any show of interest my peace of mind is destroyed. I well remember what I endured while I was in love with Therese; that was the sweetest, but also the most troublesome, period of my life till then.

   If a stranger looked at her I felt angry with that stranger. Never was this passion more terrible and repulsive in me than when K. once wanted to kiss Antoinette. I could not describe my feelings at that time. I trembled and shivered, like one gripped by fever, my jaws were set and my fists clenched. I wish I could wipe that occasion out of my memory. I am convinced that I would revenge with violence any faithlessness on the part of the beloved (even though courage is not a preeminent feature of my character). As boundless as my jealousy is also my longing for love and pleasure.

   It is remarkable how very distinct these passions are in my soul and heart; when I am under the sway of one there is no room for the other. When I was in love with Therese (and my love for her was purer perhaps than my love will ever again be) I did not know that she had a pretty bosom and that, truly, is saying a great deal in my case. I did notice that in Antoinette and there too, my love was nothing less than very spiritual. When I meet N. I think of nothing but the “Schaferstunde”. When I am in love, I love as perhaps no one, or only few persons, ever loved: my feelings are indescribable, – they cannot be compared to anything. I am actually in physical pain: my heart aches, as if ready to break; and strangely enough, my suffering is at its height only so long as I am unlucky in my love affair; if I make an impression (I do not mean by that, if I have tasted carnal gratification, but merely, if my love is reciprocated), my affection cools down in the measure in which the reciprocal affection grows and presently I am cold.

   As with love so it goes also with my pleasure seeking; so long as I meet opposition my craving is extreme, – gratification dissipates the passion. Strange! Sensual pleasure, among my other passions I am usually able to withstand if the craving for it is not fostered by some conjoint circumstance; but if my phantasy is involved, then – I brook no interference! During the months of March and May I wish no girl, for her sake as well as mine, to be alone with me in the fields, especially during evenings. Nothing so rouses in me the feelings of love or craving for gratification (according to circumstances) as a pleasant evening in the open air, especially in moonlight; a beautiful morning is different; it inspires me and it lifts me above all passions. I do not believe that I could watch the sunrise on a beautiful morning and harbour a revengeful or sensuous thought in my mind.

   Another of my chief failings is envy; and of that I am ashamed more than of anything else! My envy shows itself particularly when I read some fine poem or some other excellent artistic composition; I am inclined to take it to pieces and to belittle every word, every thought therein. I must cease for I note that I am getting warmed up”.

   Seldom has a writer expressed himself with greater frankness concerning his instincts.

Gottfried Keller in his cryptic manner and indirectly has described his kleptomaniac tendencies in “Der Grüne Heinrich”.

   The reader is referred to the chapters entitled, respectively, “Childish Crimes” and “Early Guilt”. There can be no doubt that Keller describes therein the reminiscences of his youth and his own thefts. In his “Leute von Seldwyla”, too, he described how Frau Amrain looked indulgently upon the failings in her youngest boy. She refused to get alarmed over the child's misconduct. “But all that was contrary to custom. If a child takes some money or helps himself to some other valuable, parents and teachers alike are overcome with a tremendous fear, they are troubled with the terrible premonition of a criminal future for the child, as if aware through their own experience how hard it is to avoid becoming thief or swindler”.

   Dostoievsky (5), the genial Russian psychologist, expresses himself in a similar sense. In a letter to a bank clerk who had been accused of a serious embezzlement he wrote: “I am myself no better than you or any other human being”. In another letter he complains: “The worst is that at bottom my character is really low and sensual”. He was fond of card playing and during childhood he always handled them dishonestly. His brother relates: “Feodor always succeeded to beat the others with his tricks, even though he was caught at it a few times”.

   He felt himself to be “the most miserable, the vilest of human beings”. That feeling-attitude indicated an enormous guilty conscience, such as we find only among neurotics who are fighting heroically against the threatening outbreak of their violent instincts. Every neurotic is in fact a potential criminal – a criminal without the criminal's courage. It is rather logical that Dostoievsky should be the author of “Raskolnicov” and of “Brothers Karamazoff”.

