You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The author summarizes his own paper in the form of five questions and answers (Rückblick und Zusammenschau, p. 308).
1What is the original form of the Narcissus-myth, prior to its poetic elaboration? The archaic belief in shadow-souls and the danger of encountering them mirrored in water. The fundamental meaning, underlying later elaborations, is that men and women exist who cannot establish natural love relations because they are unhappily fated to love themselves.
2What has psycho-analysis contributed to our knowledge of this myth?
Freud has demonstrated that narcissism is a universal human potentiality and also shewn the relationship of those emanations from the unconscious, myth, fairy-tale, dream and neruosis.
3What is the single correct interpretation of the myth? It is a perfect example of its kind and is nothing but the symbolically disguised æsthetically beautified but clear representation of the neurotic narcissus-complex.
4Are alternative interpretations of the myth (as nature-myth, etc.) also valuable? No. The intimate relation between neurosis and myth allows only the one valid interpretation.
5Are alternative interpretations valuable in estimating poems about Narcissus? It is not the myth but the author who is represented in such poems. We have to enquire here not into the intention of the myth but the reason why the fate of Narcissus appealed to the poet. Only we must not leave out of account the distinction between a subjective (psychoneurotic) and an objective attitude of the poet to the myth.