Religion 38 (2008) 366–374

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Religion
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/religion

The notion of archetype in Eliade’s writingsq

Natale Spineto
Dipartimento di Storia, Universita di Torino, Via S. Ottavio 20, 10124 Torino, Italy

a b s t r a c t

Keywords: The notion of archetype is of crucial importance in Eliade’s historical-religious perspective,

Eliade, although he never provides a clear definition. The aim of this paper is to discuss the origins
History of Religions, of the notion of archetype and clarify its meanings. Starting from the first occurrences of
Archetype,
the term ‘archetype’ in 1937, and taking into account the issue of the relations of the
Morphology,
Eliadean archetype with those of C.G. Jung, K. Kerényi, A.K. Coomaraswamy and E. D’Ors,
Phenomenology,
Hermeneutics, three meanings of the notion of ‘archetype’ can be identified in his works, where it is used
Goethe, systematically since 1942. The first of these three meanings is the ‘descriptive’ meaning
Husserl, (the archetype as the expression of an ‘archaic ontology’, possessing a ‘Platonic structure’);
Jung, the second is the ‘existential’ meaning (the archetype as a consequence of boundary
Kerényi, situations that a human being discovers at the moment of reaching an awareness of his or
D’Ors her own position in the universe); the third is the ‘morphological’ meaning (the archetype
as a structural and structuring element of the religious phenomenon). In order to under-
stand the third concept, it is necessary to address the problem of the relation between
Eliade’s concept, J.W. Goethe’s morphology and E. Husserl’s philosophical phenomenology.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The archetype in Eliade’s early writings

The term ‘archetype’ appears for the first time in Cosmologie şi alchimie babiloniana  (Eliade, 1937, p. 91). Eliade states that,
in a magic-dominated universe, where heavens and earth are homologized, everything ‘partakes’ of an archetype. The
archetype is considered a model, possessing both the qualities of being exemplary and sacred. Such characteristics are made
evident in the two components of the word’s composition. In fact, if typos refers to the stampdthat is, what printsdand at the
same time it refers to the resulting imprint, arché stands for a primeval, original nature, both in the chronological and
axiological senses (Moon, 1987, p. 379). The archetype is therefore the original and sacred model to whichdaccording to the
belief of ‘archaic’ civilizationsdall things in the world conform. The fact that the term is only used oncedand that Eliade does
not even bother to explain its usagedsuggests that the scholar did not give the word any special value or particular
significance in his works. It probably derives from his philosophical readings.
Eliade uses the word ‘archetype’ twice in his essay Insula lui Euthanasius (Eliade, 1939; see Ricketts, 1988, p. 1148). Again
the word is used twice in Mitul reintegra rii, a collection of articles written in the years 1939–1940 and published in 1942. In an
essay about Balzac’s romantic novel Séraphı̂ta, Eliade claims that the French writer revisits the topic of ‘the Androgyne
considered as a pattern of the perfect man, the ‘‘primordial archetype’’’ (Eliade, 1989, p. 59). The second occurrence of the
term is found in the next chapter’s title, ‘The androgynous archetype’ (Eliade, 1989, p. 67); in both cases, ‘archetype’ stands for
‘model’. In another part of the same essay, Eliade addresses the question of the origin of the ‘primordial ideas’. The idea of the
polarity and the ambivalence of the divine, he writes, is primeval and universal. But historical research cannot certify qualities

q This article is translated from the Italian by H. Olivera. It is an updated and revised version of a part of Spineto (2006, pp. 167–201), which, in its turn, is
the result of the re-elaboration and the fusion of Spineto (1997, 1998). I would like to thank Brian Rennie for his reading and his comments on the article.
E-mail address: natale.spineto@unito.it

0048-721X/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.religion.2008.07.001
 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374 367

