A Psychodynamic Theory of Creativity: Greenacre and Shakespeare

Consider three types of creativity: the creativity of geniuses; the normal creativity of preadolescence from the sublimation of repressed oedipal impulses; and neurotic creativity, for example, to reduce anxiety through “innocent” obsessional activity. Psychodynamic literature discusses the latter two. Dr. Phyllis Greenacre (1894-1989), a Freudian theorist, speculated on geniuses. She extended Freud’s Libido Theory and considered the artist as neuro-physiologically different from the non-artist. I will paraphrase and extend one of Greenacre’s theories.

Owen Meredith, the Earl of Lytton, wrote, “Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.” Greenacre similarly believed that the artist, or creative genius, is primarily pulled toward creativity by artistic need, not pushed by other circumstances. Dr. Eugene Glynn commented that “…current psychoanalytic theories scarcely stress the artist’s joy in his creation.”

Non-artists are restricted to one developmental track—the “citizen’s” or “ordinary” world. The artist lives in two “worlds”— in what Greenacre labeled a “creative world” as well as in the ordinary world. He splits his libido (sexualized psychic energy), and he invests both worlds.

In our nursing experience as infants, we perceive warmth, smell, moisture, softness, the texture of the mother’s skin, the vision of roundness, and the pleasure of being held. As does the future artist as infant, but he/she may also focus on a beam of light coming through the blinds, on dust-motes dancing in the light, on sounds (especially if he will later be musically creative), on the color of drapes in the background and on the way they fall, and on smells that we ignore. Greenacre told us that he thereby begins “his obligatory love affair with the world”—using some libido that others would invest entirely according to the “citizen’s world” development.

The artist has richer perceptions and also has a special abil-

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ity to transmit his experience to an audience. (His parents are often unaware of his artistic capabilities.)

Sometimes, however, the infant or young child is overstimulated by the flood of experiences. He may then defend against and mute them—and may seem less reactive than is a typical infant.

He is freer in his creative “world” than in ours. There he is less guilty; he represses less, defends less; he is less in conflict. In my long experience, when non-artists achieve or succeed, they fear punishment for oedipally-driven excitement (as we have for two millennia). “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).

In his “creative world,” the artist is free to love the actual world. According to Greenacre, his most-invested loves involve pre-oedipal representations (fundamentally of his mother). He has less fear, therefore, of punishment for what we would fear as oedipally-driven achievements. He may love the representations he creates more than the objects themselves.

Let me try to apply some of those theories. Andrew Butterfield writes that, in his painting, La petite Pelisse (the small fur-lined coat), “… Rubens made a declaration of sexual love for his second wife …, and he did so with a frankness and tenderness that was unprecedented in the history of art” (New York Review of Books, April 7, 2005). Compared with many artists, Rubens did seem to have a genetic advantage—a great deal of libido to invest in both “worlds.” But we might ask: how much did Rubens love his wife, and how much did he love his image of her in his painting?

If these theories are valid, Shakespeare invested an immense amount of libido in his “creative world.” Let’s consider his relationships. From his sonnets, some critics believe that he had romantic or sexual relationships with Earls of Southampton and Pembroke, and that the Dark Lady didn’t exist in reality (or that, if she did, his writings represented his fantasies about her). (For the presumptive evidence for my speculations, I am most indebted to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar, 1966.)

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There is evidence that he did dedicate two poems, “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” to Henry Wriothesley, 3^rd Earl of Southampton. But Wright and LaMar suggest that Shakespeare tried, thereby, only to enlist him as a patron. It was said that Southampton did give Shakespeare £1000, but that Southampton was more interested in politics than in art.

Scholars increasingly implicate William Herbert, 3^rd Earl of Pembroke, as having been the object of sonnets Shakespeare wrote to a man. Wright and LaMar write that Pembroke and his parents and brother were major patrons of the arts; Pembroke’s parents wanted him to marry; Shakespeare’s first 17 sonnets urge a young man to marry and to procreate; and Pembroke’s age is more appropriate to the young man in the sonnets. There is no evidence that their relationship went beyond Shakespeare’s flattery of that very important, high-born nobleman—whom Shakespeare was delighted to consider his friend and patron.

I believe that Wright and LaMar are correct in suggesting that Shakespeare had a sexual relationship with the “Dark Lady.” I would guess that he wrote sonnets to her (which authorities believe weren’t meant to be published) in part to court her and in part because of his pleasure in that work. I would speculate that, except for his wife, with whom he had a distant and very limited relationship, the “Dark Lady” was the only woman in his life, and that he deeply cared for her. The relationship seemed to have been difficult. The content and sequence of the sonnets may indicate that at first she kept some emotional distance between them—that she was initially ambivalent and/or rejecting, and that he continued his pursuit using flattery, but also expressed (albeit cautiously) unhappiness and complaints. This may have been responsible for their brief relationship lasting even as long as it did—and for it resulting in as many sonnets.

The relationship seemed to gradually improve. There is evidence of significant insecurity from sexual and emotional inexperience. But I sense the evolution of their relationship to a rewarding level (at least sexually), with adolescent-level enthusiasm and pride deriving from some good sexual experiences. Very soon after that brief good period, Shakespeare wrote no more sonnets.

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In Sonnet 129, he wrote very negatively about the pain of desire and also, I believe, about the fear of loss of semen and vitality in sexual activity, and the pain of post-coital shame and guilt. (Those are common, primitive fears in men, along with guilt about masturbatory fantasies and impulses.)

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame [a shameful waste] Is lust in action; and, til action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, cruel, rude, not to trust; Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad: Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof and, proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream All this the world knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Does a later character come to mind? Hamlet might have written those words. He is 33 years old and chronically angry, which he might deny; but he would admit to pessimism, cynicism, and depression. He unconsciously knows that he could never be king or marry Ophelia—he’s been too close to his mother. His powerful father had always been away on military expeditions. Kingship and marriage are Father’s turf; and Hamlet has severe oedipal guilt. It had been almost immobilizing until his father’s ghost’s directive gave him an excuse for murderous action.

In addition to the reasons cited by Ernest Jones in his classic, Hamlet and Oedipus (1949), there is another reason that Hamlet postpones killing his uncle. He knows that as soon as his uncle is dead, he must slip back to near-immobility. He kills him only when he, himself, is dying. The greatest rage he expresses is toward his innocent, passive mother, whom he unconsciously blames for his oedipal predicament. Standing over the body of Polonius, he can do nothing but berate her for sex with his uncle. He speaks with disgust of their sexual relationship. Despite all else that is happening, he begs only that she avoid sex. He seems more a frus-

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trated lover than a son. His behavior destroys every major character except for Horatio, whose death he prevents. He tells Horatio: “… draw thy breath in pain, and tell my story.”

I believe Shakespeare suffered from the same conflict that shaped Hamlet’s life and death. Jones writes, “It probably expresses the core of Shakespeare’s philosophy and outlook on life as no other work of his does” (Hamlet and Oedipus, p. 20). The eminent authority, A.C. Bradley, said that, in Hamlet’s speeches, “Shakespeare wrote down his own heart” (Oxford Lectures on Poetry, 1909, p. 357).

Shakespeare was, of course, more fortunate than Hamlet in several ways. One reason for his greater success was that he lived to so large an extent in his “creative world” that he cathected it with so much libido, and that he enjoyed living there so much. Although he wrote many bitter plays, this reader is grateful for the serenity Prospero seems finally to have found in that great late play, The Tempest.

It has been said that we know little about Shakespeare’s life. In fact, so much of his libido “lived” in his creative life that his work tells us a great deal about him.

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