Forrest G. Robinson's 1992 Biography of Henry A. Murray, and Walter J. Ong's Thought

Abstract

In my 4,300-word review essay "Forrest G. Robinson's 1992 Biography of Henry A. Murray, and Walter J. Ong's Thought," I discuss Robinson's book Love's Story Told: A Life of Henry A. Murray (Harvard University Press), which is about the secret extramarital love affair for more than forty years between Dr. Murray (1893-1988) and Christiana Drummond Councilman Morgan (1897-1967). Their secret love affair included serious interactions pertaining to the American novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819-1891) and also included each of them being psychoanalyzed by the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theories C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961). However, in the opening section of my review essay, I discuss certain aspects of the life and work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955), including his graduate studies of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. In the final section of my review essay, I draw some lessons that we can learn from their secret extramarital love affair. But I also discuss the relevant psychology of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order.