such as universality and primordial nature; they are proven right by the fact that the ‘primordial idea’ responds to a funda-
mental need of the human being, and appears when humankind becomes aware of its position in the cosmos. This explanation,
here associated with ‘primordial ideas’, can be considered an attempt to give reasons for the universal nature of the archetype:
inextricably linked to the human condition, it can be regarded as a constant in every experience (Eliade, 1989, p. 52).
The fact that the word ‘archetype’ first appeared in Eliade’s writings in 1937 is significant. This year represents a turning
point in Eliade’s works; from then on, his writings seem to be richer and more articulated from the conceptual point of view.
The issues that will be characteristic of the post-war writings made their appearancedor were developeddat that time; in
particular, there is an establishment of the idea that all religious facts are of a symbolic nature, that their study implies
a reference to ‘structures’ and that they respond to an existential need. Ricketts links this ‘turning point’ to the reading of Carl
Hentze, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Paul Mus (Ricketts, 1988, pp. 800 ff.). Paola Pisi points out that, in Coomaraswamy, Eliade
found the term ‘archetype’ in its ‘Platonic’ meaning of role model (Pisi, 1998; see also Ricketts, 1988, p. 853).1 However, until
1942, forms, structures and exemplary models are not systematically identified as archetypes. The situation changes in 1943
with Comentarii la legenda Meşterului Manole. In this book, the concept of archetype seems to find a definite place in Eliade’s
technical glossary (Ricketts, 1988, p. 1149):
. it is impossible to make a history of women by comparing, at the same level, Madame Bovary with gynaecological
exorcisms, etc. But it is not less true that, seen for what they are, all these documents, notwithstanding their disparity
and different dating, converge towards the same theory and reveal the same archetype (Eliade, 1990a, p. 17).2
Eliade does not insist on a theoretical definition of archetype, but refers clearly to Plato, pointing out ‘the extent to which
the archaic theory of the archetype and the participation bears a resemblance with Plato’s theory of ideas and participation’
(Eliade, 1990a, p. 107). This points to the topic of the ‘Platonic structure of archaic ontology’, which is, even in Eliade’s
following works, the key to the interpretation of the religious ideas of ‘traditional’ civilizations.
If we take into account Eliade’s previous works, we will see that there is nothing new about the concept of ‘exemplary
model’ in the Comentarii; what is really new is the systematic usage of the term ‘archetype’ to refer to it. From where does this
usage come? Here, Eliade quotes for the first time Einführung in das Wesen der Mythologie, by Carl Gustav Jung and Károly
Kerényi, published in 1942: ‘the archetype of the ‘‘boy’’ is to be found not only in myths and legends but also in alchemy,
gnosis and superstitions, and it reappears, as Jung remarks in a recent study, in certain neurotic visions, in certain dreams, etc.’
(Eliade, 1990a, p. 41). So the reading of Jung could have stimulated and encouraged Eliade to use the term ‘archetype’ (Culianu,
1978, p. 58). In the aforementioned excerpt, Eliade seems to deem it possible to integrate the results of Jungian research into
his own system, without trying to differentiate it from his own approach. But, then as before, there was no psychological
connotation in his concept of archetype.
It is also important to remember that the Einführung was not written solely by Jung but also by Kerényi, and while the
reported excerpt refers to Jung, Eliade’s following quotation refers to the part written by the Hungarian scholar (Eliade, 1990a,
p. 43, n. 13). Besides, we know that Eliade was an attentive reader of Kerényi’s works (Spineto, 2006, pp. 239–242). In the
Einführung, Kerényi does not use Jungian terminology, nor does he use the theories of analytic psychology; but the historical-
religious perspective adopted is still compatible with Jung’s teachings, into which it could be integrated in more ways than
one. He writes: ‘Living mythology [.] expands in infinite and yet shapely multiplicity, rather like the plant-world in
comparison with Goethe’s ‘‘primal plant’’. We must always keep our eyes on both: the historical Many and the unitive
principle that is nearest to the origin’ (Jung and Kerényi, 1969, p. 24). The term archetype is absent from these statements,
while the concept already is present. In subsequent years, Kerényi also came to use the term ‘archetype’ regularly (see Magris,
1975, pp. 105–113). In any case, Eliade had already found, in the Kerényi of the Einführung, an example of how the Jungian
theses could be applieddwithout accepting all their implicationsdin an effort to grasp the elements of universality and
uniqueness in the religious fact.
It is in this period that Eliade finds the notion of archetype also in the works of another scholar whom he had previously
met in person: Eugenio d’Ors. In 1959, he writes: ‘As I have said, I use the word ‘‘archetype’’ just as Eugenio d’Ors does, as
a synonym for ‘‘exemplary model’’ or ‘‘paradigm’’’ (Eliade, 1959, p. ix). Eliade shared d’Ors’ anti-historicism as well as some
features of the concept of knowledge, intended to overcome the contrast between eternal and historical. In particular, d’Ors
criticized both rationalism, which, through abstraction, projects knowledge beyond reality, and intuitionism, which denies
the distance between the knower and the known. Such distance constitutes a condition for the exercise of the cognitive
action. Therefore, the idea is neither abstract nor a perceivable image, it is instead a ‘figure’, and the mental faculty able to
grasp it is ‘figurative thinking’, which joins together ‘at the same time, the perceivable element, and within it, the rational
element, the pattern, the order’ (Aranguren, 1953, p. 33). ‘The historical fact as such does not happen again, but the essences of
the historical do; the ‘‘constants’’ reappear’ (Aranguren, 1953, p. 64); and the outcome is a historical science understood as
‘morphology’ (Aranguren, 1953, p. 66). The Spanish scholar and Eliade shared an interest in the problem of the reconciliation
between historical facts and meta-historical constants, as well as the way they found to solve it: the concept of archetype as
the meeting point between reality and ideal. The acquaintance between the two scholarsdwho met personally in 1941 and
had the opportunity to share their ideasdgrew into mutual admiration. After reading Le mythe de l’éternel retour, d’Ors

1
Since there is no mention of the term ‘archetype’ in Plato, the adjective ‘Platonic’ is given in quotation marks.
2
Here and in the following all translations of works so far not published in English were translated into English by H. Oliveira.
368 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374

enthusiastically praised the way in which Eliade highlighted ‘the Platonic structure of archaic and traditional (‘‘folk’’)
ontologies’ (Eliade, 1990b, p. 98 and Eliade, 1988, p. 134, n. 2).

