Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/106

 98 COLLECTIVE REVIEWS

and what Rank says about the "play" and its position in the drama

might be considered as the fmishinj» toucli of Freud's conception.

More interest still is paid to the figure of Lady Macbeth, previously

only touched on in a footnote in the "lnter])retation of Dreams";

the publications 4, 14, 23 occupy themselves with her. The most

extensive of these essays is the one by Jekcls (14); this yields several

valuable results, of which only two will be mentioned: the conception

of the distribution between twij persons of the originally unitary

guilt feeling before and after the deed, and the discovery of

"Shakespeare's self reproach", who left wife and children and lost

his only son, as the quintessence of the ci>aracter of Macduflf.

Freud (6) starts from this discovery and shows how the problem of

childlessness runs below the surface through the wliole tragedy. In

this complex the old nature myth personified in the tragedy, namely

the victory of spring coming with green branches over the sterile

winter, coincides with the actual event, the accession of James I as

successor of the sterile Elizabeth who had beheaded his mother.

Freud makes it probable also that the night-wandering of Lady

Macbeth goes back directly to the last weeks spent in sleepless

disquietude of the virgin queen, who once called herself in grief

a fruitless stock. Another of Shakespeare's characters is investigated

by Freud in the same essay: Richard 111 who.se personality is

developed from the first monologue with logical clearness. He ^

belongs to those who believe they have a special claim on the

fulfilment of their wishes because they have been ill-treated by

nature at their birth. Among the type of those who break down

in success Freud classifies a tragic figure, studied already by Rank,

namely Rebecca West from Ibsen's "Rosmersholm". He shows that

Rebecca's actual position is the result of a tyj^ical phantasy in which

the housekeeper sets herself in the place of the housewife. The

unconscious root of this phantasy is of course to replace the motlier

in her relation to the father. When Rebecca learns that this tabooed

phantasy was reality for her, that is to .say, that she was the mistress

of her own father, then she becomes unable to enjoy her success

and chooses instead of marriage with Rosmer deatli with him.

The essay of FurtmUlIcr's (9) on Schnitzler's "Das weite I^nd" places the strife for power in the centre of action, following the author's prepossession for Adler's conception. A more unfortunate choice tlian one of Schnitzler's plays to prove such theses could not be made. Schnitzler's later works, especially "Casanova's