(Download) "Isolation and the Sense of Assumed Superiority in Sir James Frazer's the Golden Bough." by Nineteenth-Century Prose # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Isolation and the Sense of Assumed Superiority in Sir James Frazer's the Golden Bough.
- Author : Nineteenth-Century Prose
- Release Date : January 22, 1992
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 192 KB
Description
Literary critics have traced the influence of Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough through the works of authors as diverse as Scott Fitzgerald and Sigmund Freud. Almost no modern writer has escaped the scrutiny of comparison. (2) However, only a few scholars have subjected The Golden Bough to the scrutiny of critical evaluation, (3) and their studies are mostly responses to the "hostile scrutiny" of anthropologists and classical scholars who find fault with The Golden Bough's theoretical framework and methodology. Their objections are twofold: On one level they find fault with Frazer's lack of field experience w he gathers his information only from secondary sources; on another level they object to Frazer's interpretation of this information--he can find no value for the myths and customs within their society. (4) Yet, despite its failings as an anthropological text, The Golden Bough has considerable value precisely because of its sense of assumed superiority and consequent isolation, and no critic has adequately examined its structure based on these principles. After reviewing the intricacies of Frazer's argument it becomes dear that he is schooled in the vocabulary of dominance and cannot escape its instruction. This does not simply mean his education at the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge. (5) It means that he approached his analysis from a position of superiority and refused to yield equality or even legitimacy to the objects of his study. The method of his examination can be discerned as a three-part process. First, there is an attempted contact. Unfortunately, the contact is often attempted through a medium that belies intimacy--the second part of the process. The medium could simply be the mistaken notion that human relations can be achieved solely through intellectual means, but it is more likely that some quality of his analysis made contact impossible. The result is limited communication--the method's final stage. This process manifests itself on many levels of The Golden Bough beginning with Frazer's chosen sources, continuing through his method of examining those sources, and proceeding through the results of his analysis--the discovery of lost traditions harboring secret associations, the origins of the Nemi ritual, a cycle of death and regeneration modelled on the seasons, and a hierarchy of religious and societal progress.