74-685: 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 James George Frazer . 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
148-622: A moral , fable , allegory or a parable , or collection of traditional stories, understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world. Thus "mythology" entered the English language before "myth". Johnson 's Dictionary , for example, has an entry for mythology, but not for myth. Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos ( pl. mythoi ) and Latinate mythus (pl. mythi ) both appeared in English before
222-449: A "disease of language". He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages. Anthropomorphic figures of speech , necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were in actuality conscious or divine. Not all scholars, not even all 19th-century scholars, accepted this view. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed that "the primitive mentality
296-449: A book on the comparative study of mythology and religion—argued that humans started out with a belief in magical rituals; later, they began to lose faith in magic and invented myths about gods, reinterpreting their rituals as religious rituals intended to appease the gods. Historically, important approaches to the study of mythology have included those of Vico , Schelling , Schiller , Jung , Freud , Lévy-Bruhl , Lévi-Strauss , Frye ,
370-424: A defining criterion. Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality . Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be factual accounts of their remote past. In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form. Origin myths explain how
444-495: 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 criticisms against The Golden Bough were numerous, particularly concerning Frazer's assertion that Christianity
518-477: A failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science within a unilineal framework that imagined that human cultures are travelling, at different speeds, along a linear path of cultural development. One of the dominant mythological theories of the latter 19th century was nature mythology , the foremost exponents of which included Max Müller and Edward Burnett Tylor . This theory posited that "primitive man"
592-446: A methodology that allows us to understand the complexity of the myth and its manifestations in contemporary times, is justified. Because "myth" is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted for "mythos" instead. "Mythos" now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a body of interconnected myths or stories, especially those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. It
666-535: A myth can be highly controversial. Many religious adherents believe that the narratives told in their respective religious traditions are historical without question, and so object to their identification as myths while labelling traditional narratives from other religions as such. Hence, some scholars may label all religious narratives as "myths" for practical reasons, such as to avoid depreciating any one tradition because cultures interpret each other differently relative to one another. Other scholars may abstain from using
740-486: A pattern of behavior to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult . Another definition of myth comes from myth criticism theorist and professor José Manuel Losada . According to Cultural Myth Criticism, the studies of myth must explain and understand "myth from inside", that is, only "as a myth". Losada defines myth as "a functional, symbolic and thematic narrative of one or several extraordinary events with
814-536: A poetic description of the sea as "raging" was eventually taken literally and the sea was then thought of as a raging god. Some thinkers claimed that myths result from the personification of objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients worshiped natural phenomena, such as fire and air, gradually deifying them. For example, according to this theory, ancients tended to view things as gods, not as mere objects. Thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, giving rise to myths. According to
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#1732764815420888-621: A scholarly term for "[a] traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events." The Greek term mythología was then borrowed into Late Latin , occurring in the title of Latin author Fulgentius ' 5th-century Mythologiæ to denote what is now referred to as classical mythology —i.e., Greco-Roman etiological stories involving their gods. Fulgentius' Mythologiæ explicitly treated its subject matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true events. The Latin term
962-507: A society's customs , institutions , and taboos were established and sanctified. National myths are narratives about a nation's past that symbolize the nation's values. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals . The word "myth" comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος ( mȳthos ), meaning 'speech, narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία ( mythología , 'story', 'lore', 'legends', or 'the telling of stories') combines
1036-565: A step further, incorporating the study of the transcendent dimension (its function, its disappearance) to evaluate the role of myth as a mirror of contemporary culture. Cultural myth criticism Cultural myth criticism, without abandoning the analysis of the symbolic , invades all cultural manifestations and delves into the difficulties in understanding myth today. This cultural myth criticism studies mythical manifestations in fields as wide as literature , film and television , theater , sculpture , painting , video games , music , dancing ,
