Art, Woolf, and Freud
-- Does the present writer intend on responding to the topic with a formal academic essay?
No!
-- How will the writer respond to the topic?
In a manner suggested by the seventeenth chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. (Woolf thought that Joyce wrote for a clique. The present writer is a member of that clique in good standing.)
-- Did Woolf read Freud’s writings?
The Woolfs owned the Hogarth Press which published translations of Freud’s papers. Woolf wrote to a friend, “...we are publishing all Dr Freud, and I glance at the proof and read how Mr. A.B. threw a bottle of red ink in the sheets of his marriage bed to excuse his impotence to the housemaid, but threw it in the wrong place, which unhinged his wife’s mind, - and to this day she pours claret on the dinner table. We could all go on like that for hours; and yet these Germans think it proves something - besides their own gull-like imbecility.”
-- On what occasions did Virgina Woolf meet Sigmund Freud
Once, on January 28, 1939. Freud gave her a narcissus.
-- Her impression?
“A screwed up shrunk very old man: with a monkey’s light eyes, paralyzed spasmodic movements, inarticulate: but alert...Difficult talk. … an old fire now flickering...”
Woolf did not read Freud seriously until after meeting him.
-- Did Freud deliver lectures on the value of Art?
Yes.
"Art as Unrepressed Wish-Fulfillment" - -
“In phantasy, man can continue to enjoy a freedom from the grip of the external world, (a freedom) which he has long relinquished in actuality. The meager satisfaction that (man) can extract from reality leaves him starving … There is, in fact, a path from phantasy back again to reality, and that is—art.”
-- What value does Freud think Art has for society?
The repressed desires of the artist are sublimated into an artistic product that fulfills the unconscious wishes of the spectators. Art transforms common neuroses into fantasies that are then shared by the culture.
-- In Civilization and it’s Discontents did Freud explain the necessity of Art?
“Life, as we find it, it too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointment, and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures”.
-- What is a “palliative measure?
A measure for relieving pain or alleviating a problem without dealing with the underlying cause such as giving a person who has a broken leg an aspirin.
-- What proofs does Woolf’s biographical evidence offer that Art was a palliative measure for relieving her suffering?
Woolf created more than twenty work of fiction, autobiography, and criticism that are still read, admired, and have great influence today.
As a child Woolf took great pleasure in trying to find the perfect pen for writing on paper.
From the age of 13 and for the next 46 years of her life she suffered periods of severe depression, attempting suicide four times.
For a summer, Woolf believed that the birds were chirping in Greek and King Edward VII was uttering curses from behind nearby shrubbery.
-- At what point in her life did “Art” cease to be palliative for the underlying causes of her suffering?
On 28 March 1941, she put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, walked into the River Ouse near her home, and drowned herself.
Her body was not found until 18 April 1941.
-- Number of days from Saturday, January 28, 1939 to Friday, March 28, 1941?
790
-- Number of years?
2 years, 2 months, 1 day
-- On what important philosophical or psychological point did Woolf and Freud disagree?
On the perception of a harmony with the universe.
-- What perceptions of harmony does Mrs. Ramsey experience in To the Lighthouse?
At dinner she seats a group of acquaintances who have demonstrated their conflicts and alienation through many chapters. For the period of the meal, all come together in harmony with themselves and each other, an experience which, although transitory, binds them.
-- Does Freud affirm a personal experience of harmony with the universe?
“I cannot discover this 'oceanic' feeling in myself. that is to say, ... a feeling of an indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole. It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings. From my own experience I could not convince myself of the primary nature of such a feeling.”
References
The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Volume One. P. 92.
"Mr. Virginia Woolf". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved 8 September 2008.
"Art as Unrepressed Wish-Fulfillment" by Sigmund Freud
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