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The objective of this research study is to explore the manifold similarities in thought between Yeatsian poetics and Jungian psychology. It will examine the number of points at which Carl Jung and William Butler Yeats touch and merge. We will not only find that the similarities between Yeats and Jung stem from the human mind, but that the creative forces, the inner impulses and structures that impel these individual creations, are all established, as it would appear, on the one essential ground plan. In particular, the study will address the collective depths of the unconscious which are responsible for the unfolding of a drama of the human mind and of human creativity in the works of the two men. Though the two had never met, parallels clearly exist between the poetics of Yeats and Jungian psychology. In Wheels and Butterflies (1934), Yeats remarks that "a German psychoanalyst has traced the 'mother complex' back to the mother of our sea". I am sure that for "German" we can safely read "Swiss" and thereon we can confidently add the authority of C. G. Jung. This work, therefore, will investigate the many similarities in thought, image, expression and intention present in the works of Yeats and Jung. Yeats's poetry can be read as an expression of ancient truths revealed to him by spirits of the past and spirits of the unconscious. The mind of Yeats was forever, nourishing, or flourishing in, the poetic sensibility that would create the different poetic personas of Michael Robartes, Red Hanrahan, Owen Aherne and Crazy Jane. The psyche for Jung is a natural system and his psychology, therefore, a natural science. This study will aim to look at the poetic system and the psychic system and how they overlap.
