Craig E. Stephensons Ages of Anxiety examines how W. H. Auden in his Pulitzer Prize winning poem, The Age of Anxiety, used C. G. Jungs psychological types to structure and explore his responses to war and the rise of fascism.
This newly revised edition of Stephensons 2015 Zürich Lecture Series tracks Audens notion of the poets responsibilities and of the importance of the symbolic life in a time of conflict. The book tracks how Audens poem inspired Leonard Bernsteins second symphony and how three choreographers (Jerome Robbins, John Neumeier, Liam Scarlett) created dances set to this work, with Jungs psychology running through all these creative extrapolations like a common thread. In this expanded edition, Stephenson considers how the contemporary essayists Scott Stossel and Roberto Calasso employ Audens poem as touchstones for their own explorations of the meaning of anxiety in our time.
Ages of Anxiety will be of interest to analytical psychologists, literary historians, performing arts historians, mental health practitioners, as well as the common reader.
Arvustused
'This is one of the most brilliant and original works by a Jungian analyst that I have read in the past decade: an astute and penetrating analysis and insightful extension of the meaning of W. H. Audens poem, The Age of Anxiety.'
Steven Herrmann, author of William James and C. G. Jung: Doorways to the Self.
'An original and profound study of how war shaped Auden as a poet: how he used Jungs psychology to understand the turmoil and dread provoked by war, to organize morally and aesthetically the responses of the individual psyche and society to fascism and to probe the poets responsibilities in time of war.'
Ruth Padel, author of Darwin: A Life in Poems, In and Out of the Mind, and On Migration.
'In the current time of mounting political tensions, with dark echoes of escalating intolerance, Stephenson gives us an erudite and reflective reconsideration of one of the twentieth centurys most gifted poets. The central but subtle use of Jungs view of the psyche, especially his typology, are shown to be woven through The Age of Anxiety, informing its deepest vision. Stephensons own creative brilliance manifests through the lightness of his touch.'
Joe Cambray, author of Synchronicity: Nature and Psyche in an Interconnected Universe.
1. Auden, War Poet
2. Audens Use of Jungs Typology
3. Creative
Extrapolations: Bernstein, Robbins, Neumeier and Scarlett
4. The Anxiety of
Individuation: Stossel and Dr. W. 5 In the Secular Night: Anxiety in Audens
Cosmology
Craig E. Stephenson is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute Zürich, the Institute for Psychodrama, Zürich, and the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. His most recent book, The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C. G. Jung (Routledge, 2023) won the NAAPs Gradiva Award.
