ABSTRACT
Jung’s imaginative and symbolic writing is neither a literary device nor an embellishment, but is his psychology’s most complete expression, according to Susan Rowland. Closely examining what Jung wrote about his foremost therapeutic method, which he called “active imagination”, she intuitively grasps its family resemblance to a method of literary criticism called “close reading”. In this essay, Rowland carefully traces the nature of each method, approximating their analogous contours, and bridging the gap between them where fruitful exchanges might begin to occur for their mutual enrichment. By holding the two methods face to face, Rowland creates magic. She inspires the literary scholar to gain familiarity with Jung’s writing and thus enhance his or her skill as a critic and the Jungian analyst to contemplate the dual nature of his or her work and narrative competence. She does so with her own imaginative and symbolic writing.
