Epilogue

Poetry is in essence a symbolization of the spaces and tensions of mental life; it shows the poet in the process of discovering the world of his own mind, and the consequent drama of identifications between self and objects. Its primary intent is symbolic expression, not communication; unhindered by the fear of not being understood by its audience, and propelled by the duty to transcribe the internal dictates of its Muse, it has an inexhaustible meaningfulness. This is also the cause of its mystery and inscrutability, which speaks directly to its readers' internal objects or superego, but still requires that they work on their own processes of identification to establish an internal dialogue between self and objects which can receive and digest the poet's symbolization. In this way the ‘poetic’ quality epitomized in poetry and art can be assimilated into other genres or modes of experience, in literature and in life. The poetic literature discussed in this book could be considered the ‘master of all our seeing’ (in Wordsworth's words) — a source to which we may continually return for the rejuvenation of our own self-creativity, and the enrichment of our own internal objects. The model of mental spaces, qualities, and functions interacting in literature is not a didactic or ‘superinduced’ one (in Coleridge's term) but is evolved from within, so can always offer fresh insights into the problem of how the mind creates itself — the overriding concern of psychoanalysis, overshadowing its concern with specific types of psychopathology. Psychoanalysis, in endeavouring to help the individual discover and promote the growing shape of his own identity, focuses on patterns of internal communication between the self and its objects: not with a view to attainting a plateau of