THE CAMBRIDGE RITUALISTS:
Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray, Francis M. Cornford, and A. B. Cook.
Web Supplement to:
The Cambridge
Ritualists: An Annotated Bibliography of the Works by and About Jane Ellen
Harrison, Gilbert Murray, Francis M. Cornford, and Arthur Bernard Cook, by
Shelley Arlen. Metuchen, N. J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990.
INTRODUCTION
Since publication of my bibliography in 1990, numerous additional works referring to the myth and ritual scholars known as the Cambridge Ritualists, have been published. This includes three major works on Harrison herself, two biographical and one regarding her influence on literary modernism. In the meantime, another medium has flowered, the Internet, and relevant information is now available there, though the stability of the Web leaves much to be desired (while engaged in compiling this bibliography, sites for the full text of Jane Ellen Harrison’s Themis and A. B. Cook’s Zeus have been removed). My aim here is to provide an addendum to my 1990 bibliography.
My fascination with the group continues. I have published one article on the criticism of Harrison by her male colleagues and am currently working on another regarding Murray’s translations of Greek plays. I like to think that my bibliography has drawn attention to and interest in the Cambridge Ritualists and the individuals involved, and that it has facilitated the scholarship of others.
I thank the University of Florida for providing me a sabbatical leave in the Spring of 2002, to work on this bibliography and my manuscript on Murray’s translations. Ms. Dale Canelas, Directory of the Smathers Libraries, Carol Turner, Associate Director, and my Department Chair, Gary Cornwell, are three individuals I want to particularly thank, although numerous others enabled my time off.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Cambridge Ritualists School
Ackerman, Robert.
“Fortunes Of
Cambridge - Myth And Ritual In Anglo-American Criticism.” Social
Science Information 15 (1976): 6: 919-28.
---. J.G. Frazer: His Life and Work. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.
Reviews:
Ben-Amos, Dan. Journal of
American Folklore 103, no. 408 (1990): 219-20.
Boon, James. The New York
Times Book Review 6 March 1988: 16, col. 1.
Feldman, Burton. American
Scholar Spring 1989 v58, no. 2 (1989): 305-08.
Jarvie, I. C. MAN
24, no. 3 (1989): 530-31.
Jenkyns, Richard. The New
Republic 18 April 1988 (v198, no. 16): 40-43.
Jones, Robert Alun. Contemporary
Sociology 17, no. 4 (1988): 524-26.
King, Ursula. Scottish Journal
of Theology 43: 1 (1990): 129-32.
Kuklick, Henrika. The American
Journal of Sociology 94, no. 4 (1989): 898-901.
Lienhardt, Robert. The Times
Literary Supplement 5 Feb. 1988 (n4427): 131.
Partin, Harry B. The Christian
Century 7 Dec. 1988 (v105 n37): 1128.
Phillips III, C. Robert. American
Journal of Philology 110, no. 4 (1989): 637-XX. (22)
Segal, Robert A. Journal of
the American Academy of Religion 57, no. 3 (1989): 625-27.
---. The Southern Review
26, no. 2 (1990): 470-73.
Stocking Jr., George W. Classical
Philology 85, no. 1 (1990): 80-83.
Vickery, John B. Victorian
Studies 32, no. 4 (1989): 607-08.
Walcot, P. Greece & Rome
38: 2 (1991): 269-72.
Wiedemann, Thomas. History:
The Journal of the Historical Association 74, no. 240 (1989): 111-12.
---. The Myth and Ritual School: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists. New York: Garland, 1991.
Reviews:
Bailey, Lee W. Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 61: 4: (1993): 813-15.
Calder, William M. Bryn Mawr
Classical Review 02.05.01. Rpt. in
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1991/02.05.01.html
Katz, Ruth Cecily. Religion 24:
4 (1994): 379-80.
Ray, John. History Today
42 (1992): 55.
Stocking Jr., George W. Victorian
Studies 36: 2 (1993): 232-33.
Wiebe, Donald. Zygon 28: 1
(1993): 120-22.
---. Religion as critique.
Reviews:
Smith, Donald L. Library
Journal 110 (1985): 170.
Africa, T. W.
“The Owl at Dusk: Two Centuries of Classical Scholarship.” Journal of the
History of Ideas 54:1 (1993): 143-63. Available online in JSTOR, by subscription only.
