Review of The Poetic Mind

Abstract

Reviews the book, The Poetic Mind by F. C. Prescott (1922). Professor Prescott, an English professor, has collected from far and wide statements of the poets and other creative artists concerning the source and manner of their inspiration, and with a surprising unanimity of opinion he has found that they testify to a power within from which their creative works emanate and over which they have no voluntary control. This mysterious source of power Professor Prescott attempts to identify with the subconscious mind. Step by step Professor Prescott parallels the two kinds of dreams, showing that the impulse, the censorship, displacements, condensations, fusions, and fictional gratification are common to both and have the same explanations. Whatever be the merits of his findings, he has decidedly done the psychologists a service by bringing them into contact with a field of investigation which few of them are likely to be so well qualified as he to explore--the mental operations during poetic inspiration as explained by the poets themselves. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)