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{{short description|Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist (1854–1941)}}
{{Redirect|James Frazer|others with the same or a similar name|James Fraser (disambiguation)}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
| name = James George Frazer
| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|OM|FRS|FRSE|FBA|size=100}}
| image = JamesGeorgeFrazer.jpg
| caption = Sir James George Frazer in 1933
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1854|1|1}}
| birth_place = [[Glasgow]], Scotland
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1941|5|7|1854|1|1}}
| death_place = [[Cambridge]], England
| residence =
| field = [[Social anthropologist]]
| work_institutions = {{ubl | [[Trinity College, Cambridge]] | [[University of Liverpool]]}}
| alma_mater = {{ubl | [[University of Glasgow]] (MA 1874)| [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]}}
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Research in [[mythology]] and [[comparative religion]]
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo = | prizes = [[Order of Merit]]<br>[[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Fleure | first1 = H. J. | author-link = Herbert John Fleure| title = James George Frazer. 1854-1941 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1941.0041 | journal = [[Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 3 | issue = 10 | pages = 896–914| year = 1941 | s2cid = 161719297 }}</ref>▼
| signature = ▼
▲|prizes = [[Order of Merit]]<br>[[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Fleure | first1 = H. J. | author-link = Herbert John Fleure| title = James George Frazer. 1854-1941 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1941.0041 | journal = [[Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 3 | issue = 10 | pages = 896–914| year = 1941 | s2cid = 161719297 }}</ref>
▲|signature =
}}
{{Anthropology of religion}}
'''Sir James George Frazer''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|OM|FRS|FRSE|FBA}}<ref name="frs"/> ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|r|eɪ|z|ər}}; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish [[social anthropologist]] and [[folklore studies|folklorist]]<ref name="Josephson-Storm 2017, Chapter 5">Josephson-Storm (2017), Chapter 5.</ref> influential in the early stages of the modern studies of [[mythology]] and [[comparative religion]].<ref>Mary Beard, "Frazer, Leach, and Virgil: The Popularity (and Unpopularity) of the Golden Bough
==Personal life==
Frazer was born on 1 January 1854 in [[Glasgow]], Scotland, the son of Katherine Brown and Daniel F. Frazer, a chemist.<ref name="RSE">{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=7 June 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> He attended school at Springfield Academy and [[Larchfield Academy]] in [[Helensburgh]].<ref>Jaques Waardenburg. 1999. ''Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theories of Research,'' Volume I: ''Introduction and Anthology'', p244. New York : Walter de Gruyter. {{ISBN|3-11-016328-4}}</ref> He studied at the [[University of Glasgow]] and [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], where he graduated with honours in [[classics]] (his dissertation was published years later as ''The Growth of [[Plato]]'s Ideal Theory'') and remained a Classics Fellow all his life.<ref>{{acad|id=FRSR874JG|name=Frazer, James George}}</ref> From Trinity, he went on to study law at the [[Middle Temple]], but never practised.▼
Four times elected to Trinity's Title Alpha Fellowship, he was associated with the college for most of his life, except for the year 1907–1908, spent at the [[University of Liverpool]]. He was knighted in 1914, and a [[Frazer Lecture|public lectureship]] in social anthropology at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow and Liverpool was established in his honour in 1921.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/addresstosirjame00slsn#page/n1/mode/2up Address to Sir James George Frazer on the occasion of the foundation, in his honour, of the Frazer Lectureship in Social Anthropology in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow and Liverpool (1920)].</ref> He was, if not blind, then severely visually impaired from 1930 on. He and his wife, Lilly, died in [[Cambridge]], England, within a few hours of each other.
Frazer is commonly interpreted as an atheist in light of his [[criticism of Christianity]] and especially [[Roman Catholicism]] in ''[[The Golden Bough]]''. However, his later writings and unpublished materials suggest an ambivalent relationship with [[Neoplatonism]] and [[Hermeticism]].<ref
▲Frazer attended school at Springfield Academy and [[Larchfield Academy]] in [[Helensburgh]].<ref>Jaques Waardenburg. 1999. ''Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Aims, Methods and Theories of Research,'' Volume I: ''Introduction and Anthology'', p244. New York : Walter de Gruyter. {{ISBN|3-11-016328-4}}</ref> He studied at the [[University of Glasgow]] and [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], where he graduated with honours in [[classics]] (his dissertation was published years later as ''The Growth of [[Plato]]'s Ideal Theory'') and remained a Classics Fellow all his life.<ref>{{acad|id=FRSR874JG|name=Frazer, James George}}</ref> From Trinity, he went on to study law at the [[Middle Temple]], but never practised.