   Swift, too, has written the confession of a theft. The impulse towards evil is remarkably strong in all artists. This is a fact which need not surprise us if we bear in mind that all neurotics remain emotionally on the level of children and that, like all children, they preserve inwardly the seed for all asocial (or criminal) tendencies.

   That is a fact obvious on the testimony proper of writers. Hebbel, who knew that “the artist is entrusted with the secret of life, because he is capable of perceiving instinctively the root of every form of experience as well as the general form of and every phase of existence” relates of himself, as a twenty-year-old boy: “Whenever I get near the key to my heart, I shrink back with horror”. Elsewhere he states of Byron: “Presumably he would not have been so great a poet had he not been so great a sinner”. He perceives, too, the secret of our instincts – as when he states: “It is astonishing to what an extent all human instincts are traceable back to a pivotal root” (Sigaloff 1907).

   Although his “horror” of himself brought forth his outcry: “Oh! how often I implore from the depths of my soul: oh God, why am I as I am – the most miserable of men!” He perceives and appreciates the standpoint of modern psychoanalysis: “Human conditions have appeared painful to me only so long as I did not see through them – so long as I failed to recognize that our cravings are based on nature”. He was a hypochondriac like Grillparzer, Lichtenberg, Goethe and like most other men of genius. “My life is a strange mixture of mad intoxication and disconcerting sobriety. I look upon the symbolization of the inner realm as my life task”.

   Hebbel knew that the essence of creative artistry is self-confession. He states: “No one writes but what he produces is autobiography and he does it best when he is least aware of that”. He was also clearly aware that his excessive sensuality was the source of his creative artistry: “Sensuousness is certainly the gamut of the soul”, he stated and further: “Sensuality! Symbol of unquenchable spiritual longings!” (Usually the relationship is the reverse: the spiritual longings are a sublimation of unquenchable sensuality!)

   The sexual instinct awakens precociously and with unusual driving strength in artists. “Mantegazza” (“Psychology of Love”) properly looks upon the early development of sexuality as the sign of a rich and precocious nature. This is an observation which I am in a position to corroborate. Children mentally precocious are also precocious sexually. All neurotics show already in early childhood a strong manifestation of the erotic instinct-cravings. This very precocious development is what leads to extensive repression and consequently to neurosis. Subsequently these pent-up forces are sublimated and furnish the motive power for the artistic creations.

   Hebbel, like Byron, fell in love during his fourth year. When he went to the Klippschule he was so embarrassed that he did not dare look up. “Finally I did so and my gaze felt on a slender, pale girl who was sitting squarely across from me; her name was Emily and she was the daughter of a Kirchspielschreiber. A passionate shiver went over me, the blood rushed to my heart; a feeling of shame, too, mingled with my first surprise and I lowered my gaze to the ground swiftly, as if I had committed some breach of decorum.

   From that moment Emily did not leave my mind; the school which I previously roundly hated became my favourite spot because it was only there that I could see her; Sundays and holidays when I was away from her, were days as hateful to me as I otherwise should have enjoyed them; I felt myself extremely unhappy whenever she was absent. Her image hovered about wherever I stood or went, and I never tired of whispering slowly her name to myself whenever I found myself alone; her black eyelids and her red lips were particularly what hounded me; on the other hand I do not remember whether I was impressed also by her voice, although in my later life the voice meant everything to me”.

   He became a zealous student expressly in order to attract her attention. But in order to cover his passionate leaning he kept at a distance from her. In fact he was inclined to be sullen in his actual relations with her. But once when she had a fight with another boy, he attacked her antagonist, threw him to the ground and punished him roundly. But his beloved (obviously a little masochistic person) called for help and he was severely punished for his knightly deed. This trend which thus began in his fourth year continued to the eighteenth year.

   Jean Paul who for a long time entertained the plan of founding an “Erotic Academy” and whose “vita sexualis” betrays that he was a typical neurotic (possibly “impotentia”?) also mentions a love affair which dates back to his early childhood years.