The Jungian meaning of archetype

It is now possible to attempt a classification of the meanings given to the term ‘archetype’. The term became common in
the intellectual lexicon of modern times thanks to Carl Gustav Jung, and it is possible that Eliade had started to use it more
frequently after reading the works of the Swiss psychiatrist. But Eliade had already talked about archetypes, when discussing
Babylonian alchemy, and he had not made any reference to Jung. Mac Linscott Ricketts claims that, at the beginning, Eliade
was not aware of the distance between his conception and that of Jung, but after he had met Jung personally and joined the
Eranos circle, he found himself in need of clarifying the differences that separated him from the psychologist (Ricketts, 1988, p.
1153). In an unpublished diary entry of August 21st 1951, Eliade writes: ‘Jung’s archetypes horrify me’ (Ricketts, 2002b, p. 76),
and the correspondence between the two scholars shows how different their positions were, and how easily the use of
a common terminology could lead to misunderstandings (Eliade, 1999, pp. 341–346). Actually, his dissociation from Jung’s
position happened before the establishment of a personal relationship between the two men, which took place in 1950
(Eliade, 1990b, p. 113). Soon after finishing Le mythe de l’éternel retourdthe subtitle of which was precisely Archétypes et
répétitiondEliade wrote to Raffaele Pettazzoni, on May 19th 1947: ‘I have just finished my little book Archetypes and Repetition
(not in the Jungian sense, etc.)’ (Eliade and Pettazzoni, 1994, p. 155). What was clear for Eliadedclear enough to be told to
Pettazzoni in a few words in parentheses, as if it was obviousdwas not yet evident for many readers who regarded him as
a Jungian. Therefore, an explicit clarification of his differences from Jung became a necessity, and a footnote in the English
edition of the book (1959) includes the following warning: ‘I neglected to specify that I was not referring to the archetypes
described by Professor C.G. Jung. This was a regrettable error. For to use in an entirely different meaning the term that plays
a role of primary importance in Jung’s psychology could lead to confusion’ (Eliade, 1959, p. viii). Eliade also makes reference to
Eugenio d’Ors, and explains that he uses the word, in the last analysis, in an Augustinian sense (Eliade, 1959, p. ix). The concept
of ‘archetype’, that in d’Ors’ thought is ‘none other than a key concept’, does not have the same meaning in the context of
Eliade’s worksda point that the Spanish scholar had taken care to make. Francisco Diez de Velasco, who analyses the issue in
great detail, suggests that, in this period, Eliade could have used d’Ors’ name in order to make reference to a well-known
scholar, a protagonist of the modern intellectual debate who had just passed away (in 1954), at the height of his career, to
show how the term ‘archetype’ could be used without the Jungian echo. Possibly, Eliade ‘used’ d’Ors ‘in order to get rid of
Jung: a master sets him free from another’ (Diez de Velasco, 2007, pp. 110–112).
In 1978, in an interview conducted by Claude-Henri Rocquet, Eliade came to say that he even regretted the fact of having
included the word ‘archetype’ in his book’s subtitle, and explains: ‘I was using the term with reference to Plato and Saint
Augustine. I give it the sense of ‘‘exemplary model’’, revealed in myth and reactualized though ritual. I should have said
‘‘paradigms and repetition’’’ (Eliade, 1982, p. 164). The same thing is said in his memoirs, in this case with reference to the
term’s ‘original, Neoplatonic sense of paradigm, exemplary model’ (Eliade, 1988, p. 162). The reference to the ‘original sense’ of
the archetype, however, is not enough to express the difference between Eliade’s position and that of Jung, since the Swiss
psychologist refers explicitly to the same tradition when he reconstructs the history of the usage of the word ‘archetype’: he
mentions Philo, who linked the archetype to God’s image present in man, Irenaeus, for whom the archetypes were the models
of creation, the Corpus hermeticum, in which God is called ‘archetypical light’, Dionysius the Areopagite, who often used the
word, and Augustine, in whose works the term does not appear, while the correspondent concept does. Generally,
‘Archetype’ is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidos. For our purposes this term is apposite and helpful,
because it tells us that so far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic ordI
would saydprimordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times (Jung, 1969, pp.
4–5).
These were ideas that Eliade could share, but for Jung, the archetype was a conceptual instrument within his meta-
psychology, and therefore it involved a technical aspect. Eliade makes no comment about this technical meaning: ‘in my book,
I nowhere touch upon the problems of deep psychology, nor do I use the concept of the collective unconscious’ (Eliade, 1959,
p. ix). In other words, Eliade’s interest in Jung’s personality, works and conceptual apparatus did not imply utter adherence.
Ioan Petru Culianu states that three concepts of ‘archetype’ are to be found in Eliade’s writings (Culianu, 1978, pp. 56–57).
One of them would be the ‘Jungian’ one (the other two being the ‘phenomenological’ one in the sense of ‘prototype’ and the
‘a-historical pre-formal and performative category’ in terms of the ‘history of religions’). According to the Romanian author:
The archetypes have an objective side, inasmuch as they are deduced from different religious and folkloric traditions,
and a subjective side, as they are autochthonous, self-contained productions of the transpersonal unconscious. When
Eliade talks about archetypes in a psychological sense, he almost invariably refers to their objective form. It could be
said, in this case, that the difference between the meanings of ‘archetype’ in Eliade and Jung is negligible (Culianu, 1978,
p. 57, n. 17).
However, there are doubts about the legitimacy of the distinction between the two ‘aspects’ of the Jungian archetype, that
is to say, it is doubtful that Jung’s archetype will still be Jung’s archetype once the side that Culianu calls ‘subjective’ has been
bracketed off.
 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374 369

As the cited documents indicate, there was no such thing as a simple transmission of the concept of archetype from Jung to
Eliade. The question of the analogy of meaning that the archetype can acquire in the thought of both authors still remains
a problem. In this case though, the problem is transferred from the historical level to the methodological/philosophical one,
and has to do with the general relations between the two scholars. In any case, it is possible to point out that the ‘herme-
neutics’ put forth by both Jung and Eliade often follow parallel lines, although they do not (and cannot) overlap (see Spineto,
1992). Thus we cannot agree with the claim that Eliade makes use of the Jungian concept of archetype. In the following, I will
distinguish three further meanings of the term that occur in Eliade’s works.

