The Myth of the Birth of the Hero: A Psychological Exploration of MythJHU Press, 2015 M11 1 - 200 pages First published in German in 1909, Otto Rank's original The Myth of the Birth of the Hero offered psychoanalytical interpretations of mythological stories as a means of understanding the human psyche. Like his mentor Sigmund Freud, Rank compared the myths of such figures as Oedipus, Moses, and Sargon with common dreams, seeing in both a symbolic fulfillment of repressed desire. In a new edition published thirteen years after the original, Rank doubled the size of his seminal work, incorporating new discoveries in psychoanalysis, mythology, and ethnology. This expanded and updated edition has been eloquently translated by Gregory C. Richter and E. James Lieberman and includes an introductory essay by Robert A. Segal as well as Otto Rank's 1914 essay "The Play in Hamlet." |
From inside the book
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... born illegitimately, because of fear of the prophecy of his future greatness is abandoned by his father, is saved by animals and raised by a lowly couple, fights wars, returns home triumphant, defeats his persecutors, frees his mother ...
... born, and dies blinded, as the setting sun” (Rank 1914,10).8 Rank's work is much fuller and sprightlier than Abraham's, and the second, till now untranslated, 1922 edition of the work is richer still. Rank considers far more myths than ...
... born. Rank is confident that he has shown that in hero myths exposure on water symbolizes birth, water symbolizes the amniotic fluid, and the “little chests, baskets, or ships” in which the newborn is placed symbolize the womb (pp. 55 ...
... born.Having failed to heed the divine warning against birth itself, they must now scurry to kill their son at birth. Rank continually conflates exposure as birth with its opposite: exposure as death. He does observe that in the myth ...
... born” (ibid.). Therefore birth represents defiance of the parents: “[M]oreover, the myth plainly reveals the desire to enforce [the child's] materialization against the will of the parents” (ibid.). But even if Rank ties exposure as ...
Contents
vii | |
Translators Introduction | xxxix |
Preface to the First Edition | xlv |
Preface to the Second Edition | xlvii |
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 The Cycle of Myths | 9 |
3 The Interpretation of the Myths | 47 |
Toward an Analysis and Dynamic Understanding of the Work | 93 |
Notes | 105 |
References | 129 |
Index | 143 |
Other editions - View all
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero: A Psychological Exploration of Myth Otto Rank Limited preview - 2004 |
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero: A Psychological Exploration of Myth Otto Rank Limited preview - 2015 |
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero: A Psychological Exploration of Myth Otto Rank Limited preview - 2004 |