''The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion'' (retitled ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'' in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir

James George Frazer Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. Personal life He was born on 1 Jan ...

. ''The Golden Bough'' was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; and in twelve volumes in the third edition, published 1906–1915. It has also been published in several different one-volume abridgments. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's '' The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes'' (1855). The influence of ''The Golden Bough'' on contemporary European literature and thought was substantial.

Summary

Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites,

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherei ...

, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture. His

thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144 ...

is that old religions were

fertility cult Fertility rites or fertility cult are religious rituals that are intended to stimulate reproduction in humans or in the natural world. Such rites may involve the sacrifice of "a primal animal, which must be sacrificed in the cause of fertility or ...

s that revolved around the

worship Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recogni ...

and periodic

sacrifice Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exis ...

of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. Frazer's thesis was developed in relation to an incident in the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of ...

'', in which

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

and the

Sibyl The sibyls (, singular ) were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by PausaniasPausanias 10.12.1 when he described local trad ...

present the golden bough taken from a sacred grove to the gatekeeper of

Hades Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...

to gain admission. The incident was illustrated by

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbul ...

's 1834 painting of ''The Golden Bough''. Frazer mistakenly states that the painting depicts the lake at Nemi, though it is actually Lake Avernus. The lake of Nemi, also known as " Diana's Mirror", was a place where religious ceremonies and the "fulfillment of vows" of priests and kings were held. Frazer based his thesis on the pre-Roman priest-king Rex Nemorensis at the fane of Nemi, who was ritually murdered by his successor. The king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a

solar deity A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. Th ...

who underwent a mystic marriage to a

goddess A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes ...

of the Earth. He died at the harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claims that this legend of rebirth was central to almost all of the world's mythologies. Frazer wrote in a preface to the third edition of ''The Golden Bough'' that while he had never studied

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...

, his friend James Ward, and the philosopher

J. M. E. McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (3 September 1866 – 18 January 1925) was an English idealist metaphysician. For most of his life McTaggart was a fellow and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was an exponent of the philo ...

, had both suggested to him that Hegel had anticipated his view of "the nature and historical relations of magic and religion". Frazer saw the resemblance as being that "we both hold that in the mental evolution of humanity an age of magic preceded an age of religion, and that the characteristic difference between magic and religion is that, whereas magic aims at controlling nature directly, religion aims at controlling it indirectly through the mediation of a powerful supernatural being or beings to whom man appeals for help and protection." Frazer included an extract from Hegel's ''

Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's ''Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion'' (''LPR''; german: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, ''VPR'') outlines his ideas on Christianity as a form of self-consciousness. They represent the final ...

'' (1832).

Critical reception

''The Golden Bough'' scandalized the British public when first published, as it included the Christian story of the

resurrection of Jesus The resurrection of Jesus ( grc-x-biblical, ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lo ...

in its comparative study. Critics thought this treatment invited an

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficien ...

reading of the

Lamb of God Lamb of God ( el, Ἀμνὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, Amnòs toû Theoû; la, Agnus Dei, ) is a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God wh ...

as a relic of a

pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. I ...

religion. For the third edition, Frazer placed his analysis of the

Crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

in a speculative appendix; the discussion of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

was excluded from the single-volume abridged edition. Frazer himself accepted that his theories were speculative and that the associations he made were circumstantial and usually based only on resemblance. He wrote: "Books like mine, merely speculation, will be superseded sooner or later (the sooner the better for the sake of truth) by better induction based on fuller knowledge." In 1922, at the inauguration of the Frazer Lectureship in Anthropology, he said: "It is my earnest wish that the lectureship should be used solely for the disinterested pursuit of truth, and not for the dissemination and propagation of any theories or opinions of mine." Godfrey Lienhardt notes that even during Frazer's lifetime, social anthropologists "had for the most part distanced themselves from his theories and opinions", and that the lasting influence of ''The Golden Bough'' and Frazer's wider body of work "has been in the literary rather than the academic world." Mirror Judgement of Paris Louvre Bj1734

Robert Ackerman writes that, for British social anthropologists, Frazer is still "an embarrassment" for being "the most famous of them all" while they now dissociate themselves "from much that he wrote." While ''The Golden Bough'' achieved wide "popular appeal" and exerted a "disproportionate" influence "on so many 0th centurycreative writers", Frazer's ideas played "a much smaller part" in the history of academic social anthropology. Lienhardt himself dismissed Frazer's interpretations of primitive religion as "little more than plausible constructs of razer'sown Victorian rationalism", while

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian- British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is consi ...

