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Frazer, Sir James George. 1922. The Golden Bough

  • A monumental study in comparative folklore, magic and religion, The Golden Bough shows parallels between the rites and beliefs, superstitions and taboos of early cultures and those of Christianity. It had a great impact on psychology and literature and remains an early classic anthropological resource.

Literary Encyclopedia: Sir James Frazer




  • Sir James George Frazer O.M. was a classicist and social anthropologist whose theories concerning cultural and religious evolution were widely disseminated through the literature of the twentieth century. Partly as a result of his own stylistic and narrative gifts, he impressed powerful—though often mistaken—ideas about sacrifice, magic and ritual on several generations of writers, scholars and artists. Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats and the Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo were among the authors to be affected by him in different ways, and to varying degrees of intensity. Frazer's hypotheses about the death of kings, the regeneration of nature and the social impact of taboos, though largely rejected by later anthropologist who found them sweeping and patronising, passed imperceptibly into the mainstream of culture. They continue to exert their sway over authors, readers and filmmakers, many of whom have not read—or even glanced at— Frazer's multifarious works.

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