James Frazer
James George Frazer (born January 1, 1854 – died May 7, 1941), was a British social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
Life
James Frazer was born in Glasgow, Scotland, as the oldest of four children of Daniel Frazer and Katherine Brown. His mother’s great grandfather was famous George Bogle, the British envoy to Tibet, one of the few ever to travel into that remote land. Frazer grew up listening to the stories from his journeys, of different cultures and civilizations, which probably had impact on his motivation later in life to study anthropology.
Frazer learned Latin and Greek at Larchfield Academy, and continued to study Classics at the University of Glasgow. He subsequently enrolled into the Trinity College at Cambridge where he graduated with honors in 1878. His dissertation was published years later in his book The Growth of Plato's Ideal Theory.
He went on, much due to his father’s desire, to study law in London, at the Middle Temple. He became a lawyer in 1897, but decided not to practice law. Instead, he devoted himself to what he loved - writing and research in rituals and mythology. His first big project was the translation and commentary on Paesanius – a second century Greek travel writer. The six volumes of Frazer’s work were published 1898. At the same time with working on Paesanius, Frazer’s interest for social anthropology was deepened by the work of E.B. Taylor - Primitive Culture (1871). After reading it, Frazier knew that he wanted to dedicate his life to study primitive customs and beliefs. His friend, the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, who was linking the Old Testament with early Hebrew folklore, helped him in this determination.
Frazer started to send letters to missionaries, doctors, and travelers, as many as he could find, in which he inquired them about indigenous peoples they came in contact with. He also collected reports from various travels, as well as written sources – books, ancient texts, etc. which talked about different cultures. Frazer combined all of the above to create one unified source of information on distant cultures. In 1890 he published The Golden Bough, which compiled information on the religious beliefs, myths, social taboos, and customs of different cultures in the world. The work immediately became a bestseller, and was widely used for decades as a sourcebook in different social sciences. However, at the same time, the work came under serious criticism from the side of public, due to one section where Frazer compared Christianity with other primitive religions. This section had to be later removed from the book.
Frazer married Elisabeth Grove in 1896, who became great help in his work. She always encouraged her husband and ensured that he had comfortable environment for his work.
Frazier was four times elected to Trinity's Title Alpha Fellowship, and was associated with the Cambridge College for most of his life, except for a year, 1907/08, which he spent at the University of Liverpool. He was knighted in 1915 for his contributions to the science of anthropology. He continued to work at Cambridge until his very last days. In 1930 he survived an accident that left him virtually blind, but it never stopped him from working. He relied on his secretaries and his wife to help him read and type. His wife stayed with him until his death, in 1941. He died in Cambridge, England. Just few hours after his death, his wife Elisabeth died, and they were buried together at St. Gile’s Cemetery, Cambridge.
Work
The study of mythology and religion was Frazier’s area of expertise. Although he was far from being the first to study religions dispassionately, as a cultural phenomenon rather than from within theology, he was among the first to notice the relations between myths and rituals. His greatest work The Golden Bough - the study of ancient cults, rites, and myths, including their parallels with early Christianity - is still rifled by modern mythographers for its detailed information. The first edition, in two volumes, was published in 1890. The third edition was finished in 1915 and ran to twelve volumes, with a supplemental thirteenth volume added in 1936. He also published a single volume abridgement, largely compiled by his wife Lady Frazer, in 1922, with some controversial material removed from the text. Overall, with this work Frazer established himself as an expert in anthropology, and was recognized by fellow scholars.
Frazer compiled The Golden Bough based on a great amount of data he collected over years from various sources, including already written works on the topic of different cultures, as well as reports from missionaries and travelers who were in the direct contact with those cultures. When it was finished, The Golden Bough was an impressive compilation of customs, rituals, and beliefs of cultures around the world. Frazer particularly emphasized similarities of key themes – such as birth, growth, death, and rebirth – which he found across cultures. With that Frazer provoked new insights about cultural diversity and commonality, something that was not done before in, until then, Euro/Amero-centered academia.
One of the most controversial parts of Frazer’s work was the topic of religion, particularly the one that dealt with Christianity. Frazer’s approach to religion was rather new. He dealt with it from the secular side, disregarding theology or anything that dealt with “meaning”. The most provocative was his parallel of early Christianity with other religions, especially their rituals and customs. Frazer drew a comparison between the story of Christ with other similar stories of death and rebirth from other religions. With that Frazer came under public criticism and eventually this part of the book had to be removed.
