Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
1983
Thesis Director
Frank McCormick
Abstract
The following paper is the description of a related arts project involving the production of a body of original work incorporating the fields of art and literature. The original work is in the form of a book containing poetry and prose-poems with illustrations. Photographs and copies of the complete work are included in this paper.
The preface deals with the three main influences on the work as a whole. These influences were C. G. Jung, Vincent Van Gogh, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Jung's views are instrumental in the psychological analysis of the work, while Van Gogh provided emotional appeal and a love for symbolism. Rilke shaped poems like sculpture and taught that in poetry as in art, less is more.
The text examines the body of work from a psychological view with an evaluation of the work as a growth experience.
The theme of the work involves the unifying of polar opposites. Art and poetry spring from the hidden sources of the unconscious. When this content passes the threshold of consciousness and becomes objective form, it can be evaluated. The breaking apart of the psychic content which usually precedes this conscious development tends to split it into its polar opposites. The object of this work is to examine these opposites and to integrate them through art and poetry into a functioning unity.
The multiplicity of the psyche requires a variety of standpoints. The problem of assessing these many views is dealt with in a variety of ways, yet there is a thread of continuity which emerges as the work progresses. There is a maturation process which occurs in the work from dependency, through conflict, to transformation and enlightenment. The work has imposed structure and form upon the elements without losing intuitive feeling.
Recommended Citation
Savage, Shirley, "The Mysterium Coniunctionis: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self" (1983). Masters Theses. 2877.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/2877
