On the Relevance of Literature for Psychology

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Abstract
Psychologically considered, the art of any given period defines an array of sensibilities imaginatively translated into patterns of sharable experience. These configurations have scientific value not as samples of life but as indices of the advancing edge of man's collective participation in the world. Psychology and literature meet not at the level of data but of myth, at the fons et origo of artistic creation. What the artist has to communicate to the scientist is the metaphysical principle of his works. Distilled and made the focus of scientific study, such material can open windows on man's evolving universal life.