Ages of Anxiety

Craig E. Stephenson is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute Zürich, the Institute for Psychodrama, Zürich, and the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. His most recent book, The Correspondence of Victoria Ocampo, Count Keyserling and C. G. Jung (Routledge, 2023) won the NAAP’s Gradiva Award.

'This is one of the most brilliant and original works by a Jungian analyst that I have read in the past decade: an astute and penetrating analysis and insightful extension of the meaning of W. H. Auden’s poem, The Age of Anxiety.'Steven Herrmann, author of William James and C. G. Jung: Doorways to the Self.'An original and profound study of how war shaped Auden as a poet: how he used Jung’s psychology to understand the turmoil and dread provoked by war, to organize morally and aesthetically the responses of the individual psyche and society to fascism and to probe the poet’s responsibilities in time of war.'Ruth Padel, author of Darwin: A Life in Poems, In and Out of the Mind, and On Migration.'In the current time of mounting political tensions, with dark echoes of escalating intolerance, Stephenson gives us an erudite and reflective reconsideration of one of the twentieth century’s most gifted poets. The central but subtle use of Jung’s view of the psyche, especially his typology, are shown to be woven through The Age of Anxiety, informing its deepest vision. Stephenson’s own creative brilliance manifests through the lightness of his touch.'Joe Cambray, author of Synchronicity: Nature and Psyche in an Interconnected Universe.

• 1. Auden, War Poet 2. Auden’s Use of Jung’s Typology 3. Creative Extrapolations: Bernstein, Robbins, Neumeier and Scarlett 4. The Anxiety of Individuation: Stossel and Dr. W. 5 In the Secular Night: Anxiety in Auden’s Cosmology