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.