Depth Psychological Literary Criticism: some Methodological Questions.

The problems we encounter when assessing the validity of depth-psychological interpretations of literary works are considerable. How can we determine whether a given interpretation is adequate to the text in question? Conversely, can we demonstrate that certain interpretations are inadequate? If so, how? If not — that is, if any depth-psychological interpretation is assumed to be as valid as any other — then what is the intellectual status of exploring literary works from a depth-psychological perspective? More broadly, what are we seeking when we employ this particular method of literary interpretation? The paper addresses these questions through the discussion of several illustrative examples.