ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis will put in a new light the old literary controversies between realism and idealism, between classicism and romanticism. Idealistic writers are those who write of imaginary pleasing scenes and characters. Idealism in literature is the selection for description of only those features of life that pleases the fancy of the author. Idealistic literature gives an insight into the nature of the author's unconscious. The unconscious is present in all literatures, and the literary movement but colours it and gives occasion for the expression or censorship of certain phases of it. The principle of unconscious avoiding of the painful is at the basis of the rejection of the world's great books, both old and new. Literary criticism is influenced by our tendency to ignore what causes us pain. Literary men who are advanced are admired often for qualities that do not constitute their real greatness.
