NPPF Comm3: Psyche images

[Michael Joseph]

Thanks for responding to my post, David.

Sonia Cavicchioli's "The Tale of Cupid and Psyche" (NY:  Braziller, 2002)
is the best, most comprehensive study of the tale of Cupid and Psyche and
its interpretations and artistic representations that I know of.
Cavicchioli records that "as early as the fifth century B.C., images
appear in the Greek world of the soul represented either as a young girl
with butterfly wings or simply as a butterfly. While the analogy between
soul and butterfly is justified by the fact that the same term [...]
defines them both, we must nonetheless observe that Plato, creating in
Phaedrus the myth of the winged soul that tendsd toward perfection and
immortality, moves in teh same direction as these images. 'The natural
property of a wing is to raise tthat which is heavy and carry it aloft to
a region where the gods dwell, and more than any other bodiily part it
shares in the divine nature, which is fair, wise, and good, and possessed
of all other such ex ellences. Now by these excellences especially is the
soul's plummage nourished and fostered, while by their opposites, even by
ugliness and evil, it is wasted and destroyed.'"

Cavicchioli also notes that Cupid and Psyche figures appear on a funerary
urn in the fifth century BCE, and speculates that Psyche as soul appears
to have symbolized the soul's posthumous reunion with the god (although,
by the time Apuleius wrote his story of C&P in "The Golden Ass" --see
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/mjoseph/Apuleius.html--the theme had
already been secularized into a charming genre scene. Apparently,
depictions of C&P with wings signify chthonic meanings and those without
are simply charming.

The earliest independent modern representation of a butterly within a
graphic narrative of the story seems to have been preserved by the
antiquarian Bernard de Montfaucon (a Benedictine in the congregation of
Saint Maur) in 1719, in an illustration to "L'Antiquite expliquee." The
Baroque and Classical artists made the butterfly a convention, to
emphasize the spiritual (rather than carnal) nature of the myth
(presumably, this licensed them to paint voluptuous nudes), a convention
received by nineteenth century artists, such as JOhann Heinrich.

About ten years ago I mounted a web page with about 50 psyche & cupid
images, which still remains live at
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/mjoseph/images.html.

Then, of course, there's the White Rock Girl ...
http://www.whiterocking.org/psyche.html

For a couple of popular critical interpretations of the APuleius story see
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/mjoseph/neumann.html (Erich Neumann)


http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/mjoseph/bettelheim.html (Bruno
Bettlehheim)


(Note, Bettleheim's interpretation of the lamp seems to relate to
Nabokov's use of light imagery, as in Jasper's notes, although I think
Nabokov has a darker and more compelling image of Cupid:

"When Psyche breaks the taboo by using the lamp to see Eros in the
darkness, Bettelheim understands this as an attempt to expand her
consciousness before she is ready for it:

  'The story warns that trying to reach for consciousness before one is
mature enough for it or through short-cuts has far reaching consequences;
consciousness cannot be gained in one fell swoop. In desiring mature
consciousness, one puts ones life on the line, as Psyche does when she
tries to kill herself in desperation. The incredible hardships Psyche has
to endure suggest the difficulties man [sic] encounters when the highest
psychic qualities (Psyche) are to be wedded to sexuality (Eros)'

          (The Uses of Enchantment. NY, 1977: p. 293)

and J. Schroeder Het Sprookje van Amor en Psyche in het licht der
Psychoanalyse (1917)

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/mjoseph/schroeder.html



Michael

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, David Morris wrote:

>
> Very nice Michael.  I'll have to look at this myth again.  I didn't know Psyche
> was represented as a butterfly/moth.  Was it so in ancient times?  Can you pass
> along some URL's or references?
>
> --- Michael Joseph <mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >
> > light images also touch lightly on the (Cupid) Psyche imagery of the poem.
> > Psyche as human spirit, wed to a monster/death, harrower of hell, and
> > ultimately immortalized by Jupiter at Cupid's request, is conventionally
> > represented (e.g. Gerard, David, Canova)  as a butterfly, of which Shade's
> > poem includes abundant examples. The Greek word Psyche specifically refers
> > to a kind of night moth. Hazel's suicide (following her disastrous efforts
> > on behalf of love) occurs at night, and could, conceivably, be thought of
> > as a wedding to death (just as Psyche's marriage, arranged by the oracle,
> > is portrayed as an execution). The ambiguous nature of revelation is
> > nicely figured in Psyche's lamplight discovery of Cupid's reposing body--a
> > discovery that simultaneously makes her fall deeply in love with him and
> > precipitates his flight that leaves her bereft: the deadly ambiguity of
> > the moth beating her wings against the flame.
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
> http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>