Lionel Trilling is one of the few critics of any standing to have actually written at some length on the relationship between psychoanalysis and literature. Aside from the incidental use which he makes of psychoanalytic ideas in the regular course of his criticism, he has several times directed his attention specifically to evaluations of what this relationship has been in the past and may be in the future. In particular, there are three essays which may well serve as milestones in his consideration of the subject. Each constitutes a clear statement of a position—even when the position is somewhat ambivalent—and, taken in chronological order, they show a steady progress toward mastery of the scientific ideas themselves and their integration into criticism.

Trilling begins from strength. Even in the earliest of the essays it is evident that he has more knowledge about psychoanalysis than most other critics...