Legacy
Frazer’s main work - The Golden Bough - influenced numerous scholars and writers. Based on it, René Girard developed his mimesis theory of the scapegoat. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were impressed by Frazer’s work, and have used The Golden Bought as a sourcebook in their own work. Both Freud’s and Jung’s views on religion, although almost totally different, can be seen derive from this work. Modern mythologist Joseph Campbell built upon Frazer too.
The work's influence also spilled well over the conventional bounds of academia. The symbolic cycle of life, death and rebirth, which Frazer divined behind myths of all pedigrees, captivated a whole generation of artists and poets, including James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Mary Renault, and others. T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was also inspired by The Golden Bough.
Frazer was one of the first scholars to directly compare religious beliefs, mythologies and social behavior of different cultures, and find the similarities that connect them. He was one of the first to break down the barriers between Christianity and other religions, showing that it had more common points with other beliefs that people wanted to acknowledge. It was quite a brave claim from Frazer, in the time when Christianity was regarded as a superior religion that needed to evangelize all other heathens.
With his work, Frazer influenced not only numerous generations of anthropologists who continued the work in comparative mythologies or religions, but he also evoked interest for once forgotten, distant and exotic cultures. With his description of the pre-Christian Europe and its tribal beliefs and customs, Frazer also evoked interests in paganism. His work became one of the primary source material for writers like Gerald Gardner and Aleister Crowley, who drew on the work of Mme. Blavatsky.
Most of Frazier’s work can be considered pioneering in the area of anthropology. Since he did not travel much, he relied mostly on reports from other people, based on which he compiled his ethnographic material and draw conclusions. However, it has been shown that those conclusions were often based on incomplete and biased facts, skewed by the views of white people who collected them. His theories of totemism were later superseded by Claude Lévi-Strauss and his view of the annual sacrifice of the Year King has not been verified by field studies. Furthermore, his generation's choice of Darwinian evolution as a social paradigm, through which he interpreted cultural development as three rising stages of progress — magic giving rise to religion, then culminating in science — had not proved valid.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Downie, Angus R. (1940). James George Frazer: The Portrait of a Scholar. Watts & Co.
- Taylor, Edward B. (1974). Primitive culture: researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom. Gordon Press. (original work published 1871). ISBN 0879680911
Bibliography
- Frazer, James G. 1942. Man, God, and Immortality. Kessinger Publishing (original published 1927). ISBN 0766101886
- Frazer, James G. 1967. The Growth of Plato's Ideal Theory. Russell & Russell Pub. (original published 1930). ISBN 0846208407
- Frazer, James G. 2000. The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead. Routledge-Curzon (original published 1913). ISBN 0700713395
- Frazer, James G. 2000. The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion. Routledge-Curzon (original published in 1933). ISBN 0700713409
- Frazer, James G. 2000. Totemism and Exogamy. Routledge-Curzon (original published 1910). ISBN 0700713387
- Frazer, James G. 2002. Creation and Evolution in Primitive Cosmogenies, and Other Pieces. Curzon Press. (original published 1935). ISBN 0700714502
- Frazer, James G. 2002. Devil's Advocate: A Plea for Superstitions. Curzon Press. (original published 1928). ISBN 0700714448
- Frazer, James G. 2002. Folk-lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law. Curzon Press. (original published 1918). ISBN 0700714405
- Frazer, James G. 2002. Garnered Sheaves. Curzon Press. (original published 1931). ISBN 0700714391
- Frazer, James G. 2002. The Gorgon's Head and other Literary Pieces. Curzon Press. (original published 1927). ISBN 070071443X
- Frazer, James G. 2002. The Magical Origins of Kings. Curzon Press. ISBN 0700714413
- Frazer, James G. 2002. Myths of the Origin of Fire. Curzon Press. (originalpublished 1930). ISBN 0700714510
- Frazer, James G. 2002. The Worship of Nature. Curzon Press (original published 1926). ISBN 0700714421
- Frazer, James G. 2005. Stories of the Great Flood from Different Civilizations. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1425362818
- Frazer, James G. 2006. Adonis Attis Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental Religion. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1425499910
- Frazer, James G. & Stocking, George W. 1998. The Golden Bough: Abridged Edition. Penguin Classics (original published 1890). ISBN 0140189319
External links
- Sir James Frazer: brief analysis
- The Golden Bough: on-line text, 1922 abridged edition
- Works by James Frazer. Project Gutenberg
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
