Bonaventura ,Cavalieri and Sir George Gabriel Stokes, First Baronet,
( Sir) James George Frazer
description
Transcript of ( Sir) James George Frazer
1 January 1854, Glasgow – 7 May 1941, Cambridge
(Sir) James George Frazer
*Scottish social anthropologist, folklorist, and classical
scholar
*Influential in the early modern studies of mythology and
comparative religion.
*Often considered one of the founding fathers of modern
anthropology.
*First studied in an academy in Helensburgh, Dumbarton.
*Frazer went to Glasgow University (1869), entered Trinity
College, Cambridge (1874), and became a fellow (1879).
In 1907 he was appointed professor of social an-
thropology at Liverpool, but he returned to Cambridge
after one session, remaining there for the rest of his life.
*<The Golden Bough : A Study in Comparative Religion >
-Established his outstanding position among anthropologists.
-comparative study of mythology and religion all over the globe.
(diverse examples and stories)
-every religion and magical stuff originated from the same origin.
-attempts to define the shared elements of religious belief to sci-
entific thought
-According to Frazer, science was created(?) from the evolutionary
progress of magic.
-affected great many anthropologists such as Bronisław Mali-
nowski.
-also had a huge influence on literature/socialogy of the period.
→Robert Graves, William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Joseph Campbell : deeply influenced by <The Golden Bough>
-Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein made so much comments about Frazer’s work that his commentaries have been compiled as <Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough>.
He writes, "Frazer is much more savage than most of these savages.“
This is because he emphasized magic and religion of prehistoric times, and said that those rituals then turned into science.
-Weston LaBarre said that Frazer was "the last of the scholastics", and wrote The Golden Bough "as an extended footnote to a line in Virgil he felt he did not understand.”
-Modern criticisms. For example, Robert Ackerman in his <The Myth and Ritual School: J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists>
-His connection of social anthropology and Darwinian evolution-the three steps of magic-religion-scientific thoughts development is considered unreasonable.
* Negative Views on Frazer’s works
*Today!!!
*Nowadays still mentioned in the field of anthropol-
ogy. Even though evolutionary sequence of magi-
cal, religious, and scientific thought has been ac-
cepted dissatisfactory, there is no doubt that he
was significant in synthesizing and comparing a
wider range of magic and religions.
*Also, you can sometimes his name and his great
book, <The Golden Bough> when you are prepar-
ing for the Toefl Test.
*study of ancient cults, rites, and myths, in-cluding their parallels with early Christianity.
*There is no doubt that it is a greatly influen-tial book.
*Even though not all of his works are consid-ered valid, he still provided the most wide-ranging, deep study and comparison of mythology and religion for other fellow early modern anthropologists and the society.
* I think that his such broad research and works should be respected. His works have influenced even Freud, Campbell, and other famous writers.