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Literary notes about taboo (AI summary)

In literature, the term "taboo" is often used to evoke the weight of prohibitions that shape both personal and collective conduct. It appears as a marker of social restraint—such as forbidding the utterance of a respected name in the presence of an elder ([1]) or as a ritual injunction that governs everyday activities ([2]). Psychoanalytic perspectives portray taboo as an inner commandment that, when violated, catalyzes feelings of guilt and anxiety, akin to symptoms seen in compulsion neuroses ([3], [4]). Meanwhile, in mythic and anthropological narratives, taboo also emerges as a potent symbol of the sacred versus the unclean, where transgression might attract divine retribution or provoke the ineffable forces of negative magic ([5], [6]). Additionally, it encapsulates the ambivalence inherent in cultural practices, indicating both prohibitive power and the potential for liberation under shifting social circumstances ([7]).
  1. In the same island it is also taboo to mention the name of an elder brother in his presence.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  2. The taboo comes into operation as soon as the betrothal has taken place and before the marriage has been celebrated.
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  3. We shall therefore seek to confirm those psychological conditions for taboo with which we have become acquainted in the case of compulsion neurosis.
    — from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud
  4. Taboo is a command of conscience, the violation of which causes a terrible sense of guilt which is as self-evident as its origin is unknown [89] .
    — from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud
  5. Wherever the taboo was related to ideas of gods and demons an automatic punishment was expected from the power of the godhead.
    — from Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud
  6. Negative magic or taboo says, “Do not do this, lest so and so should happen.”
    — from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer
  7. Among the Warramunga there is one totem which is particularly venerated, this is the snake called Wollunqua; its name is taboo.
    — from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

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