Description
The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Marie Bonaparte: A Psycho-Analytical Interpretation. This study, originally published in 1933 in a French edition, has now been made available to the English-speaking world.
The translation, first published in 1949 is, on the whole, admirably lucid and elegant. There is a brief, austere foreword by Sigmund Freud in which he refers to Marie Bonaparte as ‘my friend and pupil’. ‘Thanks to her interpretative effort’, he continues, ‘we now realise how many of the characteristics of Poe’s works were conditioned by his personality, and can see how that personality derived from intense emotional fixations and painful infantile experiences. Investigations such as this do not claim to explain creative genius, but they do reveal the factors which awaken it and the sort of subject matter it is destined to choose.’
It is difficult within the limits of a review to illustrate the scope and depth of this massive achievement in applied psycho-analysis. Some indication of the reading and research which have contributed to it is given by the index of books, publications and proper names which extends to twenty-four pages in double column! Freud’s numerous reflections upon the processes of artistic creation, scattered throughout his writings, are recollected by Marie Bonaparte in this study, and considered in relation to the works of a single writer of genius. The relevant contributions of other psycho-analysts, in particular those of Jones, Rank and Ferenczi, are discussed with reference to Poe’s development and to the inner personal significance of his poems and stories. Many problems are elucidated by material drawn from the author’s clinical experience.
Marie Bonaparte has, however, brought to her task even more than an impressive body of psycho-analytic knowledge and first-hand analytical experience. She has made a thorough but discriminating use of the large collection of biographical and critical literature on Poe. She is widely read both in those writers who influenced Poe and in those whom he influenced. Though she is chiefly interested in the content, and particularly the latent content of Poe’s writings, she often shows a keen æsthetic responsiveness.
The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Marie Bonaparte is a must have for any fan of Poe’s fiction.
First edition, hardcover showing wear. Dust jacket has some minor tearing around the edges and pages are minimally tanned.
