SOURCE: “Introduction,” in The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend: Fundamentals of a Psychology of Literary Criticism, by Otto Rank, Johns Hopkins University, 1992, pp. xi-xxv.

In the following essay, Rudnytsky traces the evolution of psychoanalysis and literary criticism in the early twentieth century, focusing on the work of Sigmund Freud and Otto Frank.

The first three meetings of the Psychological Wednesday Society for which minutes are extant took place on October 10, October 17, and October 24, 1906. Viennese physicians and other intellectuals interested in Freud's ideas had begun gathering for weekly discussions in his apartment at Berggasse 19 as early as 1902, but not until 1906, with Otto Rank's appointment as salaried secretary to the group—an appointment that lasted until 1915, when World War I intervened—were the proceedings recorded in writing.

Rank's function at these October 1906 meetings was pivotal in two respects, for he not only transcribed them but also read the paper...