Gilbert Murray was a great popularizer, and Jane Harrison is only one of only
two women represented. Among the biographical data that reveal trends,
Cornford married into the Darwin clan, and Murray married a titled Lady whose
family owned Castle Howard; Arnold J. Toynbee married Murray’s daughter.
Contains a good summary of the work of the Cambridge Ritualists and of each
member of the group (p. 157-59). As the Cambridge Ritualists have been
revived, "‘students of religion appreciate the Ritualists’ emphasis on
emotion and the unconscious, ritual and social fabric.”
Archer,
William. The Old Drama and the New: An Essay in Re-valuation.
Boston: Small, 1923. 6-8.
Advocates the
theory of the origin of tragedy as put forth by Murray and Cornford.
Arlen, Shelley A. The
Cambridge Ritualists: An Annotated Bibliography of Works by and about Jane
Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray, Francis M. Cornford, and Arthur Bernard
Cook. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow P, 1990.
Over 2,000 entries on the lives and works of these British classicists,
including reviews, letters to The Times. The original date of
publication and subsequent editions and issue dates are given for the books by
the four Ritualists (translated editions are not included). Murray's
bibliography is the largest section; it reflects his work with the League
of Nations Union and his Liberal politics.
Reviews:
Booknews, http://www.booknews.com/ (available by
subcription only).
Calder, William M., III. Bryn
Mawr Classical Review 2 (1991):4: 3. Available online:
http://www.infomotions.com/serials/bmcr/bmcr-v2n04-calder-cambridge.txt
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1991/02.04.03.html
Folklore 103 (1992): 1: 120.
Jurgens, J. C. Choice 28
(1991): 1611.
Lloyd-Jones, H. Classical
Review 42 (1992): 235-36.
Traill, D. A. Classical World 85:
2 (1991): 142.
Vyhnanek, Louis. RQ 31
(1992): 4: 508.
Carpentier, Martha
Celeste. “Mother, Maid and Witch: Hellenic Female Archetypes in
Modern British Literature.” Diss. Fordham U, 1988. Abstract
available in DAI 49-07A: 1807.
Harrison discovered the priority of matriarchal cults over the patriarchal
Olympian gods and, with Murray and Cornford, formulated the “ritual
theory.” She maintained the origin of Greek drama was in Dionysian
ritual. Carpentier examines the matriarch in the works of James Joyce and
T. S. Eliot. In particular, she finds Harrison’s analysis of ancient
matrilineal cults is necessary to fully understand Molly Bloom’s archetypal
role.
---. Ritual,
myth, and the modernist text: the influence of Jane Ellen Harrison on Joyce,
Eliot and Woolf. Amsterdam. The Netherlands: Gordon and Breach,
1998.
This revision of Carpentier's dissertation (above) credits Harrison, rather
than Sir James Frazer, with promoting the idea of a mythic pattern. Texts
examined include Ulysses, Sweeny, and To the Lighthouse.
Cartledge,
Paul. “The Greeks and Anthropology.” Anthropology Today 10:
3(1994): ?? . Rpt. In Classics Ireland 2 (1995): np. Also
available online: http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/95/Cartledge95.html
Recounts the history of Classicists who incorporated anthropology into their
work, from Sir James Frazer and the ‘irrational, semi-sentimental, Polynesian,
free-verse and sex-freedom Hellenism of all the gushful geysers of ‘rapturous
rubbish’ about the greek spirit,’ referring to the Cambridge Ritualists to current
scholarship. Distinguishes two schools of comparative anthropology, those
who homogenize heterogenous cultures and those who highlight cultural
difference.
Foy, Roslyn
Reso. “’The Soul Living At Its Fullest Capacity’: Myth, Ritual, And
Mysticism In The Work Of Mary Butts.” Ph.D. U of Connecticut,
1996. Abstract available in DAI 57-12a: 5163.
Sir James Frazer, Jessie Weston, and Harrison and the Cambridge Ritualists were
early sources of literary inspiration to Butts and affected her interpretation
of the Grail Legend in modern society. Two issues that dominate her
writings are the female principle and the scapegoat.
Finley, M. I.
“Anthropology and the Classics.” In The Use and Abuse of History.
London: Penguin, 1975. 102-19.
The Jane Harrison Memorial Lecture, delivered at Newnham College, 13 May 1972,
“slightly revised, with the help of comments by J. R. Goody.”
Gerson, Gal.
