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Stuff of Sleep and Dreams: Experiments in Literary Psychology
In a collection of incisive essays in literary criticism, Edel provides psychological portraits of selected authors and their works
352 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1982
About the author
Leon Edel
144 books7 followersJoseph Leon Edel was a American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. Edel taught English and American literature at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) from 1932 until 1934, New York University from 1953 until 1972, and at University of Hawaii at Manoa from 1972 until 1978. From 1944 to 1952, he worked as a reporter and feature writer for the left-wing New York newspapers PM and the Daily Compass.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 14, 2013
I’m tempted to start off by saying this is kind of a dumb book. For sure it’s far dumber than I thought it would be –Edel being the biographical go-to guy for Henry James. But upon reflection, I realize this book is sometimes not as dumb as I am, and it almost always has a bigger heart than mine. So who am I to complain?
This book consists of essays in which, as the title indicates, Edel attempts to take an earnest, amateur, and passionate belief in (Freudian) psychoanalytical do-dah and apply it to his favorite writers. This was a common endeavor, c. 1935-1965, and it ruined a lot of otherwise good lit crit (see John Berryman’s biography of Stephen Crane, the last third or so of which is spoiled by some incredibly pretentious Freudian twaddle). The good thing is that by the time Edel published this book (1982), Freudianism had taken a real beating, so paradoxically, although the book is Freudian in approach, there’s little actual Freud in it. At one point, he mentions that he deliberately doesn’t refer to Oedipal Complexes and penis envy and such because these terms have been misused so often. Thank God.
Anyway, here’s a characteristically dumb bit (rendered in typically clumsy prose):
"Poets do feel more than most persons, that is why they are poets; and their feeling leads them to say much more and at their best say it memorably. They are barometers of society’s emotions; but to say this is to offer too general an answer to my precise question…” (p. 164)
Well, it’s pretty to think so, especially if you are a poet. But poets (good ones) are good at saying things, not feeling them “more.” Another especially dumb part is when Edel describes the disgusting incest Virginia Woolf had to endure at the hands of her dim bulb stepbrother Duckworth. Edel actually calls this “sex play” at one point and suggests perhaps Woolf really enjoyed it. He then quotes Woolf on this matter, showing that her disgust was unambiguous (and she was a pretty ambiguous writer). Yuck.
But these are an especially bad moments. If for only one reason, I recommend this book: Edel had some very, very interesting first-hand encounters with the people he writes about, especially James Joyce, who was even more of an on-going wreck than I thought. He recounts these encounters without posturing, and in fact with a great deal of convincing (and charming) self-deprecation. Here is Edel’s encounter with one of my favorite poets and one of my favorite critics:
“I remember an evening in Princeton in Edmond Wilson’s house, in 1953. He was spending the winter there. Elizabeth Bowen, the novelist, was visiting, and John Berryman and I called after dinner. Berryman was writing his “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet.” The poem had filled him to repletion, so that he seemed constantly to overflow, and he had brought some pages he had just written. We sat in the big room in its pools of light, within the outer chiaroscuro, Miss Bowen with her controlled stutter and natural charm, Elena Wilson, warm and sympathetic, and Wilson, large, expansive, magisterial. He asked Berryman to read from his work in process.
The poet had then – before he cultivated his Whitmanesque beard – a hard-seamed face, and his voice was tightly drawn. He mumbled his lines, he dropped his words, he drowned in his personal anguish, pushing on blindly and only half coherently. Edmond Wilson, sitting beside him, listened with all the intentness of which he was capable. After a bit, he began quietly to feed some of the lines back to Berryman – and by the same token to us. He fell into this quietly, tenderly, with a voice that was almost a caress. The suffering poet hardly heard him. He plunged ahead, and I felt as if I were listening to a discordant Gregorian chant, in which Berryman’s splutter of words was followed by a modulated and repetitive response. It was the poetry of reiteration, a vocal embrace, an administration of aid: Neoptolemus and Philoctetes, Walt Whitman and one of his young men. I felt myself in the presence of a high form of sympathetic criticism – the critic as helpmate, as explicator, as friend, not only of the common reader but of the artist himself. This was the most endearing side of Edmund Wilson.” (pp. 266-267)
In my opinion, this is a pretty good literary anecdote told with awkward sensitivity in slightly sticky prose. Whatever its flaws in technique, I was deeply moved by this. Although this one was my personal favorite, but there were a bunch of other ones just as good throughout the book (see his fond, but clear-eyed recollections of catching glimpses of James Joyce at the opera, surrounded by toadies). The Joyce stories alone make it worth hunting down this book. Good luck (I think it's out of print?).
