Marie-Louise von Franz, The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man
INTRODUCTION
This celebrated novel by Apuleius of Madaura1 has always been the object of
contradictory evaluations.
There are, we think, many different reasons for this: some are inherent in the composition and the sources of the work itself, while others come from the personality of the author.
This Latin text from the second century A.D. has baffled commentators, for it seems to have been written according to two plans.
It tells one main story, that of Lucius and his transformations, interspersed with a number of tales which, from a purely rational and superficial point of view, do not appear to have much in common with the adventures of the hero.
What we know of the novel’s background explains and confirms this impression of duality, for it is not an entirely personal creation.
The author was inspired by a lost text attributed to Lucius of Patrai, and the text itself was taken from a destroyed original Greek text that had also served as a model for The Ass, a novel written by a pseudo-Lucian.
There was thus a collection of novels by various authors which later disappeared and which are thought to have been in the style of Boccaccio’s Decameron or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
All these earlier collections contained neither the tale of Amor and Psyche nor the initiation into the Isis mysteries that are so important in Apuleius’s book.
Apuleius has not only added two significant passages but has probably also
transformed, at least partially, the original stories to adapt them to their new context.
In spite of using many older stories, Apuleius has actually created a
completely new book with a completely new inner message.
From a literary standpoint, one will notice that the work is complicated by
its affected style and its many plays on words.
Knowing nothing of its cultural background, one would think its language to be that of a neurotic, but it simply corresponds to the so-called Milesian style, which Apuleius probably acquired in the course of his studies.
In its content the book shows certain Don Quixotish characteristics, with an admixture of occultism.
The composition has often been criticized, since the author, instead of taking the trouble to introduce an incidental story logically, generally is content with something like, “This reminds me of a juicy story. . . .” This sort of loose composition gives one the impression of a certain abaissement du niveau mental.
It is possible that Apuleius, being a successful writer and lecturer, composed the novel in great haste and that his unconscious had therefore a
hand in composing the story, in other words, that he followed a train of
associations, a chain of creative fantasies whose meaning goes much deeper
than even he himself knew.
This seems to me to explain in part the conscious-unconscious duality of the composition.
This novel, as I have said, has had a considerable amount of commentary,
ranging from extreme admiration to complete scorn.
According to some authors, Apuleius does little more than compile a poor collection of anecdotes, already known for the most part, while the whole of the work seems to be no more than satire or frivolous amusement.
It is to his credit that Karl Kerényi, who dedicated the major part of his study to the story of Amor and Psyche, recognized its value and religious depth.
After Kerényi, Reinhold Merkelbach realized for the first time that the book as a whole has a deep religious meaning which increasingly reveals itself toward the end.
Merkelbach, however, did not analyze the book in its entirety.
One needs the key of Jungian psychology and knowledge of the unconscious in order to follow the inner process of psychic development which the author describes in his book.
It then reveals itself to be a completely coherent whole.
In some older translations, a good number of the work’s erotic anecdotes
are omitted.
Some modern versions, on the other hand, have preserved the sexual passages but have suppressed the initiation mysteries, considering them to be a useless addition that does not correspond to the spirit of the rest of the work.
Erudite authors have even attempted to prove that the last book, the eleventh, the initiation into the Isis mysteries, had been added perhaps by
another author or by Apuleius himself in a later part of his life.
There we touch on the most difficult problem of the proximity of sexual passion and its accompanying spiritual, religious experience.
On the one hand, many differentiated religions stress the contrast of sexuality and spirituality, as the existence of many ascetic and monastic institutions proves.
On the other hand, however, the orgiastic character of numerous religious
rituals proves that the deepest root of sexuality and religious ecstasy seems to be one.
It is also well known that many Christian saints lived a riotous life before their conversion. Apuleius’s work contains both poles of these opposites and sheds new light on this fundamental problem.
Another source of difficulty which troubles most commentators is that,
ignoring the psychology of the unconscious, they suppose that Apuleius
consciously introduced all the symbolic allusions present in the novel.
This, as I said earlier, does not seem probable. I am convinced that Apuleius
intentionally slipped in many symbolic ideas, but that others flowed
unconsciously from his pen.
Where Apuleius consciously placed certain symbolic motifs in his story, one could be justified in treating them allegorically, in the Platonic sense of the term: as a profound philosophical significance hidden beneath the symbolic image.
In support of this thesis, Merkelbach remarked that Apuleius attributed significant names to almost all of his characters.
Similarly, it was certainly by design that he chose to transform Lucius into an ass, for Seth, the enemy of Isis and Osiris, was frequently represented in this animal form.
To live the life of an ass thus signifies, as Merkelbach emphasizes, enduring “a life without Isis.”