“Liberals and the Carnivalesque: Gilbert Murray and Francis Cornford on
ritual.” History of European Ideas 24 (1998): 4-5: 331-54.
The ritualist school of Harrison, Murray and Cornford broke with rationalist
classicism and presented a view of ancient Greece based on a collective and
ecstatic Dionysian ritual that preceded narrative myth. The subjugation
of the ecstatic led to the later elements of reason and philosophy.
However, generated by political liberals with ethical-humanist outlooks, this
theory was seen to accommodate the threatening undercurrents of rationalism.
Individual choice could coincide with community, both leading to universal
progress. Gives a summary history of ritualism.
Gras, Vernon.
“Cambridge Ritualists.” In The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory
& Criticism. Ed. Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 128-31. Available online
by subscription:
http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/entries/cambridge_ritualists.html
Extensive summary of the Cambridge Ritualists and their influence on theories
regarding the origin of religion, literature, and art. Discusses Sir
James Frazer’s role as synthesizer of world myths and rituals. “Unlike
Frazer, the Cambridge group were not interested in explaining myths by how
primitives thought, but by what they did” (129).
Gregory,
Eileen. H. D. and Hellenism: Classic Lines. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1997.
The poet was influenced by the Cambridge Ritualists. The renewed interest
in ancient religion at the beginning of the twentieth century brought about by
anthropological studies, as represented in the writings of Harrison.
Humphreys, S.
C. “The Work of Louis Gernet.” History and Theory 10 (19XX): 2:
172-96. Available online in JSTOR.
Both a classical scholar and a Durkheimian sociologist, Gernet is a link
between both the late 19th century anthropologists and the Cambridge Ritualists
and modern classicists once again influenced by anthropology.
Le Marchant,
A. Greek Religion to the Time of Hesiod. Manchester:
Sherratt and Hughes, 1923.
Criticizes Murray and Harrison for ignoring the evidence and refusing to
believe the Greeks sacrificed (26-28).
Niesen, Laura
Elizabeth. “The Refining Fire: Classical and Christian purgation in
T. S. Eliot's works.” Ph.D. U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1982. Abstract available in DAI 43-05A: 1540.
Eliot’s extensive reading in comparative religion and anthropology led him to
the works of writings of Hellenic scholars and the Cambridge anthropologists
such as Jane Harrison and Francis Cornford from which he drew for his heroic
ideal. Themes of purgation leading to spiritual refinement unify Eliot's
poetry, drama, and prose. He the rhythm of birth, death, and resurrection
as a paradigm of periodicity involving meaningless suffering. His
Christian poetry argues that cyclic, nihilistic experience can be transformed
into spiritually meaningful religious experience if the hero undertakes a quest
that is at some times terrifying, at other points sterile, and at all times
demands patience. Primary is belief in Christ's career of birth, death, and
resurrection as archetypal of all human purgation and illumination. Eliot's
later poetry and drama is based on the hero's saving sacrifice that renews the
community. Classical heroes and sacrificed victims whose purgatorial
agony brought renewal in their communities. These heroes became important
archetypes for twentieth-century poetry. The need for a religious purpose and a
religious hero was a major concern throughout Eliot's career.
Seaford, Richard.
“George Thomson and Ancient Greece.” Classics Ireland 4 (1997):
121-33.
Originally a conference paper on the life and work of George Thomson at the
University of Birmingham, 1 July, 1989. Thomson was a successor of the
Cambridge School of Hellenists. While the Cambridge School was unable to
explain fundamental change, Thomson’s use of the material led him to Marxism.
Thomson extended the scope of their synthesis of traditional classicism with
archaeological, ethnological, and sociological analysis. Such necessary
synthesis is lacking in and rejected by contemporary classical
scholarship. Contends that Thomsom was the greatest Hellenist of his
generation.
Segal, Robert
A. “Making the Myth-Ritualist Theory Scientific.” Religion 30
(2000): 3: 259-71.
Walter Burkert links myth and ritual to biology. Surveys other ideas on
myth and ritual. Places the Cambridge Ritualists’ (notably Harrison’s)
theories on myth and ritual in an intellectual context and contrasts with other
myth-ritualist theories. Harrison considered both myth and ritual as
magical for practical ends; a defunct ritual becomes art (e.g. drama).
Stray, Christopher. Classics
Transformed: Schools, universities, and society in England, 1830-1960.
