Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/110

 102 COLLECTIVE REVI EWS

diflFerences disclosed the univeisal validity of certain motifs, rooted as they are in the psychic tendencies. Thus more clearly than ever is shown the close connection and profound relation of the love and death significance of the Doppelgdnger fifjure. Freud saw emerging behind the characters of Shakespeare's plays the primi- tive shapes of myth ("Das Motiv di^r Kastclienwahl", Imago, 1914, Bd. II), and forthwith penetrated both the latent meaning of the motif and the hidden significance of the myth: similarly the mysterious significance of the Narcissus legend and of the Doppel- ganger figures yields itself up to comparison guided by analysis.

The analysis of the "Briidermarchcns" in tiie same collection carries analytic myth-investigation to a very high point succeeding as it does in setting out all the distortions, complications, sub.stitute and reaction-formations, condensations and displacements, and in using unconscious processes to e.K|)lain the varying degrees of clearness with which the vtotif is invested, its corre.spundences and its deviations from type. The substitution of the elder favoured brother for the father as the person towards whom jealous feeling is directed, as in the Egyptian brother-story or in tiie Osiris myth, is shown to be a primitive culture effect, and is grouped, with otl\er softenings and concealments brought about by generations of repression. Rank sets out the pedigree of the "Brddermarchens" and in doing so succeeds in recognizing the exi.sting forms in the motif ■A'f, reflections of definite stages of culture and in allotting the various levels of myth and fairy-tale to advances in social organi- sation. Me traces myth-making to its beginnings found in the partial renunciation of the actual accom]>lishment of sexual and egoistic desires. Both myth and fairy-lale tiius appear as the ob- verse of culture-development, as stonr houses of the wishes that can be taken no count of in reality and of unattainable satisfactions. Earlier in the analysis stress was chiefly laid on gaining a clear comprehension of myth and fairy-tale by an elucidation of the symbolism employed in them and by application of jisychic formulae; at this point however the first steps are taken tt>wards determining the psychological relation of fairy-tale to myth.

On the basis of tlic results of these investigations, an attempt might be made to reconstruct some kind of history of the develop- ment of the fairy-tale. This is actually undertaken by Ranlc in the article entitled "Mytlms und Mihclien". It cannot be maintained that complete success has crowned iiis effort.s, but it must be borne