In 1896 Frazer married [[Lilly Frazer|Elizabeth "Lilly" Grove]], a writer whose
▲Four times elected to Trinity's Title Alpha Fellowship, he was associated with the college for most of his life, except for the year 1907–1908, spent at the [[University of Liverpool]]. He was knighted in 1914, and a [[Frazer Lecture|public lectureship]] in social anthropology at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow and Liverpool was established in his honour in 1921.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/addresstosirjame00slsn#page/n1/mode/2up Address to Sir James George Frazer on the occasion of the foundation, in his honour, of the Frazer Lectureship in Social Anthropology in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow and Liverpool (1920)].</ref> He was, if not blind, then severely visually impaired from 1930 on. He and his wife, Lilly, died in [[Cambridge]], England, within a few hours of each other.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}} He died on 7 May 1941.<ref name="RSE"/> They are buried at the [[Ascension Parish Burial Ground, Cambridge|Ascension Parish Burial Ground]] in Cambridge.
==Work==
▲Frazer is commonly interpreted as an atheist in light of his [[criticism of Christianity]] and especially [[Roman Catholicism]] in ''[[The Golden Bough]]''. However, his later writings and unpublished materials suggest an ambivalent relationship with [[Neoplatonism]] and [[Hermeticism]].<ref>Josephson-Storm (2017), Chapter 5.</ref>
▲In 1896 Frazer married Elizabeth "Lilly" Grove, a writer whose family was from [[Alsace]]. She would later adapt Frazer's ''Golden Bough'' as a book of children's stories, ''The Leaves from the Golden Bough''.<ref name="Ackerman1987">{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Ackerman|title=J G Frazer: His Life and Work|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s_k4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA124|date=10 December 1987|publisher=CUP Archive|isbn=978-0-521-34093-9|page=124}}</ref><ref name="Kessler2013">{{cite book|first=Gary|last=Kessler|title=Fifty Key Thinkers on Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=itOoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA54|date=March 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-66241-6|page=54}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Leaves from the Golden Bough |journal=Nature |date=December 13, 1924 |volume=114 |issue=2876 |pages=854–855 |doi=10.1038/114854b0 |bibcode=1924Natur.114R.854. |s2cid=4110636 }}</ref>
The [[mythology|study of myth]] and religion became his areas of expertise. Except for visits to [[Italy]] and [[Greece]], Frazer was not widely travelled. His prime sources of data were ancient histories and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and imperial officials all over the globe. Frazer's interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading [[E. B. Tylor]]'s ''Primitive Culture'' (1871) and was also encouraged by his friend, the biblical scholar [[William Robertson Smith]], who was comparing elements of the Old Testament with early Hebrew folklore.
Frazer was the first scholar to describe in detail the relations between [[myths and rituals]]. His vision of the annual sacrifice of the [[Year-King]] has not been borne out by field studies. Yet ''[[The Golden Bough]]'', his study of ancient cults, rites, and myths, including their parallels in early Christianity, continued for many decades to be studied by modern mythographers for its detailed information.<ref>D Daiches ed., ''Companion to Literature 1'' (1968) p. 194</ref>
The first edition, in two volumes, was published in 1890; and a second, in three volumes, in 1900.<ref>R Fraser Intro, ''The Golden Bough'' (Oxford 2009) p. xl</ref> The third edition was finished in 1915 and ran to twelve volumes, with a supplemental thirteenth volume added in 1936. He published a single-volume abridged version, largely compiled by his wife Lady Frazer, in 1922, with some controversial material on Christianity excluded from the text.<ref>For the history of ''The Golden Bough'' see R. Fraser, ''The Making of The Golden Bough: The Origins and Growth of an Argument'' (London, 1990).</ref> The work's influence extended well beyond the conventional bounds of academia, inspiring the new work of psychologists and psychiatrists. [[Sigmund Freud]], the founder of [[psychoanalysis]], cited ''Totemism and Exogamy'' frequently in his own ''[[Totem and Taboo]]: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics''.<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Life of Savages and Neurotics,'' trans., A.A. Brill (London: Routledge and Sons, 1919), p. 4</ref>
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The symbolic cycle of life, death and rebirth which Frazer divined behind myths of many peoples captivated a generation of artists and poets. Perhaps the most notable product of this fascination is [[T. S. Eliot]]'s poem ''[[The Waste Land]]'' (1922).
