The Inward-Outward Dichotomy in Robert Bly's Poetry: A Postmodern Psychoanalytic Approach

Abstract

This paper attempts to uncover the inward and the outward dichotomy in Robert Bly's poetry in terms of postmodernism and psychoanalysis. It The significance of Bly's poetry lies in the fact that that he embodies the psychospiritual problems and suggests solutions to overcome these complex problems. In this paper, he highlights the conflict between the inner world and the outer world in some selected poems and tackles the solution at the end of his second volume the Light around the Body . Bly adopts many concepts and ideas from Jungian psychology to convey his message. There are many postmodern features in Bly's poetry, including inwardness, iconoclasm, fragmentation, intertextuality and formlessness.