The Horror of Incest

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 49K words
Chapters: 5

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Die Inzestscheu by Sigmund FreudAuthor: Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939,Language: German, Class: BF: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Release Date: Aug 13, 2011

Editor's review

This German text focuses on the "fear of incest" and is Freud's special discussion explaining the origin of the incest taboo from a psychoanalytic perspective. Its value lies in presenting a typically Freudian argument: starting from childhood sexuality and the family triangle, it understands the social incest taboo as the externalization of psychological conflict and corroborates this with material on kinship systems in "primitive" societies. The text is short but conceptually dense, involving the relations among desire, repression, taboo, and civilized order; reading it shows boldness of inference and weakness of evidence side by side. For readers studying psychoanalytic social theory, kinship systems, and narratives of the origin of civilization, it is a representative primary source; for general readers, it is better treated as a slice of Freud's view of civilization than as a self-contained introduction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying psychoanalytic theory of civilization and social taboo
Those interested in the intersection of anthropological kinship systems and psychoanalysis
German learners and researchers who need to read Freud's German original

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a survey of contemporary anthropological research on the incest taboo
Readers impatient with psychoanalytic inference who accept only empirical material
Pure beginners with no German who do not plan to use a translation

Reading tips

First clarify the core thesis, then identify paragraph by paragraph whether the evidence is clinical, ethnographic, or speculative.
Read it against Totem and Taboo, noting how Freud connects individual psychology with social institutions.
When reading the German, note terms such as Inzestscheu and Verdrängung and check your understanding against a Chinese translation.
After reading, reflect on the limits of the argument and distinguish historical value from contemporary testability.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What does "fear of incest" mean in the text?

It refers to the strong avoidance of and taboo on incestuous relations that Freud discusses. The text attempts to explain, starting from childhood sexuality, family relations, and repression, why this avoidance appears both in individual psychology and in social norms, and draws analogies with ethnographic material.

Is this text suitable for use as anthropological evidence?

Not really. It is closer to a psychoanalytic theoretical construction, and the ethnographic material it cites has historical limitations. If used in academic discussion, it should be treated as material for intellectual history rather than as empirical evidence for contemporary anthropology.

What background is needed before reading?

It is best to first understand Freud's basic views on sexual development, repression, and taboo, and to have some acquaintance with the problematic of Totem and Taboo. Otherwise the argument's leap from individual psychology to social institutions can seem abrupt.

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About the author

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 Author

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was the founder of psychoanalysis, and his writings have had a profound influence on modern psychology and on cultural and intellectual history. The library holds 29 of his works, covering the interpretation of dreams, introductory lectures on psychoanalysis, theories of sexuality, the psychopathology of everyday life, and themes such as beyond the pleasure principle, the uncanny, group psychology, and the analysis of the ego, as well as a beginner's reader on dream psychology. These works generally combine clinical observation with theoretical reasoning; their style is clear and speculative, and they often begin from everyday slips, dreams, and neurotic phenomena to reveal the mechanisms of unconscious activity. Freud's writing spans both the professional and the popular, establishing a new framework of questions for psychology and deeply influencing literature, art, and the humanities. Because public information is limited, his specific biography and academic career are not elaborated here.