1110-424: A superstitious belief in magicians, through a superstitious belief in priests and gods, to enlightened belief in scientists—had little or no relevance to the conduct of life in an Andamanese camp or a Melanesian village, and the whole, supposedly scientific, basis of Frazer's anthropology was seen as a misapplication of Darwin's theory of biological evolution to human history and psychology. Edmund Leach , "one of
1184-436: A transcendent, sacred and supernatural referent; that lacks, in principle, historical testimony; and that refers to an individual or collective, but always absolute, cosmogony or eschatology". According to the hylistic myth research by assyriologist Annette Zgoll and classic philologist Christian Zgoll , "A myth can be defined as an Erzählstoff [narrative material] which is polymorphic through its variants and – depending on
1258-576: A world of the remote past, very different from that of the present. Definitions of "myth" vary to some extent among scholars, though Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko offers a widely-cited definition: Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world , the creation , fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values and norms, it provides
1332-421: Is a condition of the human mind and not a stage in its historical development." Recent scholarship, noting the fundamental lack of evidence for "nature mythology" interpretations among people who actually circulated myths, has likewise abandoned the key ideas of "nature mythology". Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural law. This idea
1406-465: Is a form of understanding and telling stories that are connected to power, political structures, and political and economic interests. These approaches contrast with approaches, such as those of Joseph Campbell and Eliade , which hold that myth has some type of essential connection to ultimate sacred meanings that transcend cultural specifics. In particular, myth was studied in relation to history from diverse social sciences. Most of these studies share
1480-401: 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 already "began to belong to the past": according to Godfrey Lienhardt: The central theme (or, as he thought, theory) of The Golden Bough —that all mankind had evolved intellectually and psychologically from
1554-674: 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). The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein '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
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#17327648154201628-423: Is nobody's truth. Myths are somebody's truth." One theory claims that myths are distorted accounts of historical events. According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly elaborate upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gain the status of gods. For example, the myth of the wind-god Aeolus may have evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret
1702-472: Is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives. Some kinds of folktales, such as fairy stories , are not considered true by anyone, and may be seen as distinct from myths for this reason. Main characters in myths are usually gods , demigods or supernatural humans, while legends generally feature humans as their main characters. Many exceptions and combinations exist, as in
1776-636: Is sometimes known as "mythography", a term also used for a scholarly anthology of myths or of the study of myths generally. Key mythographers in the Classical tradition include: Other prominent mythographies include the thirteenth-century Prose Edda attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson , which is the main surviving survey of Norse Mythology from the Middle Ages. Jeffrey G. Snodgrass (professor of anthropology at
1850-510: Is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies, such as the world building of H. P. Lovecraft . Mythopoeia ( mytho- + -poeia , 'I make myth') was termed by J. R. R. Tolkien , amongst others, to refer to the "conscious generation" of mythology. It was notoriously also suggested, separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg . Comparative mythology is a systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common to
1924-579: The Iliad , Odyssey and Aeneid . Moreover, as stories spread between cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales, their divine characters recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants , elves and faeries . Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and
1998-457: The Republic . His critique was primarily on the grounds that the uneducated might take the stories of gods and heroes literally. Nevertheless, he constantly referred to myths throughout his writings. As Platonism developed in the phases commonly called Middle Platonism and neoplatonism , writers such as Plutarch , Porphyry , Proclus , Olympiodorus , and Damascius wrote explicitly about
2072-860: The Theologia Mythologica (1532). The first modern, Western scholarly theories of myth appeared during the second half of the 19th century —at the same time as "myth" was adopted as a scholarly term in European languages. They were driven partly by a new interest in Europe's ancient past and vernacular culture, associated with Romantic Nationalism and epitomised by the research of Jacob Grimm (1785–1863). This movement drew European scholars' attention not only to Classical myths, but also material now associated with Norse mythology , Finnish mythology , and so forth. Western theories were also partly driven by Europeans' efforts to comprehend and control
2146-622: The Colorado State University ) has termed India's Bhats as mythographers. Myth criticism is a system of anthropological interpretation of culture created by French philosopher Gilbert Durand . Scholars have used myth criticism to explain the mythical roots of contemporary fiction, which means that modern myth criticism needs to be interdisciplinary . Professor Losada offers his own methodologic, hermeneutic and epistemological approach to myth. While assuming mythopoetical perspectives, Losada's Cultural Myth Criticism takes
