Rolfe words are spoken in the poem by the character Rolfe (based on Melville circa 1851) in Part 1: "Bethlehem," Canto 4, "An Intruder," Lines 26-28 in the 1991 critical edition of Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land, edited by Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (Northwestern University Press and the Newberry Library).
In Edinger's bibliography (pages 144-147), he lists the 1960 critical edition of Clarel (1876), edited by Walter E. Bezanson (New York: Hendricks House). But all of Bezanson's fine editorial critical commentaries in the 1960 edition have been reprinted, slightly updated, in the 1991 critical edition.
According to Edinger, "Jung say, 'The experience of the Self [archetype] is always a defeat for the ego[-consciousness]'" - at times, leading to a psychotic breakdown of ego-consciousness (page 139).
Edinger also says, "The crucial feature [in the encounter of ego-consciousness with the Self archetype] is the ego's awareness of the 'other,' the basic requirement for dialogue" (page 139). This new awareness in ego-consciousness of the "other" within one's psyche opens one's ego-consciousness to a kind of internal dialogue with the Self archetype (in one's spiritual life), and to possible external dialogues with other persons in one's real life in the world.
Now, in Melville's Clarel, an enormous amount of ostensible dialogue occurs in the back-and-forth conversations among the thirty or so different characters with speaking roles. Think of the conversations in the "Prologue" to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - Melville's Clarel is Chaucer's "Prologue" on steroids. However, in my estimate, there are no instances in either literary work of what Martin Buber refers to as I-thou encounter. So if Edinger's claim that the basic requirement of dialogue, properly understood as what Buber refers to as I-thou encounter, is correct, then we would have to conclude that no two characters in the Melville's long centennial poem have yet fully experienced what Edinger claims is "[t]he crucial feature" of ego-consciousness' awareness of the "other."
Now, Edinger's book also includes a "Glossary of Jungian Terms" (pages 140-143). In the entry for "Transference, countertransference," Edinger says, "Used to describe the emotional involvement, whether positive or negative, between patient and psychotherapist. Both transference and countertransference are other words for projection" (page 143).
In the entry for "Projection," Edinger says, "A natural process whereby an unconscious quality, characteristic, or talent of one's own is perceived and reacted to in an outer person or thing" (page 142).
Simply stated, an I-thou encounter (in Buber's terminology) does not involve projections (in Edinger's Jungian terminology). In Edinger's terminology, the two persons involved in a genuine I-thou encounter have ego awareness of the "other" and are thereby equipped to enter into dialogue.
Now, earlier in Edinger's 1995 book about Melville's Moby-Dick, Edinger recounts how Melville, when he was writing Moby-Dick, met Nathanial Hawthorne (pages 19-20). Edinger says, "Melville's reaction was immediate and intense. It can only be described as a spiritual love affair, or to use a psychological term, a transference. Being fifteen years older than Melville, Hawthorne undoubtedly carried some of the meaning of the missing father experience [in Melville's life]. Also, Melville projected onto Hawthorne his own emerging capacities for greatness. . . . Hawthorne of course could not live up to such intense transference. As with all powerful projections, it came with a possessiveness which provoked from its object a protective withdrawal" (page 19).
As mentioned above, the character Rolfe in Melville's Clarel is based on Melville circa 1851. The character Vine is loosely based on Hawthorne circa 1851 - and Vine's "protective withdrawal" is clearly portrayed in Melville's centennial poem.
In any event, Melville's Clarel (1876) was an enormous flop. Except for Melville's brother-in-law, few Americans were ready to read Melville's experimental poem. To this day, relatively few Americans have read his experimental poem, despite of the constructive efforts of Bezanson, Knapp, and Potter to help us understand it. Nevertheless, Melville himself did not experience the kind of mental breakdown that his father had experienced - and he did not die at the age of forty-nine, as his father had. He lived fifteen more years after the publication of Clarel. He died at the age of seventy-two on September 28, 1891 - in obscurity. But what a rich literary legacy he left the literature-reading English-speaking world of readers who know how to use their analogical imaginations when they read his works.
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