European University Institute Library

The Great Mother, an analysis of the archetype, by Erich Neumann ; translated from the German by Ralph Manheim ; with a new foreword by Martin Liebscher

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-352) and index

platesillustrations

index present

non fiction

The Great Mother

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912382595

by Erich Neumann ; translated from the German by Ralph Manheim ; with a new foreword by Martin Liebscher

Bollingen series, XLVIIPrinceton classics

an analysis of the archetype

This landmark book explores the Great Mother as a primordial image of the human psyche. Here the renowned analytical psychologist Erich Neumann draws on ritual, mythology, art, and records of dreams and fantasies to examine how this archetype has been outwardly expressed in many cultures and periods since prehistory. He shows how the feminine has been represented as goddess, monster, gate, pillar, tree, moon, sun, vessel, and every animal from snakes to birds. Neumann discerns a universal experience of the maternal as both nurturing and fearsome, an experience rooted in the dialectical relation of growing consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the unconscious and the unknown, symbolized by the Great Mother.--, Provided by publisher

1. The structure of the archetype -- 2. The archetypal feminine and the Great Mother -- 3. The two characters of the feminine -- 4. The central symbolism of the feminine -- 5. The transformation mysteries -- 6. The functional spheres of the feminine -- 7. The phenomenon of reversal and the dynamic of the archetype -- A. The elementary character -- 8. Introduction -- 9. The primordial goddess -- 10. The positive elementary character -- 11. The negative elementary character -- B. The transformative character -- 12. The great round -- 13. The Lady of the Plants -- 14. The Lady of the Beasts -- 15. Spiritual transformation