2220-538: 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
2294-480: The dying god , the scapegoat , and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture. His thesis is that the most ancient religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king in accordance with the cycle of the seasons. Frazer proposed that mankind's understanding of the natural world progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. Frazer's thesis
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2368-550: 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 Golden Bough influenced Sigmund Freud 's work Totem and Taboo (1913), as well as
2442-584: The Internet and other artistic fields . Myth criticism, a discipline that studies myths (mythology contains them, like a pantheon its statues), is by nature interdisciplinary: it combines the contributions of literary theory, the history of literature, the fine arts and the new ways of dissemination in the age of communication. Likewise, it undertakes its object of study from its interrelation with other human and social sciences, in particular sociology , anthropology and economics . The need for an approach, for
2516-730: The Philosophy of Religion (1832). The Golden Bough scandalized the British public when first published, as it included the Christian story of the resurrection of Jesus in its comparative study. Critics thought this treatment invited an agnostic reading of the Lamb of God as a relic of a pagan religion. For the third edition, Frazer placed his analysis of the Crucifixion in a speculative appendix, while discussion of Christianity
2590-567: The Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School . The critical interpretation of myth began with the Presocratics . Euhemerus was one of the most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical events, though distorted over many retellings. Sallustius divided myths into five categories: Plato condemned poetic myth when discussing education in
2664-595: The assumption that history and myth are not distinct in the sense that history is factual, real, accurate, and truth, while myth is the opposite. Frazer Lecture The Sir James George Frazer Memorial Lectureship in Social Anthropology is a British academic lecture series. In 1920 a sum of £675 was raised by a committee of the University of Cambridge for the purpose of commemorating Sir James Frazer's contributions to learning. In accordance with
2738-470: The concept of the Oedipus complex in his 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams . Jung likewise tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung asserted that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called archetypes . He believed similarities between the myths of different cultures reveals the existence of these universal archetypes. The mid-20th century saw
2812-587: 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 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 (1948). William Butler Yeats refers to Frazer's thesis in his poem " Sailing to Byzantium ". The horror writer H. P. Lovecraft 's understanding of religion
2886-597: The cultures, stories and religions they were encountering through colonialism . These encounters included both extremely old texts such as the Sanskrit Rigveda and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh , and current oral narratives such as mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas or stories told in traditional African religions . The intellectual context for nineteenth-century scholars
2960-493: The first example of "myth" in 1830. The main characters in myths are usually non-humans, such as gods , demigods , and other supernatural figures. Others include humans, animals, or combinations in their classification of myth. Stories of everyday humans, although often of leaders of some type, are usually contained in legends , as opposed to myths. Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in
3034-402: The foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior and that myths may provide a religious experience. By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age, thereby coming closer to the divine. Honko asserted that, in some cases, a society reenacts a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of
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3108-428: The history of academic social anthropology. Lienhardt himself dismissed Frazer's interpretations of primitive religion as "little more than plausible constructs of [Frazer's] own Victorian rationalism", while Ludwig Wittgenstein , in his Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough (published in 1967), wrote: "Frazer is much more savage than most of his 'savages' [since] his explanations of [their] observances are much cruder than
3182-423: The influential development of a structuralist theory of mythology , led by Lévi-Strauss . Strauss argued that myths reflect patterns in the mind and interpreted those patterns more as fixed mental structures, specifically pairs of opposites (good/evil, compassionate/callous), rather than unconscious feelings or urges. Meanwhile, Bronislaw Malinowski developed analyses of myths focusing on their social functions in
3256-711: The knights of the Round Table ) and the Matter of France , seem distantly to originate in historical events of the 5th and 8th centuries, respectively, and became mythologised over the following centuries. In colloquial use, "myth" can also be used of a collectively held belief that has no basis in fact, or any false story. This usage, which is often pejorative , arose from labelling the religious myths and beliefs of other cultures as incorrect, but it has spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well. As commonly used by folklorists and academics in other relevant fields, such as anthropology , "myth" has no implication whether