The archetype as a descriptive concept

First, archetype is a descriptive concept. Eliade uses it with the purpose of reconstructing and interpreting a certain
historical situation, that of the so-called ‘archaic’ societies. In the Encyclopaedia of Religion, the author of the entry ‘Archetype’
writes in her article: ‘For the member of tribal and traditional cultures, the archetypes provide the models of his institutions
and the norms of his various categories of behaviour’ (Moon, 1987, p. 379). In this sense, archetype is a ‘synonym of prototype,
original category, primordial act, as a component of the archaic mental universe’ (Scagno, 1993, p. 51). The archetype is at the
basis of the ‘archaic ontology’, which features a ‘Platonic structure’. The Comentarii begin in the following way: ‘for the archaic
man, a thing or an action possess significance as long as they partake in a prototype, or repeat a primeval act’ (Eliade, 1990a, p. 7).
For the archaic man, that is, not for man tout-court, nor for homo religiosus in general, nor for the historian, nor for Eliade
himself. Undoubtedly, they all hold particular beliefs and have their own preferences regarding religiosity, but they are not
necessarily attached to an ‘archaic’ vision of things. This notion of archetype is also consistent with perspectives other than
Eliade’s: the correspondence between Pettazzoni and Eliade shows that this first concept of archetype was relatively in accord
with the Italian scholardat that time the main supporter of the ‘historicist’ perspective. ‘Relatively’, because Pettazzoni
accepts it only to the extent to which Eliade would clearly relate it to the historical context. In his work L’Onniscienza di Dio
(1955), the Italian scholar uses the expression ‘archetypical projection’; the usage of the term ‘archetype’ demonstrates that
he did not take exception to Eliade’s studies, although at the same time he intends to draw a definite distinction between his
position and that of Eliade. In his Ultimi appunti he will clarify his conception of the archetypes’ ‘historicity’. In his opinion, the
archetypes are historical for two reasons: firstly, ‘the ideology of the eternal return, of the cyclical repetition of the archetypes
is historically conditioned, inasmuch as it depends on an agricultural world’ (Pettazzoni, 1960, p. 31). Secondly, ‘the
archetypes are themselves a construction of man (and therefore they are also culturally conditioned)’ (Pettazzoni, 1960, p. 36).
Which human construction? Not the construction of the scholar who studies the history of religions, but that of the human
being who lives in a world ruled by agriculture.

The existential value of the archetype

The archetype is not only the exemplary model that an archaic society ‘reactualizes’ through rites and expresses through
myths. It possesses a universal and primeval character, inasmuch as it is linked to human existence. In the conclusion of the
Comentarii, Eliade writes: ‘Man could escape from anything, except for the archetypical intuitions, created at the very moment
in which he has become aware of his position in the Cosmos’ (Eliade, 1990a, p. 111). This topic, already present in Mitul
reintegra rii (Eliade, 1989, p. 52), represents a constant element in Eliade’s works: ‘Myths and rites [.] always disclose
a boundary situation of mandnot only an historical situation. A boundary situation is one which man discovers in becoming
conscious of his place in the universe’ (Eliade, 1961, p. 34). Here, the archetype is not a descriptive concept, linked to a certain
type of civilization, but a component of human existence. A dialogue with the theories of Pettazzoni’s school was also possible
in relation to this second notion of archetype, since the ‘existential’ meaning of archetype is also consistent with an historicist
point of view, as long as man’s ‘awareness’ of his situation within the cosmos can be considered as ‘the historical moment of
becoming men’ (Brelich, 1953–1954, p. 239). Just like Pettazzoni, in the 1950s Angelo Brelich tried to make a contribution to
a ‘dialogue [.] between Italian historicism and certain foreign methodological approaches (mostly defined as ‘‘psycholo-
gistic’’)’ (Brelich, 1953–1954, p. 237). In reference to those ‘images that [Eliade] considers universal and perennial’ (Brelich,
1953–1954, p. 238), Brelich points out that:
Not even the most integral historicism could deny the existence of certain universally human, structural bases, such as
language, the use of tools, etc. It could be also conceivable that certain foundations of the imagination could be part of
the spiritual wealth conquered at the very ‘moment’ of becoming men (Brelich, 1953–1954, p. 239).
This is the sense that can be recognized in the notion of archetype from a historicist perspective. As for certain archetypes,
adds Brelich, ‘not even Eliade would deny that [.] they are historically conditioned already, even in another sense, for
example, by the actual fact of the existence of agriculture’. This is valid, for instance, for the myths of Kore-Hainuvele (Eliade,
1961, p. 173). Brelich’s article was published in the 1953–1954 issue of Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni. Two years later,
the scholar revisited the problem of the archetypes in his review of Kerényi’s book Umgang mit Göttlichem. The example of
Hainuvele’s myth is used on this occasion to show that the archetypes ‘are culturally determined and therefore, rather than
acting as natural laws about the human creative activity, they depend on it, they are its historical products’ (Brelich, 1956,
p. 24). Again Brelich wonders, ‘could historicism deny the existence [.] of universally human characters as coefficients of
history?’ (Brelich, 1956, p. 25). A natural fact becomes human when it provokes a psychological reaction in human beings. ‘It is
370 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374

