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The subject matter and style of Clarus's paper are likely to strike the regular reader of this Journal as unusual because the blend is poetic rather than ‘scientific’. The authoress successfully combines the wisdom of myths and fairy tales with vignettes from daily life. Tears are the common vehicle, melting and turning point in stories that mark the psychological transformation of heroes and common folk alike. However, Clarus distinguishes between true and false tears. Symbolically appreciated, the former unfold their transforming-healing effect in contrast to mere ‘howling’, that is, in self-pity.
Numerous varieties of real tears occurring in myths and the like are skilfully interwoven with examples from ordinary life. However, I found no reference to tears caused by physical pain or anger and impotent rage. This made me wonder whether the tears of narcissistic injury were ‘real’ or only self-pity not worthy of analytical attention.
To my mind, Clarus is representative of the romantic attitude which sees the human being as infinitely improvable, by transformations towards completeness and wholeness. The witch is really the good fairy, did we but recognize the other half of her symbolic image. It is an attitude of ever hopeful optimism which must appeal to many readers and audiences. If successful transformations should fail to materialize, the fault must be in ourselves. Consequently a moralizing undertone has crept into Clarus's paper. In her account of the Gilgamesh epic, and with reference to the cedar to be felled, she writes: ‘In those days people still knew that to fell a tree is to take a life’ (p. 297 - my translation), a comment which must appeal to environmentalists. Elsewhere she exceeds poetic licence and gets carried away by rhetoric. This happens for instance where she writes about a young man who had been successful in every way and thought that everything was within his reach until he failed an examination. He then became aware of his loneliness and