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Elective affinities published in 1809 is one of the least well-known and perhaps least valued contributions in Goethe's literary heritage. It seems, nevertheless, to have been of great personal significance to the aging Goethe. Speaking of the novel, Goethe stated, “No one can fail to recognize in it a deep passionate wound which shrinks from being closed by healing, a heart which dreads to be cured…. In it, as in a burial urn, I have deposited with deep emotion many a sad experience. … the feelings it embodies can never quite depart from me” (Lewes, 1855, p. 318). What is the nature of the “deep passionate wound” which shrinks from being healed and the “heart which dreads to be cured”? Certainly his words suggest a man mourning a loss, yet unable or perhaps unwilling to sever the attachment.
It is my belief that the meaning of the paradoxical existence of a deep passionate wound associated with a great suffering that yet dreads to be healed this paradox reflects the dialectical nature of creativity in relation to the mourning process. Creativity both facilitates the mourning process while paradoxically perpetuating the