Frazer's pioneering work<ref>"For those who see Frazer's work as the start of [[Social anthropology|anthropological study]] in its modern sense, the site and the cult of Nemi must hold a particular place: This<!--capitalised in original--> colourful but minor backwater of Roman religion marks the source of the discipline of [[Social anthropology]]", remarks Mary Beard, in noting the critical reassessment of Frazer's work following [[Edmund Leach]], "Frazer, Leach, and Virgil: The Popularity (and Unpopularity) of the Golden Bough
'''36'''.1 (1973:128).</ref> More recently, ''The Golden Bough'' has been
Another important work by Frazer is his six-volume commentary on the Greek traveller [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]]' description of Greece in the mid-2nd century AD. Since his time, archaeological excavations have added enormously to the knowledge of ancient Greece, but scholars still find much of value in his detailed historical and topographical discussions of different sites, and his eyewitness accounts of Greece at the end of the 19th century.{{citation needed|date =December 2012}}
===Theories of
Among the most influential elements of the third edition of ''The Golden Bough'' is Frazer's theory of [[cultural evolution]] and the place Frazer assigns religion and [[magic (supernatural)|magic]] in that theory. Frazer's theory of cultural evolution was not absolute and could reverse, but sought to broadly describe three (or possibly, four) spheres through which cultures were thought to pass over time.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Carneiro | first = Robert L. | title = Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology: A Critical History | publisher = University of Chicago Press | date = 2003 | page = 29|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=IJdNDwAAQBAJ&q=Carneiro+Evolutionism | isbn = 0429980302 }}</ref><ref>On the possibility of a fourth stage see Josephson-Storm (2017), pp. 146–147.</ref> Frazer believed that, over time, culture passed through three stages, moving from magic, to religion, to science. Frazer's classification notably diverged from earlier anthropological descriptions of cultural evolution, including that of [[Auguste Comte]], because he
Frazer believed that magic and science were similar because both shared an emphasis on experimentation and practicality; his emphasis on this relationship is so broad that almost any disproven scientific hypothesis technically constitutes magic under his system.<ref>Malinowski (2014), n. pag.</ref> In contrast to both magic and science, Frazer defined religion in terms of belief in personal, supernatural forces and attempts to appease them. As historian of religion Jason Josephson-Storm describes Frazer's views, Frazer saw religion as "a momentary aberration in the grand trajectory of human thought."<ref>Josephson-Storm (2017), p. 145.</ref> He thus ultimately proposed – and attempted to further – a narrative of [[secularization]] and one of the first social-scientific expressions of a [[disenchantment]] narrative.
