The Cambridge Ritualists were a recognised group of

classical scholar Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

s, mostly in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, England, including

Jane Ellen Harrison Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar and linguist. With Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, Harrison is one of the founders of modern studies in Ancient Greek religion and mythology. She ...

, F.M. Cornford,

Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greec ...

(actually from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

), A. B. Cook,

George Thomson George Thomson may refer to: Government and politics * George Thomson (MP for Southwark) (c. 1607–1691), English merchant and Parliamentarian soldier, official and politician * George Thomson, Baron Thomson of Monifieth (1921–2008), Scottish p ...

, and others. They earned this title because of their shared interest in

ritual A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

, specifically their attempts to explain

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

and early forms of

classical drama Classical drama may refer to: *Theatre of ancient Greece *Theatre of ancient Rome The architectural form of theatre in Rome has been linked to later, more well-known examples from the 1st century BC to the 3rd Century AD. The theatre of ancient ...

as originating in ritual, mainly the ritual seasonal killings of ''eniautos daimon'', or the Year-King. They are also sometimes referred to as the myth and ritual school, or as the Classical Anthropologists.

Sacrifice and drama

Inspired by ''

The Golden Bough ''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 and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir ...

'', Gilbert Murray in 1913 proclaimed the killing of the year spirit as the "orthodox view of the origins of tragedy. The year Daimon waxes proud and is slain by his enemy, who becomes thereby a murderer, and must in turn perish". A decade later, however, the excessively rigid application of Frazer's thesis to Greek tragedy had already begun to be challenged; and by the sixties

Robert Fagles Robert Fagles (; September 11, 1933 – March 26, 2008) was an American translator, poet, and academic. He was best known for his many translations of ancient Greek and Roman classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems o ...

could state that "The ritual origins of tragedy are totally in doubt, often hotly debated".

Influences

Through their work in classical

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

, they exerted profound influence not only on the Classics, but on literary critics, such as Stanley Edgar Hyman or Northrop Frye. Particularly affected by Émile Durkheim was F. M. Cornford, who used the French sociologist's notion of collective representations to analyze social forms of religious, artistic, philosophical, and scientific expression in classical Greece. Other significant influences on the group, particularly on Harrison, were Charles Darwin, Darwin, James Frazer, Karl Marx, Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud, Freud.

References

External links

Bibliography of works by and about the Myth and Ritual School
Culture in Cambridge Ancient Greek theatre British literary theorists Ritual Classical philology Mythology {{England-stub

Sacrifice and drama

Influences

See also

References

Further reading

External links