The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion: 29 (Canongate Classics)

The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion: 29 (Canongate Classics)

by Cairns Craig (Introduction), Cairns Craig (Introduction), J.G. Frazer (Author)

Synopsis

Published originally in two volumes in 1890, this extraordinary study of primitive myth and magic, collected from sources around the world, led Frazer to identify parallel patterns of ritual, symbols and belief across many centuries and many different cultures. Frazer's learning inspired a whole generation of ethnographers and comparative anthropologists, and had a particularly powerful effect on many other thinkers and writers such as Sigmund Freud, D.H. Lawrence, Joyce, Yeats and T.S. Eliot.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 944
Edition: Main
Publisher: Canongate Classics
Published: 24 May 2004

ISBN 10: 1841954322
ISBN 13: 9781841954325

Media Reviews
Frazer's work has epic scale yet mesmerizing fineness of detail. We see the great structures of civilization forming and melting against a background of elemental mystery. The effect is cinematic and sublime. What I took from Frazer is his narrative sweep, multicultural sympathy and structuralist technique . . . The Golden Bough is like music - the dark resonance of Johannes Brahms' four symphonies, which inspired my reading of Western culture and its recurrent themes. -- Camille Paglia
Equally remarkable for its vast assembly of facts and its unusual charm of presentation. Few men of such learning have written more attractively. * * Concise Cambridge History of English Literature * *
Author Bio
J.G. Frazer (1854-1941) was born and educated in Glasgow, where he attended the University before going to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1871 he became a Classics Fellow at Trinity. He was knighted in 1914. He translated work from Greek and wrote fiction, but he is best known as a pioneer of social anthropology and comparative ethnography. Although he has many other titles to his name, none were to have the wide-ranging social and imaginative impact of The Golden Bough (first published in 1890).