Oxford: Clarendon P, 1998.
Scattered references to the influence of Harrison, Murray, Cornford, and Cook
on the study of the classics. The kind of intercollegial organization
espoused by Cornford in 1903 emerged in the late 1920s. The irrationalism
of Harrison, the ritualist school, and the drive for scientific positivism and
research based on fieldwork were all reasons that anthropology broke away from
the classics after the 1920s. In this ideological shift, anthropology
broke away from history, psychology, and classics. A section on
“Reworking the Absolute: Gilbert Murray and ‘Evolutionary Humanistic
Hellenism.’” (p. 222-25) discusses his view of Hellenism as ;progressive, from
unreason and instinct toward rational freedom and the striving for the ideal.
---. “Digs and
Degrees: Jessie Crum’s Tour of Greece, Easter 1901. Classics Ireland 2
(1995): 121-31.
Identifies a photograph of William Dorpfeld lecturing at Mycenae, accompanied by
Harrison and Jessie Crum (Stewart). Crum’s travel diary indicates the two
were with Dorpfeld on Saturday, April 13, 1901. The photo was probably
taken by Hilda Lorimer. Jessie Crum (Steward) was a student and friend of
Harrison’s who published her mentor’s biography in 1959. A. B. Cook was
there as well, also Furtwangler. Relates reactions to Crum’s first class
degree on the archaeology section of the Classical Tripos. Notes that
Harrison’s strong indiviuality was expressed in her ‘picturesque dress,’
including glittering shawls and flowered hats.
---. “The
First Century of the Classical Tripos (1822-1922): High culture and the
politics of curriculum.” In Classics in 19th and 20th Century
Cambridge: Curriculum, Culture and Community. Ed. Christopher
Stray. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, supplement
24. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1999. 1-14.
Brief notes on Cornford and Harrison. One of Cornford's proposed reforms
in his pamphlet, The Cambridge Classical Course, was that different
colleges could offer the same lecture courses(9, 13). The lessons in his Microcosmographia
Academica could be applied to the political history of the Tripos
(9). In a footnote, Stray mentions that Harrison, Frazer, and Verrall
were among the small number of college tutors who began teaching the classics
“less as the transmission of the eternal values enshrined in classical authors”
and more as exploration of a mysterious ancient world. In their cases,
they were also motivated by resistance to conventional Christianity (12).
Stuart, Donald
Clive. “The Origin of Greek Tragedy in the Light of Dramatic
Technique.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 47 (1916): 173-204.
Sides with the theory of Ridgeway against that of Murray and Cornford.
Greek tragedy evolved from a ritual to dead heroes.
“Theories of
Myth: Historic Retrospective.” Available online: http://mason.gmu.edu/~oarans/theor.html
Calls the work of the Cambridge Ritualists “tremendously important, extremely
influential and illuminating, and, of late, also much repudiated body of
research.” Their work led to the end of the search for primary meanings
of myths, as espoused by Max Muller.
Tilden, Norma
Jeanne. Ghost Behind You: Anthropological sources as shaping presences in
T. S. Eliot's The Family Reunion. Ph.D. diss. New York U,
1993. Abstract available in DAI 55: 4A: 960.
Eliot acknowledged that his verse play was based upon a Greek model: the
Eumenides, the third play of the Oresteia trilogy. However, a close examination
of the text of Eliot's play discloses his unacknowledged, but substantial
"borrowings" from the Cambridge anthropologists. In the works of Jane
Ellen Harrison and Gilbert Murray, Eliot discovered ritual characters, a ritual
plot, and a theory of ritual-religious drama which he set in operation beneath
the modern play. Through the dramatic verse, Eliot attempted to ritualize the
action, blending realistic, contemporary dialogue with a poetry of visionary
memory that serves to define the dramatic action as recurrent, both
"re-done" and "pre-done" as theorized by the Cambridge
Ritualists. Eliot negotiated his "individual talent" within a
tradition of texts.
Tindall, William
York. D. H. Lawrence & Susan His Cow. New York: Columbia
UP, 1939.
Lawrence had read Murray and Harrison. According to Tindall, he found her
“schoolmarmy,” but his principal debt in understanding ritual and divining his
own utopia came from her Ancient Art and Ritual.
Woolf,
Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Ed. Anne Olivier
Bell. New York: Harcourt, 1977. v. 1 (1915-1919). v. 3: 181.
