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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 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 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 Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, ''Fearful Symmetr ...
. Particularly affected by
Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim (; or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French Sociology, sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern soci ...
was
F. M. Cornford Francis Macdonald Cornford (27 February 1874 – 3 January 1943) was an English classics, classical scholar and translator known for work on ancient philosophy, notably Plato, Parmenides, Thucydides, and ancient Greek religion. Frances Cornfor ...
, who used the French sociologist's notion of collective representations to analyze social forms of religious, artistic, philosophical, and scientific expression in
classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Mar ...
. Other significant influences on the group, particularly on Harrison, were Darwin,
James Frazer Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folkloristJosephson-Storm (2017), Chapter 5. influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. Per ...
,
Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
,
Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...
and
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 seen as originating from conflicts in t ...
.


See also


References


Further reading

*''The Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered: Proceedings of the First Oldfather Conference, Held on the Campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign April 27–30, 1989'', edited by W. M. Calder III *''The Myth and Ritual Theory'' (1998), anthology edited by Robert A. Segal. *C Kluckholn, 'Myths and Rituals' ''Harvard Theological Review'' 35 (1942) 45-79


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