Nephew And Maternal Uncle: A Motive of Early Literature in the Light of Freudian Psychology

It is significant that the newer psychopathology does not limit itself to phenomena that are strictly pathological. The same unconscious trends which are shown in disordered mental states influence as well men's normal manifestations, and the difference between normality and abnormality lies in coordination of consciousness rather than in content. These considerations, it seems to me, open up new and really amazing vistas; the principles evolved by Freud in the study of the neuroses possess a range of applicability coextensive with the mental sciences. It is hoped that the present study may be of some value in illustrating this larger significance of the psychoanalytic formulations.

Rummaging in the archives of philology, one encounters a problem of unusual subjective interest. Due to the enigmatic character of the phenomenon with which it is concerned, this problem has under various titles been the subject of quite large discussion. Briefly stated it is as follows: In many parts of the early literature, there appears a tendency to emphasize and glorify the relation between the nephew and the uncle on the mother's side. The reference to this relation is of such frequency, and the bond between nephew and maternal uncle assumes at times such dramatic importance (even to the extent of monopolizing the interest), that there is presented a question which demands consideration. What is the basis of this phenomenon which at first glance affords certainly no clue to its import ?

Nowhere are the affectionate and intimate relations between nephew and maternal uncle more conspicuous than in the Old French Chansons de Geste. The persistence and striking character of the motive in that cycle has induced one scholar to devote to the subject an exhaustive treatise. To quote Dr. Farnsworth: “Even the more or less casual reader of the Old French epic poems cannot have failed to be impressed by the constant, pervading, and almost obtrusive glorification of the relations between uncle a