A Jungian Interpretation
of Literature
My book of Jungian criticism, The
Stuff That Dreams Are Made On
(published by Chiron Publications, Wilmette, Illinois),
includes an introductory chapter on Jungian theory and its application
to literature, as well as chapters on the figure of Merlin in
19th-century
British literature, Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse, Wilde's
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Woolf's Orlando and The
Waves,
McCullers's The Member of the Wedding and Clock Without
Hands,
and the archetype of love in the poetry of W. H. Auden. I also
employ incipient aspects of Queer Criticism in the book.
Some comments about The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On:
Clifton Snider's psychological readings
are sharp, informative, and sure to engage the reader at the deepest
levels of introspection. The psychologically oriented reader will
be greatly assisted by his scholarship, his psychological good sense,
and his uncanny mining of literary texts.
--Dr. Lee Zahner-Roloff, Jungian analyst
The
Stuff That Dreams Are Made On is a clear, straightforward
treatment--free of academic and psychological jargon--of Jungian
literary criticism. Snider's introduction is not only a
first-rate exposition of Jungian theory, but a lucid explanation of
Jungian psychology as well.
--David Peck, Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies,
California State University, Long Beach, and author of Novels of Initiation