3330-517: The lasting influence of The Golden Bough and Frazer's wider body of work "has been in the literary rather than the academic world." Robert Ackerman writes that, for British social anthropologists, Frazer is still "an embarrassment" for being "the most famous of them all" even as the field now rejects most of his ideas. While The Golden Bough achieved wide "popular appeal" and exerted a "disproportionate" influence "on so many [20th-century] creative writers", Frazer's ideas played "a much smaller part" in
3404-473: The most impatient critics of Frazer's overblown prose and literary embellishment of his sources for dramatic effect", scathingly criticized what he saw as the artistic license exercised by Frazer in The Golden Bough : "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
3478-465: The myth-ritual theory, myth is tied to ritual. In its most extreme form, this theory claims myths arose to explain rituals. This claim was first put forward by Smith , who argued that people begin performing rituals for reasons not related to myth. Forgetting the original reason for a ritual, they account for it by inventing a myth and claiming the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth. James George Frazer —author of The Golden Bough ,
3552-583: The mythical age. For example, it might reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present. Similarly, Barthes argued that modern culture explores religious experience. Since it is not the job of science to define human morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological present. Pattanaik defines mythology as "the subjective truth of people communicated through stories, symbols and rituals." He says, "Facts are everybody's truth. Fiction
3626-430: The myths of multiple cultures. In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between separate mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This source may inspire myths or provide a common "protomythology" that diverged into the mythologies of each culture. A number of commentators have argued that myths function to form and shape society and social behaviour. Eliade argued that one of
3700-565: The narrative may be understood as true or otherwise. Among biblical scholars of both the Old and New Testament, the word "myth" has a technical meaning, in that it usually refers to "describe the actions of the other‐worldly in terms of this world" such as the Creation and the Fall. Since "myth" is popularly used to describe stories that are not objectively true , the identification of a narrative as
3774-399: The one-volume abridgement of The Golden Bough is "bland" and should be "avoided like the plague." Mythology 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 veracity of a myth is not
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#17327648154203848-484: The rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into pragmatic contexts. An example of this would be following a cultural or religious paradigm shift (notably the re-interpretation of pagan mythology following Christianization ). Interest in polytheistic mythology revived during the Renaissance , with early works of mythography appearing in the sixteenth century, among them
3922-543: The real world. He is associated with the idea that myths such as origin stories might provide a "mythic charter"—a legitimisation—for cultural norms and social institutions . Thus, following the Structuralist Era ( c. 1960s –1980s), the predominant anthropological and sociological approaches to myth increasingly treated myth as a form of narrative that can be studied, interpreted, and analyzed like ideology, history, and culture. In other words, myth
3996-463: 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
4070-417: The sense of the observances themselves." R.G. Collingwood shared Wittgenstein's criticism. Initially, the book's influence on the emerging discipline of anthropology was pervasive. Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski said of The Golden Bough : "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,
4144-632: The song " Not to Touch the Earth " by the Doors were influenced by The Golden Bough , with the title and opening lines being taken from its table of contents. Francis Ford Coppola 's film Apocalypse Now shows the antagonist Kurtz with the book in his lair, and his death is depicted as a ritual sacrifice. The mythologist Joseph Campbell drew on The Golden Bough in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he accepted Frazer's view that mythology
4218-421: The symbolic interpretation of traditional and Orphic myths. Mythological themes were consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer . The resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself becoming part of a body of myths ( Cupid and Psyche ). Medieval romance in particular plays with this process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism , as stated earlier, refers to
4292-464: The term "myth" altogether for purposes of avoiding placing pejorative overtones on sacred narratives. In present use, "mythology" usually refers to the collection of myths of a group of people. For example, Greek mythology , Roman mythology , Celtic mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures. "Mythology" can also refer to the study of myths and mythologies. The compilation or description of myths