   An entertaining account of childhood, obviously autobiographic in part, is found in Salvatore Farina’s humoristic novel “Mio Figlio”.

   Goethe, too, has shown a precocious awakening of the sexual instinct and at ten years of age he fell in love with a young Frenchwoman, the sister of his friend, Derone (“Dichtung und Wahrheit.”).

   Dante also fell in love as a ten-year-old boy, and Alfred de Musset fell in love with his girl cousin when he was but four years of age.

   Alfieri, according to Lombroso, fell in love at nine years, Carron and Byron at eight, J. J. Rousseau at eleven. Tasso was extremely dissolute during his youth and after his thirty-eighth year became just as severely puritanic; Pascal, sensuous during his youth, later went so far as to stamp even the maternal kiss as lascivious.

   Muthmann (6) draws attention to the following passage in Stendhal’s reminiscences of his youth: “I was in love with my mother. I wanted all the time to kiss my mother and wished that there would be no clothes. She too loved me devotedly and often embraced me. I kissed her with so much passion that she felt it her duty at times to avoid it. I detested my father, if he came in and interrupted our kissing; I always wanted to feel her breasts. Let one try to imagine how I felt when I lost her, – I was hardly seven years of age at the time... . Thus 45 years ago I lost the one being I loved more than anything else in the world”.

   We see here an instance of incestuous attachment such as may be proven to constitute the root of every case of neurosis. We shall have occasion to revert to that subject, particularly in connection with the analysis of Grillparzer’s “Dream is Life”.

   In my opinion the ages indicated above at which love first manifested itself are entirely too high. The fact is that the child's sexual life begins from the day of its birth. But the first episodes without exception become subject to repression. If it were possible for us to analyze the artists during life we would bring to light an entirely new group of facts. Usually the first childhood experiences pertain to autoerotic processes, i.e., masturbation.

Numerous autobiographic data show that most artists have been excessively addicted to masturbation in their youth.

   Strindberg, whose anxiety hysteria will concern us later more fully, refers to his habit of onanism in his “Confession of a Fool”.

   In that connection he expresses views showing that intuitively the artist is at times considerably ahead of many cotemporary physicians who fill volumes with awesome warnings against the alleged evils of onanism. The chief harm of masturbation lies in the struggle which it typifies against instinct, and the consequent depression and regrets, – the serious psychic conflict which it brings about (7).

   Excessive masturbation has been confessed by Gogol, Raimund, Grabbe and Lenau. But these statements, so limited in number, must not be considered exhaustive. Unfortunately but very few artists are well familiar with the sexual realm; and fewer yet know anything about the first autoerotic manifestations in their life.

   The predisposition to conceive phantastic accounts of alleged personal experiences plays an important role in the mechanism of hysteria. Some hystericals in fact, are unfairly accused of lying. Unfairly, – because they are often unable to distinguish between truth and fancy.

   A very significant contribution illustrating the unreliability of those who are predisposed to fancy-weaving (cf. also the quoted confession of Grillparzer) is furnished by Gottfried Keller in his autobiographic novel, “Der grüne Heinrich”. As a boy seven years of age he conjured up a phantastic, almost incredible story and accused three older school-boys of a wrong with such strong plausibility, that they were seriously punished for it.

   Keller himself was surprised at the aptness he displayed in forging the false story which ended with an exquisite masochistic fancy. He claimed that the boys had tied him to a tree and had forced him to utter obscene words.

   He was not sorry for his deed. He relates: “So far as I can dimly recall, the injustice I perpetrated not only left me indifferent, but I actually felt a certain measure of self-satisfaction to think that my poetic invention was rounded out so beautifully and had been dignified with so concrete a vindication; that something actually took place, that there was action and suffering, – all on account of my artistic imagination. I could not understand at all why the mistreated boys complained so and were so angry at me, for that fitting culmination of the story seemed to me self-evident and it would have been for me as useless to try to change the climax as for the gods to try to alter the decree of fate.

