IMAGE
The Hidden Analogy
In Chapters VII-VIII I have spoken at length of the close relatedness between the scientist seeing an analogy where nobody saw one before, and the poet's discovery of an original metaphor or simile. Both rely on the mediation of unconscious processes to provide the analogy. In the scientist's Eureka process two previously unconnected frames of reference are made to intersect, but the same description may be applied to the poet's trouvaille -- the discovery of a felicitous poetic comparison. The difference between them is in the character of the 'frames of reference', which in the first case are of a more abstract, in the second of a more sensuous nature; and the criteria of their validity differ accordingly. But the difference, as we have seen, is a matter of degrees; and often the two overlap. The discovery of perspective and fore-shortening, for instance, belongs to both geometrical science and representative art; it establishes formal analogies between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space, but at the same time has a direct sensory impact.
Here is another example which I have already mentioned -- the account, by one of Freud's earlier biographers, of how the master suddenly hit upon the idea of the sublimation of instinct:
It happened while he was looking at a cartoon in a humorous periodical which showed the career of a young girl in two subsequent stages. In the first she was herding a flock of young geese with a stick, in the second she was shown as a governess directing a group of young girls with her parasol. The girls in the second picture were arranged exactly in the same groups as the goslings in the first. [1]
The two cartoons provided the hidden (though not all to deeply hidden) analogy for the Eureka process. But vice versa, the two cartoons may be regarded as a metaphorical illustration of it. The same reversibility applies to Kekulé's snake and Faraday's cosmic lines of force. Lastly, on the third panel of the triptych, the governess or the snake can be turned into a joke -- as was actually done by malicious contemporaries.
Emotive Potentials
Among the simplest metaphors are cross-references from one of the senses to another: a 'warm' colour, a 'sweet' voice, a 'sharp' light; the 'blind lips' of Swinburne, the 'blind hands' of Blake. Such combinations of different sensory matrices lend a new richness or multidimensionality to experience so that, again with Swinburne, 'light is heard as music, music seen as light'.
The aesthetic satisfaction derived from metaphor, imagery, and related techniques (which I shall treat as a single category) depends on the emotive potential of the matrices which enter into the game. By emotive potential I mean the capacity of a matrix to generate and satisfy participatory emotions. This depends of course partly on individual factors, partly on the collective attitudes of different cultures, but also on objective factors: on the intrinsic 'calory value', as it were, of some associative contexts -- mental diets the ingredients of which have, for instance, a religious or mythological flavour.
On the simplest and most general level, the emotive potentials of the sense-modalities -- sight, sound, odour, touch -- differ widely with different people. Robert Graves [2] has confessed that his favourite poems have 'without exception' a tactile quality. He quoted as an example for it the Early English:
Cold blows the wind on my true love And a few small drops of rain --
'where', he comments, 'I feel the rain on my hands and hair rather than see it.' He goes on to say that he always liked Keats and disliked Shelley because 'the characteristic of Keats is, I find, his constant appeal to the sense of touch, while Shelley's appeal is as constantly to the sense of movement'. Graves's stimulating essay (published in 1925) ended with the suggestion that psychologists should engage in 'intense research' on this question; it is a pity that it has not been followed up. (My guess would be that more people than one suspects can smell poetry -- but that, needless to say, is a generalization based on personal experience, for I can always smell the dust-cloud raised by the galloping horses in a Western film; and the lines 'Cold blows the wind' convey to me mainly the fresh smell of the rainy wind and of True Love's wet hair.)
However, granted such personal idiosyncrasies, man lives primarily by his eyes and ears. The emotive potentials of patterned sound I have already discussed; it adds to the virtues of language the dynamism of the dance, the melody of the song, and the magic of incantation. It may even happen that the magic makes us forget the message -- as when (quoting Graves) 'people read Swinburne for the mere glorious rush of his verse, without any more regard for the words than will help to a vague scenic background'; and with Blake one often feels that the emotive calories generated by the matrix have burnt up the meaning.
The Picture-strip
Much the same could be said of the emotive power of some visual imagery -- including Blake's own. We have seen (Chapter VII) that 'thinking in pictures' dominates the manifestations of the unconscious in the dream, in hallucinatory states, but also in the creative work of scientists. In fact, the majority of mathematicians and physicists turned out to be 'visionaries' in the literal sense -- that is, visual, not verbal thinkers.