the duty of the psychologist to decide whether the reactions to the fundamental forms of human existence and to the
universally human ‘‘qualities’’ are regulated by universal natural laws [.] if so, the Kerényian concept of archetype would be
entirely justified’ (Brelich, 1956, p. 27). But, even admitting all this, it is only here when history comes into play, as it analyses
the ‘cultural’ reactions to the facts of nature. So ‘could historicism deny the ‘‘universally human’’ within these boundaries?
Could psychologism take it beyond these borders?’ (Brelich, 1956, p. 28). Brelich even wonders whether ‘the foundations of
religiondthat is, all the characteristics that religions have in common and allow us to conceive the abstract concept of
‘‘religion’’dare not to be actually identified within the field of the ‘‘archetypical’’’ (Brelich, 1956, p. 28).
My intention is neither to claim that Kerényi and Eliade’s perspectives can be assimilated, nor that both scholars used the
same concept of ‘archetype’. Brelich, in his turn, was well aware of the methodological differences that separated his two
interlocutors. It is still true that, regarding the issue of the archetypes, there is a certain analogy between the positions of the
two scholars. An analogy that Brelich identifies and underlines, in an effort to find a common measure, or a ‘common
language’ to discuss with the ‘psychologistic’ perspectives.

The ‘morphological’ notion of archetype

It is possible to identify a third concept of archetype in Eliade’s works: the archetype as a structural and structuring
element of the religious fact. It swings between two poles: it seems to have, on one side, a methodological functiondbeing an
auxiliary concept that accounts for the similarities among several religious forms; on the other side, it seems to be an effective
structure of reality. The implications of such a notion of archetype have been noticed, for example, by Ernesto de Martino, who
pointed out that in Eliade’s works ‘every distinction between science and science’s object of study; between religious
historiography and religious vision of the world, is lost’ (de Martino, 1951–1952, p. 152). But, if, according to this third
meaning, archetype is no longer a useful word to describe the religious reality of ‘archaic’ civilizations and becomes the very
structure of the phenomena, as well as the conceptual net with which we apprehend it, the ‘Platonic structure’ of the ‘archaic
ontology’ expressed by the archetypes becomes a ‘Platonic’ structure of a tout-court reality. This explains why Eliade’s work
has been referred to as ‘Platonic’ by many critics. The employment of the archetypes has been seen as a reference to
a metaphysical quality with which all religious phenomena are tinged.3 This interpretation is the result of overlapping the
first (descriptive) concept of archetype with the third (rather methodological), while a solution for the problem with Eliade’s
Platonism could be, precisely, to make a rigorous distinction between the two concepts, so as to avoid the projection of the
‘Platonic’ nature of one of them onto the other. If understood in this sense, the archetype would not necessarily be based on
a metaphysical foundation. But then, the problem remains to justify the notion of archetype on a theoretical level; an answer
could be provided with reference to the concept of morphology.
The notion of ‘morphology’ is linked to Goethe’s works. Goethe has used it in his writings in order to explain his method of
study of the science of nature. Eliade is acquainted with the works of the German thinker, and in three cases he explicitly links
Goethe’s position with his own. On a visit to the public gardens at Palermo, on April 5th 1951, Eliade recalls Goethe’s quest for
the original plant, the Urpflanze. He says:
Seldom in the history of science has it been more difficult to recognize the importance of a method [.] But when the
history of the idea of morphology as Goethe understood it shall be written, it will be seen how fecund it has been, not
only in the natural sciences but also in the classification, analysis, and interpretation of creations of the spirit (Eliade,
1990b, p. 126).
In the following lines, he remembers the importance of Goethian morphology in the work of authors such as Vladimir
Propp and Lucian Blaga, and regrets the fact that their works have had a limited circulation. Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale
became widely known only after it had been translated into English, and yet it had been published without including the
epigraphs that, in the original edition, quoted Goethe’s words. Eliade wonders whether the reason for this lies in the difficulty
of accessing these books, or in the ‘Zeitgeist of the era between the wars which opposed this method of delineating structures
by reducing phenomena to ‘‘archetypes’’’ (Eliade, 1990b, p. 126). Thus, Eliade admires the fecundity of Goethian morphology
that he correlates with the works of Blaga and Propp. He does not say that this is his methodology as well, but, in general, he
describes it as a quest for structures that implies the reduction of the phenomena into archetypes: an approach which he can
recognize in himself.
In 1977, Culianu devoted a book to the analysis of Eliade’s works. Before its publication, he sent the draft to Eliade. The
former wrote back, saying that he had read with great interest the part regarding the notion of archetype. In the same letter,
Eliade points out: ‘I am very pleased that you have underlined the importance of Goethian morphology. I discovered Propp
later, but Goethe’s morphologic and alchemistic obsessions were known to me since high school’ (Culianu, 2004, p. 97).
The following year he made reference to Goethe once again in the aforementioned interview with Rocquet:
I accept structuralism as it is propounded by Dumézil, by Proppdand by Goethe. As you know, when Goethe was
studying the morphology of plants, he came to the conclusion that it was possible to trace all vegetable forms back to