Briefly mentions meetings with Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray. See
esp. pp. 25, 188, 210, 221. At one time, Murray considered hiring
Leonard Woolf as his secretary (p. 221). Woolf attended Harrison’s
funeral at St. Marylebone Cemetery, Finchley, North London v. 3: 181.)
JANE ELLEN HARRISON
WORKS BY
Alpha and Omega.
Review:
Johnston, G. A. International Journal of Ethics 28 (1917/1918)
127-29.
Ancient Art and
Ritual.
Preview of the first 14 pages is available online from Kessinger Publishing: http://www.kessinger-publishing.com/searchresults_orderthebook.lasso?Author=Harrison,%20Jane%20Ellen&Submit=Query
Epilegomena
Review:
Threskian Writings. Available online: http://www.geocities.com/threskian_logos/writings.html
Prolegomena to the Study of the Greek Religion.
Reviews:
American Journal of Religious
Psychology and Education1
(1904:May-1905:Aug.) 319.
Dyer, L. Nation: a Weekly
Journal Devoted to Politics,Literature, Science, and Art 78
(1904): 434. (Dyer has been
identified as the author of this review, according to the online database,
Poole’s Plus.)
Threskian Writings. Available online: http://www.geocities.com/threskian_logos/writings.html
The Religion of Ancient Greece.
Review:
Heidel, W. A. The Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 5 July 1906: 384-85.
Themis: A Study
of the Social Origins of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1912. Available online: http://efts.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=BL781.H32
Sanford Friedman called Themis “a stunning feat of the creative imagination . .
. I find the book inexhaustibly stimulating and suggestive. In Writer’s
Choice: A Library of rediscoveries. By Linda Sternberg Katz and Bill
Katz. Reston, VA: Reston, 1983. 189.
Reviews:
DiDonato, R. Belfagor 52 (1997): 3: 366-69.
Heidel, W. A. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 10
April, 1913: 218-221.
Hogarth, D. G. Times Literary Supplement 21 March 1912: 115.
(Written anonymously.)
Threskian Writings.
Available online:
http://www.geocities.com/threskian_logos/writings.html
Harrison, Jane Ellen. “O Weep for Adonais.” Speaker February 2, 1907: 532.
Letter. Women’s
Leader and Common Cause 27 June 1912: 188.
Dr.
Verrall: A remembrance. Characterizes A. W. Verrall as reasonable,
tolerant, courteous, pacifistic, exemplar of “perfect Liberalism.”
REVIEWS by
Harrison
Dieterich, Albrecht. Mutter Erde: Ein Versuch iiber Volksreligion. International Journal of Ethics 16 (1905/1906): 513.
Farnell, Lewis. The
Cults of the Greek States. Man 10 (1910): 30-31.
PERFORMANCES
Euripides. Alcestis.
Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), 1887.
Harrison played the part of Alcestis.
Reviews:
Athenaeum 28 May 1887: 712-13.
Cambridge Review 25 May 1887: 345-56.
The Times 19 May 1887.
Euripides. Ion.
Cambridge University, 1890.
Harrison participated in this production.
Reviews:
Athenaeum 1 (1890): 747.
Saturday Review of Politics,
Literature, Science and Art 70 (1890): 616.
Warr, George C.
W. The Tale of Troy. 1883.
Harrison played Penelope in the Greek version. To benefit the series of
Lectures for Women at King’s College London. The Vanity Fair review, subtitled,
“When Freake Meets Greek, Then Comes the Tug of War,” was a parody of a passage
from the Rival Queens, by Nathaniel Lee: (“When Greeks joined Greeks . . ..”)
Reviews:
The Times 30 May 1883: 10; 31 May 1883: 5.
Saturday Review 9 June 1883: 723-24.
Pall Mall Gazette 30 May 1883: 6; 31 May 1883: 4.
Athenaseum 2 June 1883: 710.
The Graphic 2 June 1883: 546.
Vanity Fair 2 June 1883: 299.
WORKS ABOUT
Ackerman, Robert. “Jane Ellen Harrison: By Myth begotten.” Religion 31 (2001): 67-74.
Review article of Mary Beard’s The Invention of Jane Harrison. Beard often goes out of her way to present herself as Harrison’s adversary, yet both display a personal and subjective style of scholarship. Ackerman, himself, is the main creator of the Harrison myth, in his 1969 dissertation, and he is the subject of Beard’s criticism..