But we have also seen that pictorial thinking is an earlier and more primitive form of mentation than conceptual thinking -- in the evolution of the individual as in that of the species. The language of children is 'picturesque' -- again in the literal sense of the word; and the langauge of primitives is 'like the unfolding of a picture strip, where each word expresses a pictorial image, regardless as to whether the picture signifies an object, an action, or a quality. Thus "to strike" and "a blow" are expressed by the same word. These languages are not merely deficient in the more abstract type of imagery, but in practically all higher grammatical construction' (Kretschmer). [3]
Let me give a concrete example from Kretschmer's textbook, followed by the comments of that excellent German psychiatrist -- whose work, comparable in importance to Jung's, is far too little known to the English-speaking public. The example is a simple story told in the Bushman language. It is about a Bushman who worked as a shepherd for a white man until the latter ill-treated him; whereupon the Bushman ran away, and the white man engaged another Bushman, to whom the same thing happened. Translated into Bushman language, this story is picturized as follows:
Bushman-there-go, here-run-to-Whites, White-give-tobacco, Bushman-go-smoke, go-fill-tobacco sack, White-give-meat-Bushman, Bushman-go-eat-meat, get-up-go-home, go-merry, go-sit, graze-sheep Whites, White-go-strike-Bushman, Bushman-cry-much-pain, Bushman-go-run-away-Whites, White-run-after-Bushman, Bushman-there-other-this-graze-sheep, Bushman-all-away.
Kretschmer comments:
The thought of primitive peoples allows of but little arrangement and condensation of separate images into abstract categories; but the sensory perceptions themselves, retained directly as such in memory, unwind themselves before us unchanged, like a long picture roll. The discrete visual image dominates the scene throughout, whilst the relation between the separate pictures is barely indicated. Logical connections are as yet quite tenuous and loose. If we wish to conceive of speech at a slightly lower level still, we shall have to dispense with even those slight hints of a syntax which are present; we shall then find that the thought-processes of a people using such a language would consist entirely of an asyntactical series of pictures.
Some passages in the Old Testament seem to reflect the transition from predominantly pictorial to abstract thought:
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes.)
The tendency to stick to concrete visual images is still evident; but the characters in the picture-strip no longer represent individuals -- the swift, the strong, the wise are collective nouns, abstracted universals. Incidentally, George Orwell once wrote a parody of this passage in modern academic jargon to highlight the contrast between vivid imagery and desiccated abstraction:
&n
bsp; Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
While dreaming, even a paragon of normality regresses in time not merely to Ecclesiastes, but to the earlier mythological creations of the Babylonians and the visual concreteness of the Bushman's statements. But on awakening 'all the charm is broken, all that phantom world so fair, vanishes' -- as at the call of the gentleman from Porlock. It may be just as well -- the quick effacement from memory of the majority of our dreams may be a normal protective device of the mind (as distinct from pathological repression). In the hallucinatory psychoses, however, the regressions are more intense, realistic, enduring, and unforgettable in a painful sense; hence the remarkable affinities between the paintings of schizophrenics and primitive art. To quote Kretschmer again: 'Schizophrenic symbols, like primitive and dream symbols, are the pictorial antecedents of concepts and are not developed beyond that stage.' He then relates the case of one of his patients, a gifted young man who, between periods of normality and abnormality, lived through a prolonged transitional phase, enlivened by what he called his 'picture show':
In these phases he passively experiences the outcropping of a mass of images which arise from abstract concepts, or which appear to exist in concrete objects. The images often 'resemble old Norse ornaments or Roman sculptures'; sometimes they are grotesque figures, sometimes sensible film-like scenes of knights and soldiers who occupy a real old castle which lies in the valley. Most interesting are the images which arise directly out of abstract thought. For example, he is reading a philosophical work of Kant, and as he reads, the abstract thoughts are continuously converted into imagery. Whilst reading Kant on the question of the infinity of space he had the following experience: 'The pictures crowded on me -- towers, circles behind circles, a cylinder which thrust itself obliquely into the whole picture. Everything is showing movement and growth; the circle acquires depth and thus becomes cylindrical; the towers become higher and higher; everything is arbitrary as in an experimental picture or a dream.'
In case-histories like this we see the extreme development of tendencies which on a moderate scale are present in the normal imaginative person; just as we saw in the punning and rhyming patient on the operating table the pathological extreme of the poet's urge to convey his meaning in rhythmic patterns. And just as rhythm is not an artificial embellishment of language but a form of expression which predates language, so visual images and symbols are not fanciful embroideries of concepts, but precursors of conceptual thought. The artist does not climb a ladder to stick ornaments on a façade of ideas -- he is more like a pot-holer in search of underground rivers. To quote Kretschmer for the last time:
Such creative products of the artistic imagination tend to emerge from a psychic twilight, a state of lessened consciousness and diminished attentivity to external stimuli. Further, the condition is 'one of "absent-mindedness" with hypnoidal over-concentration on a single focus, providing an entirely passive experience, frequently of a visual character, divorced from the categories of space and time, and reason and will. These dreamlike phases of artistic creation evoke primitive phylogenetic tendencies towards rhythm and stylization with elemental violence; and the emergent images thus acquire in the very act of birth regular form and symmetry.'
On Law and Order
Some images seem to appeal more to the intellect than to emotion because of their logical and didactic character -- but nevertheless evoke an emotive response:
And how dieth the wise man? as the fool (Ecclesiastes) Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. (Cymbeline) When Adam dolve and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman? (John Ball?)
