The Golden Bough: A Study In Magic And Religion (Volume Iii); Taboo And The Perils Of The Soul

The Golden Bough #3

by James George Frazer

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction

468 pages, Paperback

Published September 29, 2020

About the author

Sir James George Frazer was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. His most famous work, The Golden Bough (1890), documents and details the similarities among magical and religious beliefs around the globe. Frazer posited that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, in turn replaced by science.
He was married to the writer & translator Lilly Grove (Lady Frazer)

Reviews

[Paul Cowdell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is where the inadequacies of Frazer's thinking really become apparent. It's as if he's aware that he hasn't successfully been able to make his point in the earlier edition, so he has to throw in more and more (and more and more and more) examples, but their connection with the actual argument becomes more tenuous and speculative - and more transparently so, the less he's actually making the argument. There's one hilarious moment when he throws in a comment about 'inconsistencies' in savage thought, by which he seems to mean chiefly that the examples he's citing simply do not support his argument.

The level of speculation is almost intolerable - 'probably' is just about his favourite word, without justification - and the circularity of the method also quite obvious: he floats an idea, uses this to interpret a mass of unrelated data, then cites those data as evidence of his idea.

The frustrating part is that Frazer wrote well, with quite a generous and magnanimous cast, and there's inevitably interesting material thrown together (randomly) here. But it's a model for what folklorists don't do anymore, and the model of why we don't do that anymore.

(For accuracy's sake: I read the Gutenberg Kindle edition of this volume).

[Arda Alkkåskøgen · Rating 2 out of 5]

her ne kadar çok ilginç bir içeriğe sahip olsa da akıcılıktan bu kadar uzak olmasını beklemiyordum. neredeyse alışveriş listesi okur gibi okunabiliyor ancak ve bu da ilginç içeriğin hayli sıradan gözükmesine neden oluyor.

hayal kırıklığı.

[Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, is Volume 2, but book 3 of 12, of the third edition of James G. Frazer's The Golden Bough. (Confusing enough for you?) Here Frazer's focus is on taboos: words or actions that a society strictly prohibits. He collects examples from throughout the world in exhaustive and exhausting detail. To me it didn't add up to much. I suppose the connection to the larger argument of The Golden Bough is in how sometimes special taboos apply specifically to the king. But in this book I think Frazer got so lost in the cells of the veins of the leaves on the trees that he missed the forest.