Two books are among my earliest memories
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Early Reading Experiences
October 4, 1957
When asked which works of literature most influenced his development, C. G. Jung had the following recollections:
Two books are among my earliest memories.
The first story to leave a deep and lasting impression on me was the Grail legend.
It was my favorite book as a child, I thought it was really wonderful. I read it twice in a row.
The Grail figures have accompanied me ever since, I found them mysteriously fascinating.
However, I seldom mentioned them in my writings, as my wife had begun quite early on to write about the Grail legend.
The second work of literature to affect me deeply was Goethe’s Faust. But I was fifteen or sixteen by then.
It was my mother who told me: “Now you really must read Faust.” This book then made the greatest impression on me.
Yes, it was the book, everything else paled in comparison.
There were also a few poems by Goethe that stood out, but in my opinion nothing reached the heights of Faust.
Faust always felt like a personal bequest to me. Goethe did not really complete the story. Some issues remain unanswered.
His other plays and his style, however, this “distinguished style” of his,
I found too ponderous, too overdone.
True, Wilhelm Meister is a really good book, but it did not really impress me that much.
Later I read his Conversations with Eckermann with interest, but I always found them rather awkward, too.
When I was a student, I discovered Holderlin and got to know his poem “Patmos.”
At the time I held it to be a high point of German lyric poetry.
” … But high in the light
Blossoms the silver snow,
And, witness to life everlasting
On attainless walls
The immemorial ivy grows … ”
A lot of Holderlin’s other work is stylized or has a somewhat exaggerated emotionality, but for me “Patmos” is unsurpassable.
And then I came across Morike’s “Orplid” – an exquisite poem!
It stood out way above all his other poems, which seemed surprisingly average to me.
Hugo Wolf turned “Orplid” into a wonderful song.
“Patmos” and “Orplid” – both of those poems are indelibly etched in my memory. Curiously, Vischer’s Auch Einer also inspired me then.
I came across this novel at the same time as I began reading Schopenhauer. He was the first of the modern philosophers that I read.
Schopenhauer’s vision of the world, his pessimistic world view, was something I sometimes shared and other times rejected.
Schopenhauer was followed by Kant. I studied Kant very seriously.
With him it was about this careful detail work and accuracy in distinguishing what belongs to me or is within my sphere of influence,
and what goes beyond it, to whence we cannot reach without causing damage. After that I became interested in Nietzsche.
Above all Zarathustra – that moved me deeply.
This book brought a troubling problem for me: what happened to Nietzsche with Zarathustra?
It is about Nietzsche’s encounter with the archetypal figure of the wise old man, but an encounter that remained hanging in the air, in an unreal netherworld.
Other works by Nietzsche moved me intellectually, but Zarathustra touched me personally.
Faust and Zarathustra, in a way both are on the same level – both provided a connection to something within me.
I could not really connect to more contemporary German literature.
I found it somehow too psychological, and although there were some interesting things, they did not move me deeply.
Of course I read Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, but I always found them to be typical “literary” creations.
The poetry is very good, but it did not really touch me. I had more of a connection to Schiller with his ethical pathos.
I felt a particularly genuine and positive connection with his prose writing.
Of course I also recognized the beauty of individual poems, but they were like flowers that one chances upon.
I could not say that one or another left a special impression on me.
When I asked about his impressions of classical Greek and Roman literature) Jung answered: I loved the world of the Odyssey.
Also parts of Virgil’s Aeneid and his Eclogues, especially the fourth, and some poems of Horace.
Later on, Apuleius was very significant for me.
In his writing I always sensed the problem of the transformation of the soul as it presented itself in ancient times.
It therefore had a strong impact on me, but I came to it quite late, when I had already started researching the psychology of the unconscious.
The Greek dramas, meanwhile, held little attraction; even Plato did not really interest me, did not really speak to me.
Of the Greek philosophers Heraclitus was my favorite. He had amazing intuition and insight.
~Carl Jung, Reflections on the Life and Dreams of C.G. Jung, Page 27-30
Your Books are not Book. They are Bread Herr Professor
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