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It is not uncommon nowadays for the literary critic, as he becomes aware that his role as cultural authority is being usurped by the psychiatrist, to embrace the conceptual language of psychoanalysis in his interpretations of literary and historical documents, attempting as it were to integrate the humanistic and the scientific, and in so doing to achieve a richer, more balanced view of man's nature. The result, more often than not, reflects a partial understanding of unconscious dynamics which serves only to distort the non-analytic critical function.
An earlier article in this Journal, Courtly Love: Neurosis as Institution, 1 is a case in point. When analytic concepts are used, they are used unsystematically and inappropriately. More to the point, weak sociological explanations are used where dynamic psychological ones are called for. For example, to note only a few instances of this method, the necessity that Courtly Love be adulterous is explained in terms of the fact that, “There were not enough noble-women for each man;” 1 and it is suggested that the ambivalence embodied in the institution, “Was well-grounded, and much of it can be attributed to prudence.” 2 In each case, the psychoanalytic principle of enlightened suspicion is ignored, and deeply-significant forms of social behavior