Each of these quotes may be described as a particular illustration of a general truth: the first and second affirm that all men must die, the third proclaims that all men are equal. If we wish to be pedantic, we can enumerate the various bisociative techniques which enter into them: sense and sound in the last two; or in the first two, the joining of habitually incompatible opposites in the focal concepts 'dying' and 'dust'. We may further note the archaic, or archetypal, resonances of Adam, Eve, the sage, the fool, and the golden lads. Finally, the technique of condensation and implication in the third quote poses a kind of naïve riddle which enhances its effect. But when all these points are made, the main feature which the three quotes share remains their didactic intent of driving home a message, of demonstrating a universal law by means of concrete imagery.
Now such reductions of particular instances to universal causes or abstract laws are supposed to represent a purely intellectual pastime which has nothing to do with art and emotion; in fact, however, they give rise to the most powerful emotional release. When John Ball exhorted the peasants at Blackheath to rise against their Lords, he advertently chose 'When Adam dolve' as his text, because it enabled him to prove that their particular grievances were based on a Law ordained by the Creator: that there should be no privilege of birth. It is significant that this same text, with its indirect affirmation implied in a riddle, should have such an explosive effect -- not only in England, but also during the peasant risings in Germany, where it became the marching song of the rebels (Als Adam grub und Eva spann, -- Wo war da der Edelmann?). Blake's
There came a voice without reply -- 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die,
might serve as a motto for all appeals to the emotions which are explained and justified by reference to divine law -- the Voice Without Reply.
The Will of God, or the Laws of Nature, as the organizing and harmonizing principle of the universe is one of the most powerful archetypes of human experience. No doubt it originates to a large part in feelings of insecurity, of cosmic anxiety, the need for protection -- hence the reassurance and relief which are felt whenever a threatening or merely puzzling phenomenon can be 'explained' as a manifestation of some universal law or divine order. For the opposite of order is chaos -- which means unpredictability of events, absence of protection, exposure to the whims of incomprehensible forces. The emergence of order from chaos is a leitmotif of all mythologies; even the bloodthirsty goddesses of the Hindus and the choleric deities of the Pantheon provided a measure of reassurance, because they were moved by human passions which could be comprehended by the mind; so that everything that befell one was satisfactorily explained.
Thus virtually any explanation -- valid or not -- which commands belief has a calming and cathartic effect. It can be observed on every level: from the sudden, smiling relief of the small child when some startling appearance is shown to be related to something familiar, and recognized as part of the general order of things -- to the euphoria of the scientist, who has solved his problem. Even painful experiences are tempered with relief once they are recognized as particular instances of a general law. To lose a relative by a 'stupid accident' is more painful than to lose one 'lawfully', through old age or incurable illness. The only effective consolation in the face of death is that it is part of the cosmic order; if chimneysweepers were exempted from it, we should resent it very much indeed. The idea of 'blind chance' deciding our fate is intolerable; the mind abhors gaps in the lawful order as nature abhors the vacuum.
On Truth and Beauty
However, the reduction of the uncanny and vexing to the orderly and familiar, of the rustling of leaves in the dark forest to the whisper of fairies or the vibrations of compressed air -- both equally reassuring -- is merely the negative aspect of the power of explanation: relief from anxiety. Its positive aspect is epitomized in the Pythagorean belief that musical harmonies govern the motion of the stars. The myth of creation appeals not only to man's abhorrence of chaos, but also to his sense of wonder at the cosmic order: light is more than the absence of darkness, and law more than the absence of disorder. I have spoken repeatedly of that sense of 'o
ceanic wonder' -- the most sublimated expression of the self-transcending emotions -- which is at the root of the scientist's quest for ultimate causes, and the artist's quest for the ultimate realities of experience. The sensation of 'marvellous clarity' which enraptured Kepler when he discovered his second law is shared by every artist when a strophe suddenly falls into what seems to be its predestined pattern, or when the felicitous image unfolds in the mind -- the only one which can 'explain' by symbols the rationally unexplainable -- and express the inexpressible.
Experiences of this kind, when something previously turbid becomes suddenly transparent and permeated by light, are always accompanied by the sudden expansion and subsequent catharsis of the self-transcending emotions. I have called this the 'earthing' of emotion, on the analogy of earthing (or 'grounding') an electrically charged body, so that its tensions are drained by the immense current-absorbing capacity of 'mother earth'. The scientist attains catharsis through the reduction of phenomena to their primary causes; a disturbing particular problem is mentally 'earthed' into the universal order. The same description applies to the artist, except that his 'primary causes' and 'laws of order' are differently constituted. They derive from mythology and magic, from the compulsive powers of rhythm and form, from archetypal symbols which arouse unconscious resonances. But their 'explanatory power', though not of a rational order, is emotionally as satisfying as that of the scientist's explanations; both mediate the 'earthing' of particular experiences into a universal frame; and the catharsis which follows scientific discovery or artistic "trouvaille" has the same 'oceanic' quality. The melancholy charm of the golden lads who come to dust because that is the condition of man, is due to the 'earthing' of our personal predicaments in a universal predicament. Art, like religion, is a school of self-transcendence; it expands individual awareness into cosmic awareness, as science teaches us to reduce any particular puzzle to the great universal puzzle.