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Why does a psychoanalytic journal devote an issue to the theme “Goethe”? Wurmser's interpretation of how Goethe's ideas have much in common with the way psychoanalysts think and how they do their work provides one answer to this question. Before the articles of this journal are reviewed, however, something should be said in general about what psychoanalysis has to do with literature and whether it is justified to use psychoanalytic theory in the interpretation of literary works.
Many literary critics today would cringe at the thought of applying psychoanalytic theory to works of art in order to understand the artist, his motivation, his creative process, or even to understand the art work itself, to the degree that biographical and historical material is used in order to do this. Beginning with the New Criticism at the turn of the century, literary works were to be appreciated and analyzed according to their characteristics as works of art and not according to their connections with the author. If an art work was really a work of art, it could and should stand alone. “Art for art's sake” became a cliché, as well as James Joyce's (1916, p. 215) image of the aloof artist: “The artist, like the God of creation,