Le rouge et le noir

What is it about?

This paper explores the genesis and significance of Jung’s recently-published Black Books. It considers the nature of the inspiration behind them, and it suggests that the Black Books reveal the textual nature of Jung’s experience of the process of ‘ordering’ in several different ways. The paper examines the minor and more significant changes between the version of the text found in the Black Books and the Red Book, and it considers whether it is helpful to think of the Black Books in the categories of ‘science’, ‘nature’, or ‘art’. It is argued that one of the key insights into the creative process behind the Black Books can be gained from examining their textual status (reflected, for example, in Jung’s handwriting), which gives a sense of the linguistic, stylistic, conceptual, and emotional struggle out of which they emerged. Finally, the paper discusses Jung’s encounter with the Dionysos-like figure of Wotan, which is linked with Jung’s memory of an ‘unforgettable night in the desert’ when he ‘saw the Χ for the first time’ and ‘understood the Platonic myth’ (BB7, p. 227), and it explores Jung’s longstanding interest in interpreting the myth of the creation in Plato’s ‘Timaeus’.

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Photo by Drew Bae on Unsplash

Photo by Drew Bae on Unsplash