Sir James Frazer

Robert Fraser (The Open University)
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Sir James George Frazer O.M. was a classicist and social anthropologist whose theories concerning cultural and religious evolution were widely disseminated through the literature of the twentieth century. Partly as a result of his own stylistic and narrative gifts, he impressed powerful—though often mistaken—ideas about sacrifice, magic and ritual on several generations of writers, scholars and artists. Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats and the Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo were among the authors to be affected by him in different ways, and to varying degrees of intensity. Frazer's hypotheses about the death of kings, the regeneration of nature and the social impact of taboos, though largely rejected by later anthropologist who found them sweeping and…

1862 words

Citation: Fraser, Robert. "Sir James Frazer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1623, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1623 Sir James Frazer 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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