The flame and the half moon: a study of a major theme in the works of Galway Kinnell

The concepts of activity and passivity have appeared both in the writings of Freud and the Neo-Freudians. Though these terms have never had a consistent meaning or application they most often appear in connection with two fundamental areas of concern in psychoanalytic theory. One of these areas concerns the processes of psycho sexual development, in particular, the oral stage of development. The second area concerns the psychoanalytic theory of instinctual aims. Go.lv/ay Kinnell, a contemporary American poet, was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1927 e He has published three books of poetry--What a Kingdom It Was, Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock, Body Rags—and a novel, Black Light. In a great many of his poems, and in the novel, there is one major theme that stands out above the variety of subjects and. other themes that Kinnell develops: this is a concern with the interdependent relationship between life and death, and man's attempt to face this predicament. In his earlier poems three aspects of the theme can clearly be seen: the dual nature of man's existence, symbolized by light and dark, day and night; the belief that life is dying or burning itself out in the process of living, or, as Richard Howard says: " …the ecstatic constatation of the death that is in being, the being that is in death'1;5 and, finally, the belief that in the Quest for survival life takes from othsz1 life® This last aspect is clarified in a passage discussing one of Kinnell's poems, "Testament of the Thief," in a two-part article by Ralph J. Mills.