3
To take just two examples, according to Pettazzoni, the archetype has ‘an ontological reality per se’ (Pettazzoni, 1960, p. 38); Michelini Tocci reckons that
‘the concept of archetype oscillates between a metaphysical stage, essentially alien to Jung, and a psychological stage in which Jung’s influence is evident’
(Michelini Tocci, 1989, p. 159).
 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374 371

what he called ‘the original plant’ [.]. For my own part, in my early days at least, I thought that in order to keep sight of
the forest among so many treesdfacts, figures, and ritualsdthe historian of religions would do well to search for the
‘original plant’ in his own field, for the primal image; in other words, for what happens when man confronts the sacred
(Eliade, 1982, p. 142).
He claims to agree with this form of structuralism that questions the ‘essence of a set of phenomena’, searching for ‘the
primordial order that is the basis of their meaning’ (Eliade, 1982, p. 142).4
The scholar says that he has known Goethe from his high school years, and talks about the ‘beginnings’ of his career.
Ricketts wonders who could have introduced Eliade to the works of the German poet, but he comes to the conclusion that,
most probably, his first contact with Goethe was due to the simple fact that any young man of his timedwho had access to
a good educationdhad the chance to read Goethe’s works, especially if, like Eliade, he happened to be an avid reader
(Ricketts, 2002a, pp. 285–286). This is likely to be true in the case of Faust, but it seems not to be so obvious in the case of the
writings about natural science. Regarding the latter, a plausible explanation would be that, since Rudolf Steiner was the editor
of the part of the texts regarding natural science in an edition of Goethe’s complete works, and Eliade had admired Steiner
since the 1920s, it is possible that he had came to know these writings through Steiner’s works.5 In any case, ideas such as
form and structure had been suggested to the young Eliade in Ionescu’s courses and through the writings of the philosopher
Lucian Blaga (Culianu, 1978, p. 114). Blaga was particularly interested in the construction of a ‘philosophy of culture’, making
reference to Goethian morphology. From Goethe in particular, he had drawn the concept of the ‘original phenomenon’. In the
spring of 1926, when he sat before Ionescu for his Logic exam, Eliade had just finished reading ‘a book by Lucian Blaga, called
Fenomenul originar’. In this book he had found a notion of structure that Ionescu shared, and that allowed him to successfully
pass the exam (Eliade, 1981, p. 112; see Danca , 2004, p. 122–123). Later on, Eliade referred to the concept of ‘cultural style’ that
Blaga had introduced: ‘style reveals essentially a unity of forms, of accents and dominant attitudes [.]. Morphology and the
phenomenon of ‘‘style’’ have, to a great extent, harmonious relations,’ but, as it is reduced to the study of forms, morphology is
not enough to constitute a thorough analysis of ‘style’ (Blaga, 1995, pp. 19–20). Eliade seems to accept the concept of ‘cultural
style’, while he entertains the opposite idea of a common tradition that underlies the different civilizations (Eliade, 2006, p. 26).
Thus we know that since his high school days, Eliade had understood the notion of ‘structure’ in terms similar to those of
the Goethian morphology. We can now add that, as we have already observed, he had started to use the word ‘archetype’ in
a systematic fashion only after reading Einführung in das Wesen der Mythologie, where Kerényi referred to Goethe’s idea of the
Urpflanze. Interestingly, Kerényi had referred to this idea in order to address a problem that also was essential for Eliade,
namely the relation between the historical multiplicity of reality and the unity of its forms and structures. As J.Z. Smith
emphasizes, Eliade had also found the idea of the ‘original plant’ in the works of biologists (Smith, 2000, p. 327). At the same
time, he feels close to the thought of Eugenio d’Ors (Eliade, 1988, p. 102), who sees history as ‘morphology’. As a matter of fact,
‘morphology’ is the name that Eliade will choose as the one that more adequately fits his position.6
The link between Eliade’s ideas and those of Goethe, as well as the reference to Goethe for an interpretation of the Eliadean
methodology, was underlined for the first time by J.Z. Smith, followed by a series of authorsdincluding myself (Ricketts,
2002a, p. 305, n. 70). Smith has developed it the most, and on this basis he has conducted all of his reading of Patterns in
Comparative Religion. Ricketts, however, points out that the German philosopher has a limited presence in Eliade’s early
production. The Romanian scholar dedicated just one article to Goethe’s work, in which he highlights the contradictory
aspects, dwelling in particular on the importance of the notion of ‘analogy’, linked to the idea of the correspondence between
microcosm and macrocosm as the ‘magic function par excellence’. He often uses the concepts of ‘form’ and ‘universal type’, but
he does not mention either the ‘morphology’ or the ‘archetypes’ (Ricketts, 2002a, pp. 287–288). The references to Goethe are
numerous in Mitul reintegra rii, all of them in relation to the issue of the union of the opposites, while the term ‘morphology’ is
absent and there are no references to Goethe’s scientific writings (Ricketts, 2002a, pp. 289–292). Eliade’s implementation of
a morphologic method first became noticeable around 1936, although the word ‘morphology’ was not yet used and the works
of the scholar were, in that period, influenced by Coomaraswamy and the traditionalists rather than by Goethe. In the preface
to Patterns in Comparative Religion, Eliade writes: ‘A great part of the morphological analyses and methodological conclusions
of this book was given as lectures in my courses on history of religions at the University of Bucharest’ (Eliade, 1958, p. xv). But
according to Ricketts, this would be a retrospective reconstruction that finds no correspondence in the actual contents of the
Eliadean teachings (Ricketts, 2002a, p. 302). An analysis of the allusions to Goethe found in the diaries led Ricketts to claim
that Eliade did not feel that he owed anything to Goethe, but that his intention was to show his own methodology as an
original discovery, and to identify some analogies between Goethe’s work and his own system of analysis. Besides, the

