The Golden Bough Summary - eNotes.com.
In his preface to the second edition of The Golden Bough (1900) he presents his view that magic is is fundamentally distinct and opposite to religion and also, “I believe that in the evolution of thought, magic as representing a lower intellectual stratum, has probably everywhere preceded religion.” (my italics) He also stresses that both magic and science share a similar worldview “In.
Frazer, with Freud, Marx, and Jung, is one of the thinkers who have had a deep and pervasive influence on modern literature. One of the great nineteenth-century syntheses, The Golden Bough was the.
The golden bough is “so bright amid the dark green ilex” (6.295) that it stands out in the dark forest, which correlates with how Aeneas stands out in the Underworld as being the only living person. Furthermore, Odysseus is able to enter the Underworld as soon as soon as he completes his sacrifices, whereas Aeneas must embark on another.
The Golden Bough also influenced literature, particularly the work of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot. Within its own field of anthropology, however, Frazer’s work has not been very influential.
Beyond the golden bough with Seamus Heaney.. “If you’re a poet,” he said in one of his wonderfully illuminating essays, “you are called upon to honour the dimensions of the art.
The title of Tom Pettitt's essay alludes to the massive impact on theatre historians of Sir James Frazer's monumental work on comparative anthropology, The Golden Bough (1890). It fostered the thesis that English folk drama preserves a pre-Christian fertility ritual, which may in turn have been the point of departure for the evolutionary process culminating with Shakespeare and the Elizabethan.
Classical philosopher and anthropologist Sir James George Frazer was born in Glasgow, 1 January 1854, to Daniel F. Frazer, a pharmacist, and Katherine Brown of Helensburgh. The eldest of four children, Frazer was raised in a devout Presbyterian household. Schooled initially at Larchfield Academy, Helensburgh, and then at the University of Glasgow, where he graduated with an M.A. in 1869.