This book consists of essays in which, as the title indicates, Edel attempts to take an earnest, amateur, and passionate belief in (Freudian) psychoanalytical do-dah and apply it to his favorite writers. This was a common endeavor, c. 1935-1965, and it ruined a lot of otherwise good lit crit (see John Berryman’s biography of Stephen Crane, the last third or so of which is spoiled by some incredibly pretentious Freudian twaddle). The good thing is that by the time Edel published this book (1982), Freudianism had taken a real beating, so paradoxically, although the book is Freudian in approach, there’s little actual Freud in it. At one point, he mentions that he deliberately doesn’t refer to Oedipal Complexes and penis envy and such because these terms have been misused so often. Thank God.
Anyway, here’s a characteristically dumb bit (rendered in typically clumsy prose):
"Poets do feel more than most persons, that is why they are poets; and their feeling leads them to say much more and at their best say it memorably. They are barometers of society’s emotions; but to say this is to offer too general an answer to my precise question…” (p. 164)
Well, it’s pretty to think so, especially if you are a poet. But poets (good ones) are good at saying things, not feeling them “more.” Another especially dumb part is when Edel describes the disgusting incest Virginia Woolf had to endure at the hands of her dim bulb stepbrother Duckworth. Edel actually calls this “sex play” at one point and suggests perhaps Woolf really enjoyed it. He then quotes Woolf on this matter, showing that her disgust was unambiguous (and she was a pretty ambiguous writer). Yuck.
But these are an especially bad moments. If for only one reason, I recommend this book: Edel had some very, very interesting first-hand encounters with the people he writes about, especially James Joyce, who was even more of an on-going wreck than I thought. He recounts these encounters without posturing, and in fact with a great deal of convincing (and charming) self-deprecation. Here is Edel’s encounter with one of my favorite poets and one of my favorite critics:
“I remember an evening in Princeton in Edmond Wilson’s house, in 1953. He was spending the winter there. Elizabeth Bowen, the novelist, was visiting, and John Berryman and I called after dinner. Berryman was writing his “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet.” The poem had filled him to repletion, so that he seemed constantly to overflow, and he had brought some pages he had just written. We sat in the big room in its pools of light, within the outer chiaroscuro, Miss Bowen with her controlled stutter and natural charm, Elena Wilson, warm and sympathetic, and Wilson, large, expansive, magisterial. He asked Berryman to read from his work in process.
The poet had then – before he cultivated his Whitmanesque beard – a hard-seamed face, and his voice was tightly drawn. He mumbled his lines, he dropped his words, he drowned in his personal anguish, pushing on blindly and only half coherently. Edmond Wilson, sitting beside him, listened with all the intentness of which he was capable. After a bit, he began quietly to feed some of the lines back to Berryman – and by the same token to us. He fell into this quietly, tenderly, with a voice that was almost a caress. The suffering poet hardly heard him. He plunged ahead, and I felt as if I were listening to a discordant Gregorian chant, in which Berryman’s splutter of words was followed by a modulated and repetitive response. It was the poetry of reiteration, a vocal embrace, an administration of aid: Neoptolemus and Philoctetes, Walt Whitman and one of his young men. I felt myself in the presence of a high form of sympathetic criticism – the critic as helpmate, as explicator, as friend, not only of the common reader but of the artist himself. This was the most endearing side of Edmund Wilson.” (pp. 266-267)
In my opinion, this is a pretty good literary anecdote told with awkward sensitivity in slightly sticky prose. Whatever its flaws in technique, I was deeply moved by this. Although this one was my personal favorite, but there were a bunch of other ones just as good throughout the book (see his fond, but clear-eyed recollections of catching glimpses of James Joyce at the opera, surrounded by toadies). The Joyce stories alone make it worth hunting down this book. Good luck (I think it's out of print?).
July 31, 2025
Outdated application of theory, but an accessible read and fascinating analysis’ regardless. I appreciate the insight on dream analysis and memory. There’s a lot to digest about creative process and planes of consciousness.
“Art begins in the back rooms of concealed memory, old sensations and hidden feelings.” (13)
“Art begins in the back rooms of concealed memory, old sensations and hidden feelings.” (13)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews