Coleridge – Freudian Psychoanalysis Long before Freud emphasized the power of the unconscious, Coleridge was developing his own theories of unconscious processing, which he genera lly referred to as the imagination: “It [the imagination dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate,! Coleridge wrote" “It is essentially vital, even as all ob#ects are essentially fi$ed and dead"! Li%e Li%e Freud a century later, Coleridge insisted that our perceptions and poetry emerged from a place we couldn&t understand" 'he sources of Coleridge&s poetic power lies in regions of the mind to which the conscious awareness has limited access" (oetry draws upon deep unconscious motives to produce something which may not entirely be understood either by the poet or the reader, gaining a special power from this depth" 'he imagination is the the initiator and the driving force and it has the capacity to reveal something new" 'he )ustrian )ustrian psychologist, *igmund Freud, developed a theory theory %nown as the (sychoanalysis" 'his theory suggests that there is a part of human psyche which is called the realm of the unconscious" +nconscious consists of thoughts, fears, desires, which are unrealized yet give strong influences toward humans& behavior" 'hose repressed feelings mostly because they are not accepted in the society- find their way of e$pression through the ways that are more acceptable, such as dreams, .slips of the tongue&, #o%es, fantasies and also wor%s of art, including literary literary wor%s" wor%s" /ne e$ample of the use of literary wor%s as the means to e$press the repressed feelings can be seen in *amuel 'aylor Coleridge&s famous unfinished poem entitled .0ubla 0han&" 0ubla 0han is a metaphorical #ourney through a comple$ labyrinth of symbols and images that represent the unconscious and the troubled troubled mind" It is a trip that carries us to une$plored territories of profundity, while demonstrating the impulsive struggle between the conscious and the unconscious that e$ists inside each and every one of us" Furthermore, the poem appears to follow a dreamli%e succession of dramatic images that are mainly moc% reproductions of the narrator&s previous thoughts and e$periences" 'he poem has become what is perhaps the definitive statement on the o bstruction and uncomfortable process of the visionary genius" 'he first three stanzas are products of pure imagination" 'he pleasure dome of 0ubla 0han becomes in the conte$t of the poem&s history history a
metaphor for the unbuilt monument of the imagination" In the fourth stanza the spea%er says that he once had a vision of the damsel singing of 1ount )bora, this also becomes a metaphor for Coleridge&s three hundred line masterpiece he never completed" 'he spea%er insists that if he could only “revive within him “her symphony and song!, he would recreate the pleasure dome out of music and words, and ta%e on the persona of the magician or visionary" 2is hearers would recognize the dangerous power of the vision, which would manifest itself in his “flashing eyes! and “floating hair!" Coleridge insists that he, himself was unaware of the poem&s meaning, saying only that it was a fragmented memory of a dream, but an analysis of the symbolic imagery of the poem through the lens of psychoanalytic interpretation shows that the poem is a study of the nature of creativity and imagination and the dangers associated with it" ) psychoanalytical view of the poem would ta%e into account Coleridge&s personal psychological profile, and would certainly provide the poem with a e$planation of the human condition" 3e can observe a manifestation of the poet&s repressed desire in his poems that is closely related with the poet&s feeling" Coleridge wrote “0ubla 0han! under the influence of opium in conse4uence, his conscious was wea%ened" /pium is a narcotic drug %nown as sedative which slows down activities of the body and reduces their responsivity" /pium is produced from the drying resin of unripe capsules of the opium poppy, (apaver somniferum" 'he plant has long been %nown by the *umerian people since 5666 years ago, they called it “the plant of happiness!, a name which is still recognized to this day " /pium has long served as the main pain%iller in medical practice by producing insensibility to e$ternal stimuli through depression of the central nervous system " 'he depression of the central nervous system can affect the wor% of the system itself which causes the wea%ening of the conscious, and so of the censors and the super7ego" 'hrough the e$planation in the preface, it is clear that Coleridge was sic% at that time, and anodyne, one of the medical name for opium7based medicine, had been prescribed for the medication" 8eing under the influence of opium, Coleridge read the boo% (urchas& (ilgrimage or (urchase, his (ilgrimage written by an 9nglish travel writer *amuel (urchas, and then fell asleep for about three hours during which he got a vision or a dream" reams, along with other things such as accidental acts, fantasy, imagination, myth, fairy tale, and so on
are the media through which the realm of unconscious may appear, for that in those things the censors that lay between the unconscious and the real world are wea%ened" +nder such medication the mind pro#ects, replacing reality with fantastic embodiments of uncoscious fears and desires" /n the moment he was awa%e, the image of the dream was clear enough so that he was able to compose most parts of the poem" 8ut then, his wor% was postponed by the coming of an ac4uaintance for above an hour" Later, when he finally got his time to continue the composing, he found that the image had lost, and only very few that managed to survive and able to be recollected from which some scattered lines were produced" (sychoanalysis theory puts a great attention on the e$istence of the unconscious and its importance in shaping human&s behavior as well as in the process of creativity" +nconscious: hidden part of human&s psyche; the part of the mind containing memories, thoughts, feelings, and ideas that the person is not generally aware of but that manifest themselves in dreams and dissociated acts" 'he poem, “0ubla 0han!, from a Freudian point of view can be regarded as being closely related to desire") yearning for physical fulfillment with other women" 'he reason why he desires this is caused by Coleridge&s failure in the last stage in personality development,as Freud calls it 7 the genital stage, which is the most important stage of human life according to the famous psychoanalyst" Coleridge marries *ara Fric%er, a woman whom he does not love; and he falls in love with *ara 2utchinson, a woman he cannot marry" Coleridge&s failure in love has brought him unto a level in which he is not able to become a perfect human figure because he cannot find a perfect mate with whom he can develop a mature socio7se$ual relationship and to who m he is able to direct his libido in a relationship which is approved by the society so that he can be freed from conflict and guilt " In this poem, Coleridge wants to represent himself as 0ublai 0han" 8ecause he cannot get what he wanted, he %eeps his desire deep down under his Conscious mind, the realm of the unconscious" 2uman body can be seen as a comple$ system of energy, %nown as the psychic energy, and because the amount of the psychic energy is limited, maintaining the balance of the energy inside a human body is very important" It also cannot be
separated from the Law of the Conservation of 9nergy, which says that energy can only be transformed but the amount will not be changed " In 'heory of (sychoanalysis, this process of re7identification is %nown as identification, which is a way to reduce tension by imitating or identifying one&s self as another person who is considered to be more successful in fulfilling desires, compared to him
ature!" 2e writes in his “8iographia Literaria! that imagination is about “ a gay and motley chaos and facts and forms and thousand fold e$perience, the origin of which lies beyond memory, traceless as life itself and finally passing into a part of our life more na%ed than would have been compatible with distinct consciousness"!
8ibliography: Cochin, ?oseph" Narcotics. /nline, the Internet @6th of ?une, A6@B http:<arcotics"html Fafla%, ?oel" Romantic Psychoanalysis.*tate +niversity of >ew Eor% A66 2ill"?ohn *pencer" A Coleridge Companion.An Introduction to the Major Poems and the Biographia Literaria. 1acmillan (ress L' @GH
