_Hamlet_ (_American Journal of Psychology_, January, 1910), Dr. Isidor Coriat's account of the hysteria of Lady Macbeth and Professor F. C. Prescott's scholarly essay on the relation between poetry and dreams (_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, April, June, 1912), are excellent pioneer works in psychoanalytical literary criticism.[C] IV Freud is a genius whose performances astonish one as do those of a wizard. His revolutions in psychology are no less important than those of Darwin in biology. After his discoveries, literary interpretation cannot remain the same. The points of difference between him and his disciples Jung and Adler need not be touched on here. My own sympathies are with Freud. The new method will help to explain the nature and origin of literary genius, though it is not pretended it will create it. Psychoanalysis will show us the direction that literary genius takes and will explain why it proceeds in a particular path. It will give the reasons why one author writes books of a particular colour or tendency, why he entertains certain ideas. It explains why certain plots and characters are indulged in by particular authors. It claims to tell why Schopenhauer became a pessimist, why Wagner dealt with themes like the woman between two men. In fact studies of these artists, employing Freud's methods, have already been published. Graf and Rank each wrote about Wagner, and Hitschman has given us a monograph on Schopenhauer. Similarly the critic of the future will explain the fundamental tone of the works of writers who differ vastly from each other. We will see more clearly why Byron gave vent to his note of melancholy, Keats to his passion for beauty, Browning to his spirit of optimism, Strindberg to his misogyny, Swift to his misanthropy, Ibsen to his moral revolt, Tolstoi to his religious reaction, Thackeray to his cynicism, and Wordsworth to his love for nature. The author is more in his work than he suspects. To illustrate: There is a theory of projection, in psychoanalysis, which explains to us that hysterical people lean with great eagerness for moral support or consolation on some actual person they love or admire. Often he is the clergyman or physician, at other times he is a friend or relative. The same thing occurs in literature. The writer who has certain theories clings for support to some characters in history or fiction. He projects his personality on theirs. If he writes a biography he chooses a type most like himself and is really writing his own life. Renan's _Life of Jesus_ is really a life of Renan and he makes Jesus have many qualities he himself had. I have compared Renan's autobiography to his _Life of Jesus_ and shown the resemblance between Renan and the Jesus of his creation.