4366-483: The variant – polystratic; an Erzählstoff in which transcending interpretations of what can be experienced are combined into a hyleme sequence with an implicit claim to relevance for the interpretation and mastering of the human condition." Scholars in other fields use the term "myth" in varied ways. In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story , popular misconception or imaginary entity. Though myth and other folklore genres may overlap, myth
4440-739: The winds. Herodotus (fifth-century BCE) and Prodicus made claims of this kind. This theory is named euhemerism after mythologist Euhemerus ( c. 320 BCE ), who suggested that Greek gods developed from legends about humans. Some theories propose that myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo represents the sun, Poseidon represents water, and so on. According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena represents wise judgment, Aphrodite romantic desire, and so on. Müller supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed myths began as allegorical descriptions of nature and gradually came to be interpreted literally. For example,
4514-405: The word mȳthos with the suffix - λογία ( -logia , 'study') in order to mean 'romance, fiction, story-telling.' Accordingly, Plato used mythología as a general term for 'fiction' or 'story-telling' of any kind. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used in English (and was likewise adapted into other European languages) in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as
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#17327648154204588-453: 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
4662-416: The work of Freud's student Carl Jung . The critic Camille Paglia has identified The Golden Bough as one of the most important influences on her book Sexual Personae (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 , she has described
4736-410: 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 , a priest of Diana at Lake Nemi, who was ritually murdered by his successor. The king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god , a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the Earth, died at the harvest and
4810-1029: Was central to the " myth and ritual " school of thought. According to Frazer, humans begin with an unfounded belief in impersonal magical laws. When they realize applications of these laws do not work, they give up their belief in natural law in favor of a belief in personal gods controlling nature, thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, humans continue practicing formerly magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally, humans come to realize nature follows natural laws, and they discover their true nature through science. Here again, science makes myth obsolete as humans progress "from magic through religion to science." Segal asserted that by pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories imply modern humans must abandon myth. The earlier 20th century saw major work developing psychoanalytical approaches to interpreting myth, led by Sigmund Freud , who, drawing inspiration from Classical myth, began developing
4884-551: Was developed in relation to an incident in Virgil 's Aeneid , in which Aeneas and the Sibyl present the golden bough taken from a sacred grove to the gatekeeper of Hades to gain admission. The incident was illustrated by J. M. W. Turner 's 1834 painting 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",
4958-416: 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
5032-408: Was for 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 has been substantial. Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice ,
5106-487: Was influenced by The Golden Bough , and Lovecraft mentions the book in his short story " The Call of Cthulhu ". T. S. Eliot acknowledged indebtedness to Frazer in his first note to his poem The Waste Land . William Carlos Williams refers to The Golden Bough in Book Two, part two, of Paterson . Frazer also influenced novelists James Joyce , Ernest Hemingway , William Gaddis and D. H. Lawrence . The lyrics of
5180-577: Was merely a perpetuation of primitive myth-ritualism and that the New Testament 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." Despite
5254-618: Was primarily concerned with the natural world. It tended to interpret myths that seemed distasteful to European Victorians —such as tales about sex, incest, or cannibalism—as metaphors for natural phenomena like agricultural fertility . Unable to conceive impersonal natural laws, early humans tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, thus giving rise to animism . According to Tylor, human thought evolved through stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas. Müller also saw myth as originating from language, even calling myth
5328-530: Was profoundly shaped by emerging ideas about evolution . These ideas included the recognition that many Eurasian languages—and therefore, conceivably, stories—were all descended from a lost common ancestor (the Indo-European language ) which could rationally be reconstructed through the comparison of its descendant languages. They also included the idea that cultures might evolve in ways comparable to species. In general, 19th-century theories framed myth as
5402-465: 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 , his friend James Ward, and the philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart , had both suggested to him that Hegel had anticipated his view of "the nature and historical relations of magic and religion". Frazer saw
5476-545: Was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie . Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word "mythology" in the 15th century, initially meaning 'the exposition of a myth or myths', 'the interpretation of fables', or 'a book of such expositions'. The word is first attested in John Lydgate 's Troy Book ( c. 1425 ). From Lydgate until the 17th or 18th century, "mythology" meant
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