The myth of the birth of the hero : a psychological interpretation of mythology / by Otto Rank ; authorized translation by Drs. F. Robbins and Smith Ely Jelliffe.

  • Otto Rank
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The myth of the birth of the hero : a psychological interpretation of mythology / by Otto Rank ; authorized translation by Drs. F. Robbins and Smith Ely Jelliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    to the same course in the myth creators as well as in the myth interpretators. It is most naively uttered by one of the founders and champions of comparative myth investigation, and of the natural mythological mode of interpretation, for Max Muller points out in his Essays [1869]^^ that this procedure not only invests meaningless legends vi^ith a significance and beauty of their own, but it helps to remove some of the most revolting features of classical mythology, and to elucidate their true meaning. This revolt, the reason for which is readily understood, naturally prevents the mythologist from assuming that such motives as incest with the mother, sister or daughter; murder of father, grandfather or brother could be based upon universal phantasies, which according to Freud's teachings have their source in the infantile psyche, with its peculiar interpretation of the external world and its denizens. This revolt is therefore only the reaction of the dimly sensed painful recognition of the actuality of these relations; and this reaction impels the interpreters of the myths, for their own subconscious rehabilitation, and that of all mankind, to credit these motives with an entirely different meaning from their original significance. The same internal repudiation prevents the myth-creating people from believing in the possibility of such revolting thoughts, and this defence probably was the first reason for the projecting of these relations to the firmament. The psychological pacifying through such a rehabilitation, by pro- jection upon external and remote objects, can still be realized, up to a certain degree, by a glance at one of these interpretations, for instance that of the objectionable CEdipus fable, as given by a introduced, as often in the Vedda and in the Egyptian myths; it is a primary attempt at interpretation, Hke the myth-interpretations which arose among the Greeks since the fifth century. For fairy tales, in this as well as in other essential features, Thimme advocates the same point of view as is here claimed for the myths. Com- pare Adolf Thimme, Das Marchen, 26. volume of the Handbvicher zur Volkskunde, Leipzig, 1909 ^ Volume II of the German translation, Leipzig, 1869, p. 143. ' Of this myth-interpretation, Wundt has well said that it really should have accompanied the original myth-formation. (Loc. cit, p. 352.)
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