   The involved boys were of the type already recognized in the years of childhood as respectable, quiet, settled boys; what made the situation particularly aggravating was the fact that they had previously given no occasion for any sharp reproach; and they have since grown up into quiet and respectable citizens. The recollection of my deviltry and of the wrong they suffered on account of it wrankled in their souls the more bitterly for that reason; years later when they reproached me for it I recalled the whole forgotten incident again very clearly and nearly every word of it came vividly back to me.

   Only then my conscience troubled me with redoubled anguish on account of my misdeed and as often as I thought of it after that the blood rushed to my head and I should have liked to shift the responsibility for what happened upon those easily misled inquisitors; I should have liked particularly to put the burden of guilt on that loquacious woman who picked out the obscene words and did not rest until she traced them back to a definite source.

   Three of my former schoolmates forgave me and laughed when they saw how the thing troubled me afterwards; they were pleased with the satisfaction I gave them when I recalled so distinctly every detail of the incident. Only the fourth one, a man with whom fate had dealt unkindly, was never able to bring himself to the point of distinguishing between the conduct of childhood and that of later life and he reproached me for the wrong I had done him as bitterly as if I had committed the deed that day and with the understanding of an adult. He passed me by with deepest hatred and if he cast on me a scornful gaze I felt myself unable to meet it for the wrong I had done weighed on me and it was something one could not forget”.

   We recognize in this fitting example an intimate relationship between hysteria and poetic inspiration. In fact every lie is an »inspiration«. The hysterical, it is said, forges phantastic stories. But this tendency of expressing cryptic wishes under artistic forms lies at the root of all creative inspiration; similarly, the neurotic who constructs in symbolic language his symptoms shows a rather remarkable artistic ability. And dreams, – are they not but inspirations and artefacts? Do we not indulge in fooling – ourselves as well as others – in our dreams? Our dissatisfaction with this life compels us to seek refuge in a different, second realm of existence. Thus it turns out that the neurosis though causing on the one hand serious hardships, on the other fosters the possibility of artistic enjoyment.

IV. GOETHE AND OTHERS

    Goethe who is looked upon as the picture of good health was a severe neurotic. According to Möbius, one would be almost justified to make the diagnosis of a light form of manic-depressive insanity. But particularly in Goethe’s case it is possible to show the one sidedness of the psychiatric standpoint which would relegate all men of genius to the category of degenerates. In this instance even the experienced eye of Möbius was unable to discover any hereditary taint. Goethe’s father was an overconsciencious, pedantic, stubborn man, very inconsiderate of others, cool, envious and mistrustful towards his family. But these traits do not necessarily constitute a pathologic entity. He was a typical tyrant who contributed towards laying the foundation of a neurosis in the son by his strict hand against the latter.

   Indeed, Goethe was a neurotic through and through. Already during his youth he was tortured by hypochondriacal notions. He tried all sorts of dietetic cures. First he thought of coffee then of the sitting posture as the possible cause of his neurosis. He vacillated between care-free hilarity and melancholic indisposition. His well-known loss of blood (Blutsturz) at Leipzig appears to have been a hysteric haematemesis (spitting or vomiting of blood). During his convalescence he himself declares that his father thought he looked more “like a sufferer ailing in mind rather than like one whose body is ill”.

   It was during that time, too, that he passed through the mystical-pietistic period which every neurotic goes through. At Strassburg he showed the typical symptoms of a pronounced anxiety hysteria. He was extraordinarily excitable. This sensitiveness is a very characteristic symptom of anxiety neurosis. Goethe relates: “Any strong sound was disagreeable to me, morbid objects roused in me disgust and revulsion; I was particularly worried over dizziness which seized me whenever I looked down from a height”. After meals he was troubled with laryngeal spasms so that he struggled for his breath.

   At the same time the trend of his instinctive cravings showed itself strongly from childhood; excessive sensuality, morbid jealousy, and a most dangerous ungovernable temper. When angry he was beside himself and broke pictures against the edge of the table, shot holes through books, etc. (Naturally these apparently senseless acts may be easily interpreted as symptomatic deeds.)

