The Poet as a Victim: An Analytical Study of the Motives of the Poet and the Recipient

Abstract

This paper explores the profound relationship between the poet and poetic creativity from a psychoanalytic perspective, tracing the components of the poet’s creative identity with a focus on what is known as the “victim identity.” The study is based on the premise that the poet is not merely a producer of aesthetic language, but one who reshapes repressed psychological experiences and painful memories into an intensified artistic form. The concept of “the currency of poetry” is introduced as a metaphor for the creative process, in which the poet reworks shared pain into a captivating poetic language that restores clarity and intensity to the recipient.

The research analyzes the poet’s consciousness through the concepts of repression, identification, deprivation, and narcissism, drawing on the theories of Freud, Jung, and approaches in modern psychoanalytic criticism. It demonstrates how the poet identifies with the “victim” identity in their perception of self and the world, and how this identity becomes a source of emotionally resonant and deeply human poetic expression. The study concludes that poetry serves as a vehicle for emotional condensation, enabling the poet to transmit a personal experience as if it were collective-offering the recipient an opportunity for empathy, emotional immersion, and psychological catharsis.