4
In 1932, Eliade wrote an article about Goethe (Eliade, 1932). In 1971, on the occasion of the publication of an article in which J.Z. Smith wrote: ‘Goethe’s
influence [.] clearly underlies Eliade’s use of such terms as morphology and homology’ (Smith, 1971, p. 81, n. 41), Eliade praised this approach (Smith, 2000,
p. 322).
5
This hypothesis, which I have put forward in Spineto (1998), has also been formulated by Smith (2000, p. 322). M.L. Ricketts confirms its reliability, Q2
recalling Eliade’s reference, in 1926, to two volumes about Goethe written by Steiner, and quoting an entry in Eliade’s diary, in which he states that the
works of the anthroposophist, with which he was acquainted since his high school days, had been for him an object of interest throughout college,
inasmuch as Steiner was a naturalist and a great admirer of Goethe (Ricketts, 2002a, p. 285).
6
About the concept of ‘morphology’ and its development, see Smith (2000, pp. 319–321); regarding Eliade’s rather belated usage of the notion, see
Ricketts (2002a, p. 294).
372 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374

concepts of ‘sacred’ and ‘hierophany’, crucial for the elaboration of the notion of ‘archetype’, are alien to the Goethian
vocabulary; therefore Eliade ‘was unwilling to concede that his methodology was simply an ‘‘adaptation’’ of Goethe’sdbe-
cause, in his mind, it was his own creation’ (Ricketts, 2002a, p. 311).
I agree with Ricketts’ view that Eliade’s perspective goes beyond a mere adaptation of Goethe’s ideas, as well as with his
claim that it is not possible to reduce it to a recyclingdunder false pretencesdof the traditionalists’ conceptions, notwith-
standing the determinant influence thatdas we have tried to showdthey had exerted on him (Spineto, 2007, pp. 131–147).
However, Eliade’s above-mentioned statements and the circumstances of his education demonstrate that the Romanian
scholar had always drawn on the Goethian model, and, convinced as he was that his own approach was an original discovery,
he was still aware of the analogy between his research method and the German writer’s morphology. Eliade, who never
explains his philosophical choices, does not refrain from recognizing, every so often, the similarities between his own
procedures and those of other scholars.
Now, taking into account these limitations, it is possible to take the argument about the Goethian morphology two steps
beyond Smith’s interpretation. During his journey to Italy, Goethe scouted around the vegetation for the ‘original plant’, the
Urpflanze. As time went by, he gradually dropped the term, although he kept its methodological function. For Goethe, the
original phenomenon was ‘a model or image that synthesizes the ideal and the perceivable [.]. It synthesizes a perceivable
series as an ideal, and it enablesdwith reference to the concrete phenomenada grasp of the most elementary phenomenon
in relation to its own regular system’ (Zecchi, 1983, p. 17). Stefano Zecchi has pointed out that this method contains analogies
with that of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, in particular with the German philosopher’s sixth Logical investigation.
Husserl claims that a perceptible experience is not visible per se, and that the connections between experiences have to be
ordered so as to allow for a structure, an image. This structure, in its turn, becomes the means to observe the appearance of
the perceptible experiences (Zecchi, 1983, pp. 17–18). Eliade was probably aware of Husserl’s ideas. His teacher, Nae Ionescu,
had studied in Munich, where several members of the faculty were followers of Husserl (Ricketts, 1988, p. 94); Ionescu
himself considered the Logical investigations ‘an epoch-making book’ (Vulcanescu, 1992, p. 24).7 In his opinion, we can know
the ‘essences’ of things following either a logical or a mystical way. The logical way works with categories; the mystical way
works through general forms, independent from time and space. Contrary to Henri Bergson, whose thought was at that time
very popular amongst the students in Bucharest, Ionescu insisted on the stability of such forms (Ricketts, 1988, p. 106). The
phenomenological method, according to Ionescu, looks for the ‘immutable essence’ of phenomena, separated from time and
space (Ionescu, 1994, p. 134). In this quest for the ‘immutable essence’ of phenomena, Ionescu could not have overlooked
Husserl’s work.
Eliade does not clarify his philosophical choices, nor does he manifest an explicit will to find the foundations for his
method in Husserl’s philosophy. However, the cultural tradition to which Husserl’s work belongs is present in the elaboration
of Eliade’s thought, especially through Ionescu’s mediation. Thus, in 1969, responding to philosophical criticism regarding his
approach, Eliade found theoretical support precisely in Husserl. In fact, to the ‘historicists’ who accused him of having adopted
a metaphysical perspective, he answered: ‘For the historicists [.] to seek for ‘‘essences’’ is tantamount to falling back into the
old Platonic error’ and added in parentheses: ‘the historicists have, of course, neglected Husserl’ (Eliade, 1969, p. 36).8
Here, Eliade found a way to respond to the criticism to which he was subjected by making two important statements: he
talks about the ‘Platonic error’, which suggests that he rejects the metaphysical reading of his work, and he mentions
Husserl’s essences. He thus connects a central concept in his thoughtdthat of essence, tightly linked to the concept of
archetypedwith the studies of an author whom he knew from Nae Ionescu’s lessons. He also proposed a solution for the
problem of the archetype, the form or the structure, so consistently posed by his critics: the archetype seems to concern,
simultaneously, the method of interpretation and the object to be interpreted (Bianchi, 1970, p. 156); this is a problem that
Van der Leeuw had stated in the following terms:
Structure is reality significantly organized. But the significance, in its own turn, belongs in part to reality itself, and in
part to the ‘someone’ who attempts to understand it . it can never be asserted with any certainty what is my own
understanding, and what is the intelligibility of that which is understood (Van der Leeuw, 1986, p. 672).
At this point, it is possible to go one step further, by acknowledging the extent to which Husserl’s thought constitutes
a point of reference for the hermeneutic philosophies. There is a fundamental coherence amongst the morphology that Eliade
finds in Goethe, Husserl’s phenomenology and the hermeneutics to which he often refers (especially towards the end of his
life) and which he sees reflected in Paul Ricoeur (see Spineto, 2006, pp. 73–78). Eliade’s interpretative system cannot be
identified with any of these philosophical perspectives, and it can be easily noticed that the young scholar’s allusions to

