Document 140

Sublimation/Eros and the Muse

Author(s): Sheena Blackhall

Copyright holder(s): Sheena Blackhall

Sublimation: 'the physical sexual impulse, or libido, in the narrow sense, can be so transformed into some impulse of higher psychic energy that it ceases to be urgent as a physical need... '(Freud) remarks that artists are often... endowed with a specially powerful capacity for sublimation.'... 'the Italian psychotherapist Assagioli attaches high value to sublimation... artistic creation is deeply but obscurely related to the process.' Ellis, H. 1965: 307-308

Bumbazed, we hear anither famous man
Played wi himsel aneth his desk,
Rattled his ain tin can.
He didna tryst wee quines up Terror's lanes,
Nor preen a Voyeur's neb 'gainst windae panes,
Nor peddle heroin, tae pyson halflins' veins.
His public darg... wis't spylt by yon pursuit? I dinna ken.
If Burns hid sublimated aa his groin's dictates,
Poems wad hae poored in torrents frae his pen.
Salvador Dali aften eese tae craw,
He's come afore his canvas. Claimed that he
Wis blessed wi supra-creativity
A topic wirthy o a PhD.
Except maist fowk wad lee... includin me.
Sae fit's perversion? Queen, tricked oot as tart?
A German peinter chiel, oot tae impress
Ejaculated in a public gallery,
Caain this 'Seed Bed' an 'Performance Art'.
A thochtie avant-guard, I maun confess,
Fin Eros lies doon cauldly wi the Muse,
Tae prove Libido's Inspiration's fuse.
(I've niver seen a cuddy in suspenders
I've niver seen a puddock in a basque
For sado-masochism, bondage, flashin's
The kick-start in humanity's hip-flask)

Flesh turned tae wird, the sexual made sublime's
The oil in the lamp that gars it shine.

Information about Document 140

Sublimation/Eros and the Muse