The term ‘archetipo’ occupies a structurally foundational position in the depth-psychology corpus, yet the corpus retrieved here treats it predominantly through its concrete phenomenological manifestations rather than as an abstract theoretical postulate. Hillman’s extended treatment in *Puer Aeternus* (1967) exemplifies the post-Jungian tendency to work with specific archetypal configurations — the Puer-Senex polarity above all — rather than with the category of archetype as such. For Hillman, the archetype is never a static Platonic form but a living bipolar tension: before the ego’s intervention, it subsists in an ambivalent crepuscular unity; when consciousness arises, it cleaves into opposing poles. The pathological condition is therefore not the presence of an archetype but its splitting (scissione), whereby Puer and Senex become rigid antitheses rather than complementary faces of a single Janus-Gestalt. Healing consists in restoring the archetype to its pre-split integrity. Jung’s own usage, visible through Hillman’s citations, anchors the concept in the Self as the ‘archetype of meaning’ and in the archetypal roots of ego-formation via the Senex. Kerényi’s bibliographic traces point toward an image-centred, mythological approach. Across these voices, the central tension is between the archetype as universal structural matrix and as historically constellated, culturally urgent symbol — a tension that gives the term its persistent scholarly vitality.
L’opposizione implicita nell’archetipo si scinde in due poli quando esso entra nella coscienza egoica. E con l’Io che sorge il giorno; e la notte è lasciata alle spalle.
Hillman argues that the archetype in its original state is a bipolar ambivalence that only splits into conflicting opposites upon contact with ego-consciousness, making the ego’s emergence inseparable from archetypal polarisation.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967thesis
Senza questa polarita, che è l’essenza dell’archetipo e gli conferisce il suo significato, c’è perfezione ma non processualita, non moto da questo punto a quello, dal passato al futuro.
Hillman identifies the internal polarity of an archetype as the very source of its meaning and the structural precondition of psychic change, such that a split archetype produces stasis rather than development.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967thesis
formando, per così dire, un archetipo bifronte, una sorta di Janus-Gestalt, finché esse rimarranno in contrapposizione polare, finché l’Io indossera una sola faccia, ci riuscira impossibile dire ‘buona’ dell’una senza dire ‘cattiva’ dell’altra.
Hillman characterises the Puer-Senex unit as a single two-faced archetype whose positive and negative valences are inseparable, making one-sided identification with either pole inherently pathological.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967thesis
il nostro interesse è a sua volta un riflesso dell’archetipo che si manifesta oggi a livello simbolico nella cultura attorno a noi… la nostra confrontazione con questo archetipo, puo servire a ripristinare un equilibrio.
Hillman contends that scholarly engagement with an archetype is itself a response to that archetype’s constellation in collective history, giving psychological analysis a direct bearing on cultural crisis.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967thesis
diventa estremamente importante cercare di risanare l’archetipo scisso che divide il Puer dal Senex trasformandoli in un’antitesi negativa, spingendo l’individuo in una posizione di indurimento contro il suo stesso Puer aeternus.
Hillman frames the therapeutic task as restoring the split archetype to its original conjunctive wholeness, warning that demonising one pole damages the very spirit of renewal the Puer carries.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967thesis
Questo ‘qualcosa’ è stato chiamato il Sé, che è un altro nome per indicare l’archetipo del significato, ovvero il Vecchio Saggio.
Following Jung, Hillman equates the Self with the archetype of meaning embodied in the Senex-Wise Old Man figure, establishing the archetype as the pre-egoic organiser of cognitive and teleological order in the psyche.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967supporting
l’archetipo del Senex trascende la senescenza puramente biologica ed è dato fin dall’inizio nella psiche e in tutte le parti della psiche come possibilita di ordine, di significato e di realizzazione teleologica.
Hillman insists that the Senex archetype is not reducible to biological aging but is an a priori psychic structure present from the outset as the capacity for order, meaning, and purposive completion.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967supporting
la dualita del Senex poggia su una polarita archetipica ancora piu fondamentale, quella dell’archetipo Senex-Puer.
Hillman argues that the dualities visible within the Senex figure are themselves grounded in a deeper, more fundamental archetypal polarity uniting Senex and Puer as a single dynamic structure.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967supporting
togliamo aria allo sfondo archetipico. Il Puer subisce una enantiodromia convertendosi nel suo opposto, il Senex.
Hillman demonstrates how the suppression of the archetypal background precipitates enantiodromia, the automatic reversal of the Puer into its Senex shadow, illustrating the dynamic energetics of the archetype.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967supporting
il suo volto è universale, dato dall’archetipo, e percio non puo essere affrontato, misurato in una Auseinandersetzung, in una confrontazione personale.
Hillman notes that the Puer’s archetypal face, being universal and timeless, eludes personal confrontation — a structural feature that makes it both psychically captivating and therapeutically intractable.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967supporting
La menomazione riguarda la particolare debolezza e impotenza propria degli inizi di qualsiasi impresa, ed è insita nella unilateralita della direzione verticale, la tendenza di Icaro-Ganimede al volo e alla caduta.
Hillman reads the mythological wounding of Puer figures as an expression of the archetype’s inherent unilaterality, its vertical orientation making it structurally weak in the horizontal world of embodied reality.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967aside
Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype, The Psychology of the Child Archetype e On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure
A bibliographic reference situating Hillman’s Puer-Senex study within the broader Jungian literature on specific archetypes, including Jung’s own treatments of the Mother, Child, and Trickster.
, Puer Aeternus, 1967aside