, in his '' Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough'' (published in 1967), wrote: "Frazer is much more savage than most of his 'savages' incehis explanations of

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offic ...

observances are much cruder than the sense of the observances themselves." Initially, the book's influence on the emerging discipline of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

was pervasive. For example, the Polish anthropologist

Bronisław Malinowski Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish-British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthro ...

read Frazer's work in the original English, and afterwards wrote: "No sooner had I read this great work than I became immersed in it and enslaved by it. I realized then that anthropology, as presented by Sir James Frazer, is a great science, worthy of as much devotion as any of her elder and more exact studies and I became bound to the service of Frazerian anthropology." However, by the 1920s, Frazer's ideas "began to belong to the past": according to Godfrey Lienhardt: Edmund Leach, "one of the most impatient critics of Frazer's overblown prose and literary embellishment of his sources for dramatic effect", was scathing of the artistic license exercised by Frazer in ''The Golden Bough'', saying: "Frazer used his ethnographic evidence, which he culled from here, there and everywhere, to ''illustrate'' propositions which he had arrived at in advance by ''a priori'' reasoning, but, to a degree which is often quite startling, whenever the evidence did not fit he simply altered the evidence!" René Girard, a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science, "grudgingly" praised Frazer for recognising kingly sacrifice as "a key primitive ritual", but described his interpretation of the ritual as "a grave injustice to ethnology." Girard's "grievances" against ''The Golden Bough'' were numerous, particularly concerning Frazer's assertion that Christianity was merely a perpetuation of primitive myth-ritualism and that the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

Gospels were "just further myths of the death and resurrection of the king who embodies the god of vegetation." Girard himself considered the Gospels to be "revelatory texts" rather than myths or the remains of "ignorant superstition", and rejected Frazer's idea that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice, "whatever definition we may give for that sacrifice."

Literary influence

Despite the controversy generated by the work, and its critical reception amongst other scholars, ''The Golden Bough'' inspired much of the creative literature of the period. The poet

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celt ...

adapted Frazer's concept of the dying king sacrificed for the good of the kingdom to the romantic idea of the poet's suffering for the sake of his Muse-Goddess, as reflected in his book on poetry, rituals, and myths, ''

The White Goddess ''The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, the book is based on earlier articles published in ''Wales'' magazi ...

'' (1948). William Butler Yeats refers to Frazer's thesis in his poem "

Sailing to Byzantium "Sailing to Byzantium" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, first published in the 1928 collection '' The Tower''. It comprises four stanzas in ottava rima, each made up of eight lines of iambic pentameter. It uses a journey to Byzantium ( Consta ...

". The horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's understanding of religion was influenced by ''The Golden Bough'', and Lovecraft mentions the book in his short story "

The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. Inspiration The first seed of the story's first chapter '' ...

". T. S. Eliot acknowledged indebtedness to Frazer in his first note to his poem ''

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of Modernist poetry in English, modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the ...

''. William Carlos Williams refers to ''The Golden Bough'' in Book Two, part two, of his extended poem in five books '' Paterson''. ''The Golden Bough'' influenced

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

's work '' Totem and Taboo'' (1913). Frazer's work also influenced the psychiatrist

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, ph ...

and the novelists

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

, William Gaddis and

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

. The mythologist

Joseph Campbell Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the ...

drew on ''The Golden Bough'' in ''

The Hero with a Thousand Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'' (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell, in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myt ...

'' (1949), in which he accepted Frazer's view that mythology is a primitive attempt to explain the world of nature, though considering it only one among a number of valid explanations of mythology. Campbell later described Frazer's work as "monumental". The anthropologist Weston La Barre described Frazer as "the last of the scholastics" in '' The Human Animal'' (1955) and wrote that Frazer's work was "an extended footnote to a line in

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

he felt he did not understand." The lyrics of the musician Jim Morrison's song " Not to Touch the Earth" were influenced by the table of contents of ''The Golden Bough''. The movie '' Apocalypse Now'' by Francis Ford Coppola shows the antagonist Kurtz with the book in his lair, and the film depicts his death as a ritual sacrifice as well. The philosopher

