Research On The Psychoanalytic Aesthetical Thoughts Of Freud

Sigmund Freud is a famous Austrian expert on neuropathy. He is the pioneer of the psychoanalytic school. His theory of psychoanalysis has been applied to many areas. And its application to the aesthetics, literature and art helps to produce psychoanalytic aesthetical school, one of the most influential western criticism theories in 2oth century.Psychoanalytic school is based on some pre-existed theories, including Brule's psychology of abnormity, Darwin's evolutionism, Helmholtz's theory of energy, Leibniz's theory of monadology, Herbart's theory of threshold of consciousness and the voluntarism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The publication of Studies in Hysteria in 1895 symbolizes the formal inception of the Psychoanalytic movement. After Freud, his theory gets further development. His student Carl G. Jung advances the theory of analytical psychology; Adler advances the theory of individual psychology; Fromm and Horney develop the psychoanalytic into a neo-Freudism.Freud, concentrated on unconsciousness and based on psychological structure, develops the theory of structure of character, the conception of psychological drive, theory of dream and etc. Freud in his theories presents following ideas: Human's mental activities consist of three conditions: unconscious, preconscious, conscious. Human's character is made of id, ego and superego. Unconsciousness is the first reason of human's actions. Human's instinct includes life instinct and death instinct. Erotic instinct has its motivational source. This source is libido, a kind of psychological power, especially the erotic instinct. Referring to the dream, it represents the repressed instinctive desire, and the contents of dream can be divided into reflected contents and potential thoughts, and dream is produced by means of compressing, transplanting, reflecting and second production.Freud regards libido as the drive of aesthetical creation. The very essence of literature and art is the sublimation of artists'repressed desire of erotic instinct. Because of being repressed for long and thus unsatisfied, artists attempt to unbosom themselves and make merry in the process of their artistic creation. In this light, the motivation of creation is actually the motivation from the erotic instinct. Through sublimating, the repressed libido can be released in approaches accepted by social morality. Literature and art works as a kind of compensation. This kind of pansexual attitude on arts exaggerates the function of erotic instinct in life and in literature and art. It ignores human's sociality and the active effects exerted on society by writers and their works. Therefore, it is impossible for this theory to catch the very essence of literature and art.Oedipus complex is another key conception developed by Freud from the theory of character and libido. Freud holds that Oedipus complex and Electra complex are the permanent aesthetic themes. This is the main concern of his theory of Oedipus complex. He points that three great works in western literature follow the same motif of"killing father". They are separately Sophocles'Oedipus the King, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Dostoevsky's The Brother of Karamazov. Moreover, their action of killing their father shares the same motive to scramble for woman around them. Freud regards Oedipus complex that exists everywhere in unconsciousness as the original source of artists'creation drive, and therefore is the key content of aesthetical presentation. Oedipus complex exerts on great effects on western artistic creation and literary criticism. But to take it as the universal rule adaptable to aesthetic creation, artistic presentation and literary criticism is a terrible mistake.In Freud's philosophy, writer is equal to dreamer. Freud holds that daydreaming is a way of artists'aesthetic creation. He divides writers into two types: one is those who create on the existed material; the other is those who create on their imagination. Writers of the second type are full of imagination and creativity; they are similar to daydreamers. In this light, literature and arts parallels to dream. They are both a kind of way by which unconsciousness is satisfied. It is only a symbol of unconscious desire, or in other words, the symbol of sex, the daydream of the writer. Referring to the daydream, it is a kind of fantasy. Taking art as the substitute of game contains human's expectation and fantasy. A works of art, just a daydream, also restarts the game that played in the childhood. The reason why they replace the game with fantasy and aesthetic creation is that writers don't play game any more since they are adults. In this light, aesthetic creation, like daydream, is also the way to satisfy people's expectation and to express their fantasy. The approaches of aesthetical creation and dream both contain the attribute as an imagery or image. The process of dream's manifesting parallels to the process of aesthetic creation. Accordingly, the structure of dream is also similar to that of works of arts.Most of the dreams experience the process pf transformation and decoration, which is also the basic approach of aesthetical creation. Freud in his theory of dream touches the issue of the transformation of dream. When people feel doubtful for the expectation presented in the dream, they will transform the expectation and then present it in a new way. This transformation entangles the dream with a veil and therefore covers its true meaning. Similarly, aesthetical creation also entangles the"daydream"with a veil and transforms it as well. The process of fantasy consists of fantasy and the activities to present it. People's various fantasies are related to people's actions and thoughts. The process of fantasy in literature and art is also the same as that of dream. Artists are similar to the mental patient; a certain kind of instinct of them has been repressed. In order to be satisfied, they enter into the world of fantasy from the reality. Writers are grouped as two types, separately as those who reproduce and those who create. But aesthetical creation of both is a kind of productive activity, and artists are also producers. The material of their production is unconsciousness, dream, sex and fantasy. If it is true that literature and art is a kind of re-expression and expression, then what it re-expresses or expresses is also the unconsciousness, dream, sex and fantasy. but artists are also different from dreamers in that the former is good at expressing the fantasy and dream in an artistic way while the latter is only dreaming.Exerts great and profound effects on literary criticism. It highlights the aesthetical experience of literature and art, lays weight on the description on the psychology of creation. Moreover, its research on aesthetical thoughts is more meticulous, more specific and more science-oriented. Of course, Freud's psychoanalysis also has its limits. He takes libido as the only factor of beauty and sense of beauty, holds that the repressed instinct of people is the essence as well as the source of literature and art, literature and art is just a special kind of creation of fantasy and imagination. Freud's takes human's instinct as the theme of literature and art. This ignores the great influence from the society on human. Therefore, it is an idealistic aesthetic that runs against the aesthetic notions of Marxism.