And Frazer’s inclusion of events sacred to Christianity in his comparative studies, such as Christ’s resurrection, outraged some contemporary critics, because it implied that these events were the equivalent of pagan myths.īut to others, Frazer’s work was revolutionary and inspiring. Of course, the implication that science is on an evolutionary plane higher than religion did not endear Frazer to Christian church authorities. Until then, no one had attempted so vast a comparison of human beliefs.įrazer’s global study of myths and rituals formed the basis for his theory that human civilization evolved from belief in magic, to faith in religion, to reliance on science. Today this method would cause a field anthropologist to raise an eyebrow, but it was a start. He also sent detailed questionnaires to missionaries and British colonial officials all over the world, including Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific, seeking their observations of the natives’ customs and rituals. According to the public opinion of the ancients the fateful branch was that Golden Bough which, at the Sibyl’s bidding, Aeneas plucked before he essayed the perilous journey to the world of the dead.Īlthough he read extensively in ancient texts, Frazer’s research was not confined to Greek and Roman myths. Success in the attempt entitled him to fight the priest in single combat, and if he slew him he reigned in his stead with the title of King of the Wood ( Rex Nemorensis). Only a runaway slave was allowed to break off, if he could, one of its boughs. Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken. Who does not know Turner’s picture of the Golden Bough? The scene, suffused with the golden glow of imagination in which the divine mind of Turner steeped and transfigured even the fairest natural landscape, is a dream-like vision of the little woodland lake of Nemi-”Diana’s Mirror,” as it was called by the ancients…. The Golden Bough was inspired by an ancient Roman myth depicted in J.M.W.

This monumental study of comparative mythology and religion, first published in two volumes in 1890, had a huge influence not only on the newly developing fields of social anthropology and psychology, but also on modern literature.įrazer’s studies in classics at Cambridge sparked a deep interest in myths and religious rites.

Distributed Proofreaders recently completed posting to Project Gutenberg all twelve volumes of Sir James George Frazer’s masterwork, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (3rd edition, 1915).

James george frazer