's commentaries on ''The Golden Bough'' have been compiled as '' Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough'', edited by Rush Rhees, originally published in 1967 (the English edition followed in 1979). Robert Ackerman, in his ''The Myth and Ritual School: J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists'' (1991), sets Frazer in the broader context of the history of ideas. The myth and ritual school includes scholars Jane Harrison, Gilbert Murray, F. M. Cornford, and A.B. Cook, who were connecting the new discipline of myth theory and anthropology with traditional literary classics at the end of the 19th century, influencing Modernist literature. The critic

Camille Paglia Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...

has identified ''The Golden Bough'' as one of the most important influences on her book ''

Sexual Personae ''Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson'' is a 1990 work about sexual decadence in Western literature and the visual arts by scholar Camille Paglia, in which she addresses major artists and writers such as Donate ...

'' (1990). In ''Sexual Personae'', Paglia described Frazer's "most brilliant perception" in ''The Golden Bough'' as his "analogy between Jesus and the dying gods", though she noted that it was "muted by prudence". In ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon ( ...

'', she has described the work as "a model of intriguing specificity wed to speculative imagination." Paglia acknowledged that "many details in Frazer have been contradicted or superseded", but maintained that the work of Frazer's Cambridge school of classical anthropology "will remain inspirational for enterprising students seeking escape from today's sterile academic climate." Paglia has also commented, however, that the one-volume abridgement of ''The Golden Bough'' is "bland" and should be "avoided like the plague."

Publication history

Editions

*First edition, 2 vols., 1890. (Vol
III
*Second edition, 3 vols., 1900. (Vol
IIIIII
*Third edition, 12 vols., 1906-15. **Volume 1 (1906): ''The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings'' (Part 1
1920 (reprint)

Volume 2 (1911)
''The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings'' (Part 2)
Volume 3 (1911)
''Taboo and the Perils of the Soul''
Volume 4 (1911)
''The Dying God''
Volume 5 (1914)
''Adonis, Attis, Osiris'' (Part 1)
Volume 6 (1914)
''Adonis, Attis, Osiris'' (Part 2)
Volume 7 (1912)
''Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild'' (Part 1)
Volume 8 (1912)
''Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild'' (Part 2)
Volume 9 (1913)
''The Scapegoat''
Volume 10(1913)
''Balder the Beautiful'' (Part 1)
Volume 11 (1913)
''Balder the Beautiful'' (Part 2)
Volume 12 (1915)
''Bibliography and General Index''
The entire third edition in searchable .pdfs

Supplement

1937 edition
''Aftermath: A Supplement to the Golden Bough''

Abridged editions

*Abridged edition, 1 vol., 1922. This edition excludes Frazer's references to Christianity. **1995 Touchstone edition, **2002 Dover reprint of 1922 edition, *Abridged edition, edited by Theodor H. Gaster, 1959, entitled ''The New Golden Bough: A New Abridgment of the Classic Work.'' *Abridged edition, edited by

Mary Douglas Dame Mary Douglas, (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkheim ...

and abridged by

Sabine MacCormack Sabine MacCormack (1941–2012) was a German-American historian of Late Antiquity and Colonial Latin America. Life Born Sabine Oswalt in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1941, she grew up seeing the turmoil and violence of World War II. After receiving ...

, 1978, entitled ''The Illustrated Golden Bough''. *Abridged edition, edited by Robert Fraser for Oxford University Press, 1994. It restores the material on Christianity purged in the first abridgement. *Abridged edition, abridged by

Robert K. G. Temple ''The Sirius Mystery'' is a book written by Robert K. G. Temple (born Robert Kyle Grenville Temple in 1945) supporting the pseudoscientific ancient astronauts hypothesis that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited the Earth and made contac ...

for Simon & Schuster, 1996, entitled ''The Illustrated Golden Bough; A Study in Magic and Religion''. Another illustrated abridgement.

Online text

*The 1922 edition o
''The Golden Bough''
as downloadable and searchable .pdfs. *The 1922 edition o
''The Golden Bough''
on the

Internet Sacred Text Archive The Internet Sacred Text Archive (ISTA) is a Santa Cruz, California-based website dedicated to the preservation of electronic public domain religious texts. History The website was first opened to the public on March 9, 1999 by John Bruno Har ...

References

Citations

External links

*
HTML version of ''The Golden Bough''
on the

*
''The Golden Bough''
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