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I recently came across the French expression mise en abîme, which finally gave me a name for a phenomenon which has fascinated me from childhood.
I read a story in which a character tells a story in which a character tells a story in which a character tells a story in which.… I see a portrait of someone holding up a portrait of someone holding up a portrait of.… I find a doll inside a doll inside a doll inside.… I understand the meaning of a word through its context in a sentence whose meaning derives from the words which make it up, and I understand the meaning of these words through their context in the sentence whose meaning.… I look at my reflection in a mirror reflected in a mirror reflected in a mirror reflected in a mirror.…
My childish mind was exercised by the question of whether such a series could go on for ever, whether there was anything solid and ultimate at the end of it. My adult mind still is, and not mine alone. I find the mise en abîme ubiquitous in contemporary Western culture, in science and mathematics as well as in art and literature, and in the television commercial and the rock video of mass culture as well as in the writings of those who try to analyse this culture. And when I attempt to reflect on the connections between archetypal theory and what has been called ‘the postmodern condition’, I find myself in the paradox and circularity of just such a mise en abîme.
A considerable body of literature surrounds the epithet ‘postmodern’ and its application to the culture of late capitalism. Anyone familiar with this literature and familiar also with the literature of archetypal psychology is likely to concede that the latter, especially in the work of James Hillman (with its radical relativism, multi-perspectivism,