E-Library

Notes

1. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961): Swiss psychiatrist, who founded the analytical school of archetypal psychology. After graduating in medicine in 1902 from the universities of Basel and Zurich, Jung began his work on word association, research in patient's responses. His studies brought him international renown and led him to a close collaboration with Sigmund Freud. With the publication of Psychology of the Unconscious (1912), Jung presented several important concepts that were divergent from Freudian theory. Jung enlarged Freud's notion of "personal" unconscious to include what he called the collective unconscious, which was made up of universal, cross-cultural, and timeless elements of human experience. According to his theory, mankind shares a common and inborn unconscious life which is expressed in dreams, fantasies, and myths. Jung developed his theories, drawing on a wide knowledge of mythology and history; travels to diverse culture in New Mexico, India and Kenya. In 1921 he published a major work, Psychological Types in which he proposed the now well-known personality types, extrovert and introvert. Jung wrote voluminously, especially on analytical methods and the relationships between psychotherapy and religious belief.

2. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86): French novelist and essayist. Beauvoir met Jean-Paul Satre in 1929, beginning a personal and professional companionship that lasted until Satre's death in 1980. In her novels She Came to Stay (1943), The Blood of Others (1945), and All Men Are Mortal (1946), she dealt with the existentialist dilemma of finding meaning in an absurd world. Her best novel The Mandarins (1954) received the Prix Goncourt. Her non-fictional work The Second Sex (1949), a profound analysis of women's secondary status in society, became a classic of feminist literature.

3. Arthur Koestler (1905-83): Hungarian-born English novelist, journalist and essayist. During the 20s and 30s he was a foreign correspondent for a number of European newspapers. His first novel The Gladiators (1939) is about a revolution that failed. His best known work is Darkness at Noon (1941), and his other works include The Invisible Writing (1954), The Ghost in the Machine (1968) ,The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971), The Call Girls (1973), In Janus: A Summing up (1978). Koestler earned a position as one of the important thinkers of his time. In 1983 Koestler, who had been ill for some time, and his wife took their lives in a double suicide.

4. "The Cocktail Party": A verse play written in 1949 by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965). On one level, the play is a contemporary drawing-room comedy about marriage and love affairs; on another, it is a profound religious work dealing with redemption.

Previous Page