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==Reputation and criticism==
Frazer married in 1896 and his new wife perceived that Frazer's reputation was not equal to his abilities. Lilly Frazer had the pushiness that he lacked, and she became his manager and publicist guarding access to his office. He did not care too much for prizes but she valued them. She was particularly involved in publishing his work, where she arranged translation to French, and to children, where she adapted his stories.<ref name=lillyrb/>
According to historian [[Timothy Larsen]], Frazer used scientific terminology and analogies to describe ritual practices, and conflated magic and science together, such as describing the "magic wand of science".{{sfn|Larsen|2014|pages=43–44}} Larsen criticizes Frazer for baldly characterized magical rituals as "infallible" without clarifying that this is merely what believers in the rituals thought.{{sfn|Larsen|2014|page=44}} Larsen has said that Frazer's vivid descriptions of magical practices were written with the intention to repel readers, but, instead, these descriptions more often allured them.{{sfn|Larsen|2014|page=46}}
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Larsen also criticizes Frazer for applying western European Christian ideas, theology, and terminology to non-Christian cultures. This distorts those cultures to make them appear more Christian.{{sfn|Larsen|2014|pages=46–48}} Frazer routinely described non-Christian religious figures by equating them with Christian ones.{{sfn|Larsen|2014|page=47}} Frazer applied Christian terms to [[functionaries]], for instance calling the elders of the Njamus of [[East Africa]] "equivalent to the [[Levites]] of Israel"{{sfn|Larsen|2014|page=47}} and the [[Dalai Lama|Grand Lama]] of [[Lhasa]] "the Buddhist [[Pope]]... the [[God-man (Christianity)|man-god]] who bore his people's sorrows, the [[Good Shepherd]] who laid down his life for the sheep".{{sfn|Larsen|2014|page=47}} He routinely uses the specifically Christian theological terms "[[born again]]", "new birth", "[[baptism]]", "[[Infant baptism|christening]]", "[[sacrament]]", and "unclean" in reference to non-Christian cultures.{{sfn|Larsen|2014|page=47}}
When Frazer's Australian colleague [[Walter Baldwin Spencer]] requested to use native terminology to describe [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal Australian]] cultures, arguing that doing so would be more accurate, since the Christian terms were loaded with Christian connotations that would be completely foreign to members of the cultures he was describing, Frazer insisted that he should use
==Selected works==
* ''Creation and Evolution in Primitive
* ''The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religion'' (1933–36)
* ''Condorcet on the Progress of the Human Mind'' (1933)
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* [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.14310 ''Taboo and the Perils of the Soul''] (1911)
* ''The Gorgon's Head and other Literary Pieces'' (1927)
* ''The Worship of Nature'' (1926) (from
* ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|The Library]]'', by Apollodorus (text, translation and notes), 2 volumes (1921): {{ISBN|0-674-99135-4}} (vol. 1); {{ISBN|0-674-99136-2}} (vol. 2)
* ''[[Folklore in the Old Testament|Folk-lore in the Old Testament]]'' (1918)
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* ''Psyche's Task'' (1909)
* ''The Golden Bough'', 2nd edition: expanded to 3 volumes (1900)
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=pXhfAAAAMAAJ
* [https://archive.org/details/pausaniassdescr04frazgoog ''Description of Greece''], by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] (translation and commentary) (1897–) 6 volumes.
* ''The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion'', 1st edition (1890)
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==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
*[[Lilly Frazer]]
*[[Joseph Campbell]]
*[[Archetypal literary criticism]]
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* {{Cite book | last = Ackerman | first = Robert| title = J. G. Frazer: His Life and Work| publisher = Cambridge University Press| date = 1987 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=s_k4AAAAIAAJ | isbn = 0521340934 }}
* {{Cite book | last = Ackerman | first = Robert| title = The Myth & Ritual School: J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists| publisher = Routledge| location=New York| date = 2002 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Zc5EAQAAQBAJ | isbn = 1135371121}}
* Ackerman, Robert, (2015). [http://www.berose.fr/article598.html
*Ackerman, Robert, 2018. [http://www.berose.fr/?L-anthropologue-qui-meurt-et-ressuscite-vie-et-oeuvre-de-James-George-Frazer « L’anthropologue qui meurt et ressuscite : vie et œuvre de James George Frazer »] in Bérose - Encyclopédie internationale des histoires de l’anthropologie
* {{Cite book | last = Chidester | first = David| title = Empire of Religion: Imperialism & Comparative Religion| publisher = University of Chicago Press| location=Chicago| date = 2014 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=04HfAgAAQBAJ&q=Empire+of+Religion | isbn = 978-0226117577}}
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* Resources related to research : [http://www.berose.fr/ BEROSE - International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology]. "Frazer, James George (1854-1941)", Paris, 2015. (ISSN 2648-2770)
* {{Books and Writers |id=jfrazer |name=James George Frazer}}
*[http://www.bartleby.com/people/Frazer-S.html Sir James George Frazer Collection] at Bartleby.com
* {{Gutenberg author |id=
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=James George Frazer}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4405}}
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[[Category:Scottish classical scholars]]
[[Category:Scottish scholars and academics]]
[[Category:Scottish lawyers]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Glasgow]]
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