But from the fact that certain symbolic elements have been consciously introduced in his story, one need not deduce that Apuleius wrote this novel without the inspiration of the unconscious.
The contribution of the unconscious to this work is all the more probable since we know that he experienced a profound religious conversion.
As the word indicates, conversion signifies a sudden and radical change of personality, as was the case with Saint Paul and Saint Augustine.11
Such changes are abrupt only in appearance, and thanks to depth
psychology, we can watch their preparation in the unconscious.
It is a common occurrence in analytical practice to see the appearance in dreams of symbolic themes tending toward a psychic development often not realized for several months, or even years.
In certain cases of neurotic psychic dissociation, it is common for a subject to lead two lives: the one conscious, on the surface, and another which is secretly developed on a deeper unconscious level. Conversion corresponds to the moment at which the two unite.
Jung thought very highly of The Golden Ass and several times suggested
that I look at it more closely.
I must say that at first I did not know how to approach it.
I understood from the outset that all parts of the book were absolutely essential and inseparable and that, thanks to the key of Jungian
psychology, a coherent interpretation was possible.
But somehow I did not
know how to get at it, until at last I discovered a very simple trick—though
perhaps it is a bit more than a trick.
I took a pencil to try to find out the composition of the book. I first wrote out what the hero, Lucius, experienced in the “I” form, that is, his experience of being changed into an ass and all his unfortunate adventures until he is redeemed.
I cut out the inserted stories for the moment so as to get one coherent line.
Then I made the following discovery: one can make a dividing line, and above the line write all of the story that happened to Lucius, and below the line all the inserted tales.
Between these two classifications I drew a zigzag line, the actual thread of
the story.
In this way I discovered a consecutive line going through as well.
Above the line is the story of Lucius as the ass, but underneath something
else is happening, as shown in the diagram.
I made a second conjecture and asked myself why one should not treat the
inserted stories like dreams of Lucius.
We have a day life, with all sorts of fortune and misfortune, and at night we are told a story; the problem is to see how the two connect.
So why should one not treat the stories here as if they were dreams within the story?
From the point of view of personal psychology, Lucius is that type of man
who suffers from a negative mother complex, but to a certain degree, the
positive aspect of the complex also appears in the story, because the
opposites are always together. Apuleius himself had a positive relationship
with his mother.
We know, in fact, that in real life he married a woman about twenty years his elder, with whom he lived happily until his death, while the novel throughout expresses the other face of the problem: the dark side of the mother complex.
As Jung has shown, the mother sometimes symbolizes, on a deeper level,
the entire unconscious of man.
When she thus appears at the end of the novel in the archetypal form of the great mother goddess Isis, she is the personification of an interior cosmos that surpasses the limits of the conscious personality: the world that Jung has called “the reality of psyche.”
We will see that on this deeper level Apuleius gives form to a deep process of evolution of historical dimension: the coming back of the feminine principle into the patriarchal Western world.
This slow comeback of the feminine principle13 intermittently surfaced in the Middle Ages, but it is only today that it seems to have broken through into the collective consciousness.
Courtly love provided an opportunity, and there it broke through partly, and with it the symbolism of the Grail, but it all came as a tremendous problem.
For these chevaliers were not capable of having only courtly, platonic love for their ladies, just letting themselves be killed, or half-killed, in tournaments, and then getting only a little rose emblem on their heads as a reward.
Normally they asked for, and usually got, the whole reward. At that time,
however, there were no contraceptives, and as this was happening in
aristocratic families there was the tremendous problem of the bastard.
That created an impossible sociological situation, and the Church saw its chance, condemned sexual courtly love, and urged the worship of the Virgin Mary.
So more and more of the chevaliers adopted the Virgin Mary as the dame du
coeur for whom they fought, because that involved no danger.
But, as Jung points out so clearly, at that moment began the witch persecutions!
For the anima problem cannot be solved on just an impersonal level; it cannot be solved by a principle.
Whatever is decided sociologically, collectively, can only be wrong.
If there is a solution it can only be unique, from individual to
individual, from one woman to one man. Eros is in its essence only
meaningful if it is completely, uniquely individual.
In courtly love the move was toward bringing the impossible together through the uniqueness of the personality.
But the collective broke in, and the collective needed principles, so there was another failure, which is why we are still in the same soup.
If we read it with this in mind, The Golden Ass is the modern description of the development of a man’s anima or feminine unconscious personality.
Today there is much discussion of the liberation of women, but it is sometimes overlooked that this can only succeed if there is a change in men as well.
Just as women have to overcome the patriarchal tyrant in their own souls, men have to liberate and differentiate their inner femininity.
Only then will a better relationship of the sexes be possible. ~Marie-Louise von Franz, The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man, Page 9-14
https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/
Carl Jung Depth Psychology on Instagram
Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine
Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine
Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine Feminine
