[116] "Zur Einführung des Narzißmus." Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse, VI, 1. i.
[117] See especially Otto Rank, "Die Lohengrinsage," Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde.
[118] An influence of this kind may also manifest itself by causing the successive falling in love with several persons of the same name, as for instance, in the case of Schiller (Charlotte von Wolzogen, Charlotte von Kalb, Charlotte von Lengefeld) or in that of Shelley (Harriet Grove, Harriet Westbrook and the later affection for Harriet de Boinville). The incestuous origin of such a name influence may be shown even more clearly in cases where the names of persons successively loved are those of different members of the lover's own family; as in the case of Mörike; (Clara and Louisa, after the name of his two sisters). Cp. Rank, "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage," pp. 91, 543. In a case known to me, a young woman fell in love successively with three men possessing the same Christian name, one of whom had the same surname as herself. In a fourth love affair the surname of the man was the same as the Christian name of her brother, to whom she was much attached, and contrary to her usual custom she always called this fourth lover by his surname instead of by his Christian name.
[119] Though not perhaps quite so superficial as is often supposed. Psycho-analytic work has drawn attention to the influence that a name may often exercise upon the behaviour and mental characteristics of its possessor. (Cp. Stekel, "Die Verpflichtung des Namens," Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie und medizinische Psychologie, III, Part 2, 1911. Abraham, "Über die determinierende Kraft des Namens," Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, II, 1912, 133). Goethe (Wahlverwandtschaften, Part I, Ch. 2) too had already noticed the possibility of this influence.
[120] Cp. Freud, "Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens," Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen, 1910, II, 390.
[121] It is such a character for instance that Ibsen appears to have met in the person of Emilie Bardach of Vienna, who served as principal model for Hilda Wangel in The Master Builder and who is referred to in the following description given to his friend Elias (Neue Deutsche Rundschau 1906, p. 1462, quoted by William Archer in his Introductions to Ibsen's plays, Vol. X, p. XXIV) "He related how he had met in the Tyrol a Viennese girl of very remarkable character. She at once made him her confidant. The gist of her confessions was that she did not care a bit about one day marrying a well brought-up young man—most likely she would never marry. What tempted and charmed and delighted her was to lure other women's husbands away from them. She was a little daemonic worker: she often appeared to him like a little bird of prey, that would fain have made him too, her booty."
[122] Otto Rank, "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage," especially p. 121.
[123] An interesting example of this curious desire is quoted by Rank (Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage, p. 94.) from the life of Schiller: on the occasion of the publication of the banns for the marriage between the poet and Charlotte von Lengefeld, the former is said to have remarked jokingly to his bride that it would be a pity if no one came to raise some objection to the marriage or to dispute his right to Charlotte's hand!
[124] This belief is often strengthened by, and in its turn tends to confirm, the frequently held infantile theory which regards sexual relations as consisting essentially of an attack on the mother by the father—a theory which itself exerts in many cases an important and often harmful influence on subsequent sexual life.
[125] Cp. E. S. Hartland, "The Legend of Perseus." Vol. I, p. 94.