Jung and the Fairy Tale, or Nosce Te Ipsum (original) (raw)
2010, PsyArt: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts
The fairy tale or folk tale is the most widespread and possibly oldest form of literature: an unpretentious, dreamy type of story, without an identifiable author, recounting miraculous events that are set in some indefinite place and time. Simple as they may seem, fairy tales are not always easily accessible to a sophisticated audience. In our (post)modern times they have more or less disappeared from sight. ‘Enlightened’ minds in the past have tried to suppress them and have succeeded to the extent that fairy tales are looked upon, nowadays, as infantile material, appreciated only by the very young, or perhaps by the occasional romantic soul. In our modern, no-nonsense world of career management and clever marketing strategies, fairy tales do not count for much. Yet, fairy tales are valuable repositories of wisdom. Freud did not hesitate to analyze E.T.A. Hoffmann’s literary fairy tale Der Sandmann in order to illustrate his psychoanalytic theory of the uncanny. And Jung-oriented research tends to value fairy tales even more.
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2010
The book I wrote on Joseph Campbell's reception of C.G. Jung. Based on my PhD thesis at university of Edinburgh, Religious Studies department, and on archival research done at Joseph Campbell library in Santa Barbara. First chapter available for download. “Going beyond the conventional paralleling of Campbell with Jung, Ritske Rensma argues that Campbell’s view of Jung went through three stages. At first, Campbell granted Jung and Freud equal importance in the understanding of myth. Next, Campbell rejected Jung's view on, especially, the origin of myth in favor of the ethological view espoused by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen. Finally, Campbell came to see the overlap between Jung and the ethologists. An original, scholarly approach to Campbell, one that rests substantially on the scrutiny of unpublished material. Strongly recommended.” Robert A. Segal, Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, UK
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