Table Of ContentTHE DOUBLE
A Psychoanalytic Study
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THE DOUBLE
A Psychoanalytic Study
by OTTO RANK
Translated and Edited,
with an Introduction
by HARRY TUCKER, JR.
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
Copyright © 1971 by
The University of North Carolina Press
AU rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
ISBN 0-8078-1155-6
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-132257
To Bernhard Blume
Discípulos est prioris posterior dies.
PubliÏLus Syrus, Sententiae
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PREFACE
Any of us could be the man who encounters his double.1
Publication History
A "Der Doppelgänger," in Imago: Zeitschrift für Anwendung
der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissenschaften, ed. Sig-
mund Freud. Leipzig, Vienna, and Zürich: Internationaler
Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1914, Vol. Ill, pp. 97-164.
B "Der Doppelgänger," in Otto Rank, Psychoanalytische Bei-
träge zur Mythenforschung: Gesammelte Studien aus den
Jahren 1912 bis 1914. Leipzig and Vienna: Internationaler
Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1919, pp. 267-354.
C Der Doppelgänger: Eine Psychoanalytische Studie. Leipzig,
Vienna, and Zürich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Ver-
lag, 1925,117 pp.
D Don Juan. Une étude sur le double, tr. S. Lautman. Paris:
Denoël and Steele, 1932, pp. 9-163.
E "The Double as Immortal Self," in Otto Rank, Beyond Psy-
chology. Camden, N.J. Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., 1941, pp.
62-101.
F "The Double as Immortal Self," in Otto Rank, Beyond Psy-
1. Friedrich Dürrenmatt, "Der Doppelgänger" (Zürich, I960, Verlags
AG "Die Arche"), p. 26.
[viii] PREFACE
chology. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1958, pp. 62-
101.
G The Doubk: A Psychoanalytic Study, tr. and ed. Harry
Tucker, Jr. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina
Press, 1971.
To summarize briefly, publications A and B are the original
article; C is its revision and expansion into a separate publication;
D is the translation into French of C (but see below); E is the
adaptation of C as a chapter of a posthumous book; F is a sec-
ond publication of this book; and G is the translation into Eng-
lish of C.
After the publication of A in 1914, the study appeared intact
in the first edition of B but not in the second edition (1922),
which concentrated more upon mythological essays as such (C,
p. 4). C represents the expansion of A (B) into an independent
publication which retained part of the material in A ( B ) and in-
troduced new material presumably accrued since their publica-
tion. A detailed presentation of the similarities and differences
between A ( B ) and C was not deemed essential to G, nor are
the differences so marked as to be of special concern, except
perhaps to the eventual editor of Rank's collected works. D joins
Rank's study of the double with his essay on Don Juan, appear-
ing in the publication in that order, despite the title. Here, the
five chapters of C are expanded into seven, one of which treats
twinship, only briefly mentioned in C. D also provides additional
references. An English version of both D and Don Juan seems
desirable, since both works are complementary; meanwhile, C
possesses an interest and significance of its own.
E and F, both of which are identical in word and pagination,
are the first English versions of brief and isolated parts of C. Al-
though the posthumous publications E (F) may be taken as
Rank's final words on the subject of the double, a reading of the
1925 book (C) is desirable for a complete understanding, es-
pecially since E (F) omit much that appeared in C (e.g., the
detailed description of The Student of Prague). Readers having
an interest in Rank himself, as well as in the motif of the double,
will need to know not only E (F), but also C itself, D, or G. In
part, the relationship of E (F) to C resembles that of C to A and
B: portions of E (F) are taken verbatim from C (e.g., E, F, p.
80; cf. C, pp. 64-65); yet in E (F) there is additional material
which came to the author's subsequent notice (e.g., E, F, pp. 78,
79, 85, and passim). Otherwise, the principle difference between
[ix] Preface
E (F) and C is one of scope and emphasis: where C was con-
cerned primarily with clarifying the literary, psychoanalytic,
mythical, and ethnological meanings of the double, E (F) cor-
relate the motif with Rank's ideas of the artist and the hero (see
Introduction, p. xvi) E (F) do not reveal any substantial changes
in the conclusions which the author reached in C; and, at this
writing, D and G are the only translations of this final German
version.
The Translation (G)
The translation attempts to adhere closely to the meaning of
Rank's sentences pari passu and to express this meaning in a style
acceptable to the reader. Departures from the literal text were
made to provide a felicitous English rendering, but care was
taken that this rendering did not distort the thought expressed
in German. The translation, then, endeavors to avoid the oppo-
site pitfalls of being too "free" or of remaining so near to the
original that the result would have been objectionable English.
If the translation has generally been successful in steering a
middle course, it will have accomplished its linguistic purpose.
Here and there, the Germanic flavor may well be apparent; but
since this flavor ultimately is that of the author rather than of the
translator, it may perhaps not inappropriately remain.
Rank depended in rather large measure upon German trans-
lations of authors whose works in the original language were
either unavailable to him or with whom he was unfamiliar in
the original. Except for the quotations from Coleridge, Kipling,
Poe, Stevenson, and Wilde, reference to whose works in the orig-
inal is given, I proceeded on the assumption that reliance could
be placed both upon the accuracy of Rank's citations and upon
the accuracy of the German translations themselves (e.g., S. Lip-
iner's translation of Mieciewicz' Diadys, and Carl von Giitschow's
translation of Merezhkovsky's Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky). Al-
though it may be true that a thorough investigation of Rank's
sources would examine and compare these originals and their
versions in other languages, it seemed that such documentation
was not suitable to the purpose of this translation, which intends
to present Rank's book in English substantially as it appeared in
1925. I have followed this procedure also in his quotations from
German authors, which I have checked passim.
The question of whether to translate the titles of the primary