Ackroyd, P. T.
S. Eliot. London, 1984. 258-59.
At one time, Eliot knew Hope Mirrlees well enough to lodge with her.
Allen, Ann
Taylor. “Feminism, Social Science, and the Meanings of Modernity: The
Debate on the Origin of the Family in Europe and the United States,
1860-1914.” American Historical Review 104 (1999): 4: 1085-113.
Harrison was one of the first female academics to challenge patriarchal bias in
her work and to have a substantial impact on academic disciplines. After
her work, the belief in the universality of patriarchy had to be argued for
rather than assumed.
Arlen,
Shelley. “’For Love of an Idea’: Jane Ellen Harrison, heretic and humanist.”
Women’s History Review 5 (1996): 2: 165-90.
Examines evidence that criticism of Harrison by her male colleagues
(particularly William Ridgeway and M. R. James) was prompted in large measure
by her atheism, pacifism, and feminism.
---. “Jane
Ellen Harrison: M. R. James’s Nemesis.” Ghosts & Scholars 31
(2000): 38-42.
Gives evidence
of the biases toward women and Harrison in particular of M. R. James, Cambridge
scholar and writer of popular ghost stories.
Barrett, E.
“Matriarchal Myth On A Patriarchal Stage.” Twentieth Century Literature 33
(1987): 1: 18-37.
Literary analysis of
Virginia Woolf’s work, Between The Acts, that discusses Harrison’s
influence on the novel.
Beard, Mary.
“Frazer, Leach, and Virgil: The Popularity (and Unpopularity) of the Golden
Bough (in Imperial Visions).” Comparative Studies in Society and
History 34 (1992): 2: 203-24.
Harrison’s interest in James Frazer’s work gave it academic respectability
despite charges leveled by Edmund Leach that Frazer plagiarized and distorted
the ethnographic accounts of others. Contrasts the works of Harrison with
those of Frazer: hers were “technical studies of classical religious
history” while Frazer’s works took a wider frame of reference in calling
attention to universals of mankind.
---. “The
Invention (and Re-Invention) of ‘Group D’: An Archaeology of the Classical Tripos,
1879-1984.” In Classics in 19th and 20th Century Cambridge:
Curriculum, Culture and Community. Ed. Christopher Stray.
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, supplement 24.
Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1999. 95-134.
The combination of an interest in myth and ritual, and the use of visual arts
of the Cambridge Ritualists (primarily Harrison) arose in response to the
classics Section D. “’Ritualism’ was born within the Classical Tripos,
not in opposition to it” (104).
---The Invention of Jane Harrison. Revealing
Antiquity 14. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000.
Archival research sheds light on Harrison’s life before she began teaching at
Newnham College: relationship with Eugenia Sellers, Focuses on how
the myth of Jane arose.
Reviews:
Ackerman, Robert. Religion 31
(2001): 67-74. ONLINE??
Davidson, James. The Guardian:
Saturday Review 29 July 2000: 10.
Economist 356, issue 8188, 16 Sept. 2000: 94.
(Available online in Academic Index and
Ebscohost, with subscription.)
Jardine, Lisa. The Sunday
Times Culture Magazine 6 August 2000: 41.
Lowry, Elizabeth. Times
Literary Supplement 30 June 2000: 12.
Padel, Ruth. The Independent
on Sunday 30 July 2000: 29-30.
Premo, Diane Gardner. Library
Journal 15 Sept. 2000: 85. (Available online in Academic Index and
Ebscohost, with subscription.)
Shanzer, D. Choice 38
(2001): 5: 900.
Tapllin, Oliver. The
Independent: The Weekend Review 12 August 2000: 11.
---.
“'Pausanias in Petticoats,’ or The Blue Jane.” In Pausanias:
Travel and memory in Roman Greece. Ed. Susan E. Alcock, John F.
Cherry, and Jas Elsner. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. 224-39.
The text of Pausanias, especially
the descriptions of Athens in Book I, was heavily disputed by scholars during
the nineteenth century and the varied interpretations correlate with important
controversies of theory, method, and approach. Harrison and Verrall travelled
in Greece for three months in preparation for their book on Pausanias, Mythology
and Monuments of Ancient Athens (1890). It was in this book that
Harrison first noted that myth is ritual practice misunderstood and thus the
work lays claim to being the beginning of "ritualism.". Though
forgotten today, it is one of the most famous books on Pausanias written in the
nineteenth century. It was a strange book, with only excerpts of Pausanias
given and in it, Harrison emphasized topography in relation to myth. She
lamented the cost-cutting engraving process that Macmillan insisted upon.