NOTES

(1) This recalls also the beautiful thought of Hans Sachs in the “Meistersinger”:

“Mein Freund, das g’rad ist Dichters Werk

Dass er sein Traumen deut' und merk’.

Glaubst mir des Menschen wahrster Wahn

Wird ihm im Traume aufgetan:

All Dichtkunst und Poeterei

ist nichts Wahrtraum-Deuterei”.

(2) Möbius holds that Goethe’s is almost a case of compulsion poetry (Goethe. Leipzig, J. A. Barth, 1903). Goethe jumped at night out of bed, rushed to his desk and began to set down his poem from beginning to end, writing diagonally on the paper without taking the time to straighten out the sheet. As a pen might wake him from bit trance-like state by scratching and spraying he preferred to use a pencil. Möbius points out the close parallel between that state and hypnosis. There can be no doubt that the poetic ecstasy it closely allied to somnambulistic phenomena. Interesting material on this subject may be found in Behaghel’s monograph, “Bewusstes und Unbewusstes im dichterischen Schaffen“ (Leipzig, 1907).

A study of the same import has been written by F. Prescott, entitled, “Poetry and Dreams” (Four Seas Co., Boston, Publishers). In this monograph the resemblances between the psychic mechanism of dream formation and that of artistic creation are pointed out on the basis of numerous illustrations from literature.

(3) English version by James S. Van Teslaar.

(4) That Jean Jacques Rousseau was a flagellant and a masochist is well known.    

(5) In a contribution entitled “Die Sexuelle Wurzel der Kleptomanie” (“Monatshefte f. Sexualwissenschaft”, No. 9, p. 190), I have shown that these thefts usually mean a “forbidden act” and that to a certain extent they replace in symbolic form some forbidden sexual act.

(6) Cf. Stendhal’s „Confessions of an Egoist“.

(7) Some remarkable passages from Strindberg’s “Inferno and Zones of the Spirit”, too numerous to quote, illustrate this truth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abraham K. (1908), “Traum und Mythus”, F. Deuticke, Wien & Leipzig

Buschan G. (1906), “Gehirn und Kultur”, J. F. Bergmann, Wiesbaden

Freud S. (1909), “Der Dichter und das Phantasieren. Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre. Zweite Folge”, F. Deuticke, Wien & Leipzig

Hebbel F. (1907), “Dr. T. Sigaloff, Die Krankheit Dostoievsky’s; eine ärztlich-psychologische Studie”, Ernst Reinhardt, München

Jung C.G. (1906), “Zur Psychologie der Dementia Praecox”, Halle a. S.

Löwenfeld L. (1903), “Über die geniale Geistestätigkiet. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Genies für bildende Kunst”, J. F. Bergmann, Wiesbaden

Möbius A.F. (1907), “Krankheit“, Karl Marhold

Mühlmann M. (1900), “Über die Ursachen des Alters. Grundzüge einer Physiologie des Wachstums”, J. F. Bergmann, Wiesbaden

Rank O. (1907), „Der Künstler”, Hugo Heller, Wien & Leipzig

Sigaloff T. (1907), „Die Krankheit Dostoievsky’s; eine ärztlich-psychologische Studie”, Monachium.  

Stekel W. (1923), “Nervous Anxiety States and their Treatment”, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York

Strümpell A. (1908) “Nervosität und Erziehung”, F. C Vogel, Leipzig

[The article is an authorised English translation by James S. Van Teslaar, originally published as: William Stekel, “Poetry and Neurosis: Contributions to the Psychology of the Artist and of Artistic Creative Ability” in “The Psychoanalytic Review”, 10:73-96 in 1923 (http://www.npap.org/psychoanalytic/index.html). British English has been adopted.

James S. Van Teslaar’s translation is the first part of Wilhelm Stekel’s “Dichtung und Neurose. Bausteine zur Psychologie des Künstlers und des Kunstwerkes“ Wiesbaden: Bergmann 1909.

The Editorial Board would like to thank The National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis http://www.npap.org/ for the permission to translate Wilhelm Stekel’s article into Polish and publish both language versions in the quarterly HEKSIS.]