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My purposes are three. First, I want to examine closely Eissler's discussion of Romeo and Juliet in an effort to highlight and reemphasize its major points, and then to subject those points to a critical analysis based upon my own understanding of the play. Secondly, I want to take up Eissler's discussion of The Tempest, do with it something similar to what I will do with Romeo and Juliet, and then determine the extent to which the two discussions complement each other or, when taken together, point toward significant problems in the analytic criticism of Shakespeare. Finally, I want to use Eissler's discussion of these works as a way into a brief consideration of his Discourse in its entirety, as a way of answering such questions as, “What is this big book driving at?” “What, exactly, is Eissler attempting to convey?” “Is there a central position here?” “What of the psychoanalytic criticism of Shakespeare after this effort?”
As Eissler sees it, Romeo and Juliet offers us a panorama of love, a spectrum running from crude sexual urge to its very opposite; we witness here, are obliged to concentrate upon, the love of parents for children, of friend for friend, of man for God, and, of course, of lover for lover. What is remarkable about the tragedy, says Eissler, is that the love which contains the “synthesis of the two poles” is the one that “leads to death.”1 He writes: “The relationship between Romeo and Juliet is characterized by perfect balance, by an ideal synthesis between sheer physical craving and the most affectionate tenderness” (p. 304). And again: “As to their being united as well by something that lies at the opposite pole from the sexual urge, the poet makes that certain and beyond any doubt. The life, well-being and bliss of the other have become, for each of them, more important than