Freud's Theories on Sexuality and Their Influences on Surrealist Poetry

Today, I will continue my analysis of David Gascoyne's poem "And the Seventh Dream is the Dream of Isis" in terms of Freudian theory. Specifically, I will discuss how Freud's theories of sexuality (and especially the sexuality of children) influenced the poem.

Most of us have heard at least a glimmer of Freud's unconventional and sometimes disturbing theories, from the Oedipus Complex to the sexuality of infants. Moving on from The Interpretation of Dreams, I will begin to take reference from another one of Freud's major works, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (sometimes referred to as The Three Contributions to Sexual Theory), specifically the second essay, "The Infantile Sexuality," which focuses on the sexuality of infants and children. Simply to point out the fact that Freud did in fact believe in the existence of sexuality in children, I will use a quote from the essay mentioned above, in a section entitled Partial Impulses:

 Small children, whose attention has once been directed to their own genitals—usually by masturbation—are wont to progress in this direction without outside interference, and to develop a vivid interest in the genitals of their playmates.

Now, how does this play into Gascoyne's poem? Did this portion of Freud's theories really have any impact on Surrealist art? In Part III of "The Seventh Dream," the narrator vividly states that

the trunks of trees burst open to release streams of milklittle girls stick photographs of genitals to the windows of their homesprayerbooks in churches open themselves at the death serviceand virgins cover their parents' beds with tealeaves

Of course this excerpt almost self-evidently demonstrates a Freudian influence. Both Freud's thoughts and Gascoyne's poem elaborate on a small child's fascination with the genitals. But Freud's influences on the poem go beyond the obvious: it appears that Gascoyne may have even written the poem in a way that would have been easily analyzed from a psychoanalytic perspective. After all, trunks of trees releasing milk would have almost certainly been analyzed by Freud as a sexual symbol, with milk representing the nourishment of one's mother (let us not forget the Oedipus Complex). In fact, the tree releasing milk is more of a dream-symbol than an example of the literary technique known as "imagery." Furthermore, the poem's title even implies that everything in the poem is the recollection of a dream.

This is a Surrealist painting that also includes references to Freudian theories on sexuality

And the poem contains even more disturbing imagery! The following lines are found in Part II of the poem.

she was standing at the window clothed only in a ribbonshe was burning the eyes of snails in a candleshe was eating the excrement of dogs and horses

Again, the first line is a reference to sexuality, but what on earth was Gascoyne thinking when he wrote the final lines of this excerpt? To help explain, let us use another quote from Freud's work, this time from the first essay, entitled "The Sexual Aberrations" in a section titled The Sexually Immature and Animals as Sex Objects. Freud references

sexual relations with animals—a thing not at all rare among farmers—where the sexual attraction goes beyond the limits of the species.

Furthermore, he describes (again in the second essay, "The Infantile Sexuality") how 

children become voyeurs and are zealous spectators at the voiding of urine and feces of others.

These quotes by Freud may have had an impact on Gascoyne, who seems to combine the sexuality of children with the bestiality sometimes found in adults. For Freud, although these acts were probably rare most of the time, unconscious thoughts about these acts were frequently found in his patients' dreams. Either way, Gascoyne seems to be transferring an example-dream to poetry.

This leads me to my final point. It is obvious that Freud influenced Gascoyne's poem in more ways than one; however, these influences do not occur only in the details of the poem, but also in the composition of it (and many other Surrealist poems) as well. Instead of using traditional composition (ie, writing it in terms so that a literary critic can analyze it with regards to literary techniques), Gascoyne uses a radical new mindset to compose the poem (and I am not referring to automatic writing, even if that may have played into its composition). Instead of writing the poem with literary critics in mind, he writes the poem with psychoanalysts in mind. Gascoyne did not focus on accomplishing literary techniques so much as he focused on composing a flurry of free associations. This is one of Freud's principal influences on Surrealist poetry.