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“a real living form is the natural result of the [...] adventure of his spirit into the unknown”
Freud begins “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming” by wondering “from what sources that strange being, the creative writer, draws his material, and how he manages to make such an impression on us.” He goes on to say that “if we ask him, the creative writer gives us no explanation, or none that is satisfactory” (1908a, p. 143). But although Freud was in touch with a number of literary figures (Holland, 1998), he does not give any evidence of having asked them about their creative processes. Instead, drawing a parallel between childhood play and adult daydreams, he claims that creative writing stems from wish-fulfilling phantasies and is an escape from the frustrating bounds of external reality. That is, Freud suggests that both daydreaming and creative writing are defensive activities that serve to avoid the acceptance of painful truths. In order to make this point, he needs to focus only on light romantic fiction in which the sexual and ambitious wishes of the hero are satisfied. Freud himself knew that his argument would not hold good in relation to great literary works or, indeed, great art.
Freud's portrayal of the work of creative writers (and, by implication, of all artists) as the manifestation of wish-fulfilling, shameful daydreams has been criticized by many writers in the creative arts. For instance, painter and critic Roger Fry complained that Freud made pronouncements about artists without acknowledging that “Artists are a group of people of very different temperaments and some of them are actuated by quite different motives, and exercise quite different psychical