7
In his Curs de istoria logicii (1929–1930), Ionescu discusses Bolzano’s and Husserl’s concepts of ‘intentionality’ (Ionescu, 1993, p. 227), and quotes
Husserl, along with Brentano (Ionescu, 1993, p. 231).
8
J.Z. Smith proposes a general interpretation of Patterns in Comparative Religion based on a re-elaboration of the Goethian concept of ‘morphology’. In his
opinion, Eliade has joined together morphology and history, at the cost of including both of them in a ‘metaphysical hierarchy’, or an ‘onto-theological
hierarchy’ (Smith, 2000, pp. 346 and 348). His argument, which draws heavily on Eliade’s writings, does not take into account either the possible Husserlian
reading of Goethe’s morphology or Eliade’s explicit reference to the German philosopher in a context in which metaphysics is featured as an error (the
‘Platonic error’). It can be also noticed that, from the very moment in which Eliade declares his identification with the hermeneutical perspectives, he
clearly refers to philosophical currents that, far from being qualified as metaphysical, spring precisely from a crisis in metaphysics, a crisis to which they
intend to provide an answer (See Spineto, 1992, pp. 16–18; see also Spineto, 1996, pp. 94–95).
 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374 373

Goethian morphology were very few in the 20s, 30s and 40s, and those to Husserl’s philosophy were nonexistent. It stands out
as obvious that the dialogue with the contemporary hermeneutical constructions could not have taken place, due to chro-
nological reasons, since the foundations of Eliade’s approach acquired their definite shape before the war and in its aftermath.
However, it is a significant fact that Eliade, on certain occasions, refers to such positions, pointing out their continuity with his
own. Not only are they regarded as familiar, but they are entirely homogeneous with some of the elements that characterize
his education. Eliade never wanted to explain his philosophical options, fearing that this would involve straying from the
precision of history and, even more likely, weakening his work by anchoring it to a particular speculative school. However,
maybe he failed to realize that the type of history of religions that he defended called for strong theoretical choices, and by not
making them explicit, he opened a door to the most varied interpretative readings, many of them of a kind he would have
never accepted. The web of references that has been here reconstructed is meant to be a suggestion regarding the way that
could be followed in order to identify the philosophical categories that might provide a theoretical coherence to Eliade’s
methodological choices.

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374 N. Spineto / Religion 38 (2008) 366–374

Natale Spineto holds a Ph.D. in Religious History (University of Rome, La Sapienza) and a Ph.D. in History of Religions and
Religious Anthropology (University of Paris IV, Sorbonne). He is a Professor of History of Religions at the University of Turin.
His main fields of research are the Religions of Classical Antiquity and the methodology and historiography of the History of
Religions. His main works include: Dionysos a teatro. Il contesto festivo del dramma greco (L’‘‘Erma’’ di Bretschneider, Rome
2005), Mircea Eliade storico delle religioni (Morcelliana, Brescia 2006dRomanian and French translations forthcoming) and
a work for the general reader, I simboli nella storia dell’uomo, Jaca Book, Milan 2002 (published in six languages). He has also
edited M. Eliade–R. Pettazzoni, L’Histoire des religions a-t-elle un sens? (Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1994), Esploratori del pensiero
umano. Georges Dumézil e Mircea Eliade (with Julien Ries, Jaca Book, Milan 2000, French edition Brepols, Turnhout 2003), La
storia comparata delle religioni (with Giovanni Filoramo, IEPI, Pisa-Rome 2002), Interrompere il quotidiano. La costruzione
del tempo nell’esperienza religiosa (Jaca Book, Milan 2005), Le temps et la destinée humaine à la lumière des religions et des
cultures (with Julien Ries, Brepols, Turnhout 2007).