Verrall's translation was adequate but Greek accents were carelessly
disregarded. Critics were also influenced by the fact that the book was
the work of two women. Some noted that the style was fresh, lively, and
vivacious. Others attributed the work to Dorpfeld, suggesting that
Harrison has appropriated his work. Still, it was generally acknowledged
as the best guide to Athens and a major archaeological publication. The
book "heralded a whole series of new approaches to the mytholography of
Athens" (235). Beard questions the function of the commentary and
how that relates to Pausanias.
---. A Very
Short Introduction to Classics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995.
Details the history academia’s habit of touring to Bassae, a trip which Harrison
took with her good friend, the art critic, D. S. MacColl, in 1888.
Beausang M.
“Portrait of Marge and Other Peripheral Characters in Finnegans Wake.”
Poetique 26 (1976): 221-231.
Literary analysis that refers to the use Joyce made of myth as learned from
Harrison.
Berenson,
Bernard. The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner,
1887-1924. Ed. Rollin Van N. Hadley. Boston: Northeastern
UP, 1987. 423-24.
A letter to Gardner from Mary Berenson mentions giving a French dressing-gown
to Harrison who was having an operation.
Bock, Joyce
Helen. “D. H. Lawrence: Modern Narrative And Ancient Myth.”
Ph.D. State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1995. Abstract
available in DAI 56: 11A: 4404, and online in Dissertation Abstracts, First
Search, by subscription only.
Discusses the influence of Harrison’s book, Ancient Art and Ritual, on
Lawrence. From her work, Lawrence devised a theory of art based on
ancient Greek rituals. Blood Consciousness. Her work then led him
to the works of James G. Frazer. Analyzes The Rainbow, Women in
Love, and The Plumed Serpent in terms of the “totemic
characterization” by which mankind yearns for completion with another in the
act of the Sacred Marriage.
Bock, Kenneth
E. “The Comparative Method of Anthropology (in Comparative
Methods).” Comparative Studies in Society and History 8 (1966): 3:
269-80.
Ancient
Art and Ritual was one of the pioneer works that utilized the comparative
method and was concerned with constructing stages of civilization.
Boone J.
A. “A New Approach To Bloom As Womanly Man: The Mixed middlings progress
in Ulysses.” James Joyce Quarterly 20 (1982): 1: 67-85.
Refers to Joyce’s use of myth in his work, and the influence of Harrison.
Borland, M. D. S.
MacColl: Painter, Poet and Critic. Harpenden, 1995.
Biography of MacColl, friend to Harrison. They collaborated on the 1894
work, Greek Vase Paintings. At one time, they were engaged to be
married. Harrison "demanded intellectual stimulation from her
suitors" and she met her match in MacColl, "so much so that he
destroyed her faith in her own abilties" (51) but their friendship
eventually survived . Details the trip to Greece in 1887.
Boughn, John
Michael. “H.D.: A Bibliography.” Ph. D. State University of
New York at Buffalo, 1989. Abstract available in DAI 5: 3A: 849, and
online in Dissertation Abstracts, First Search, by subscription only.
Includes an extended essay, “Where Splendor Begins,” that explores H. D.’s work
that preceded the war trilogy, noting the influence of contemporaries Mary
Butts, Laura Riding, and Harrison in their uses of myth. Recent ideas of
“mythic revisionism” have misrepresented their work.
Breay, Claire.
“Women and the Classical Tripos 1869-1914.” In Classics in 19th and
20th Century Cambridge: Curriculum, Culture and Community. Ed.
Christopher Stray. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society,
supplement 24. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1999.
49-70.
The practice of women taking University exams was a controversial issue when
Girton and Newnham Colleges were founded. Women were much less prepared
to read classics because of the lack of education for girls. Opponents of
the higher education of women used this discrepancy between the sexes to
further their own agenda. It was Harrison who, in 1875, persuaded
Margaret Merrifield to read classics instead of political economy and moral
science, in spite of the fact that “she knew little Latin and no Greek
(53).” In 1880, Merrifield (later Mrs. A. W. Verrall) was appointed
Newnham College’s first classics lecturer, in preference to Harrison, who then
pursued her own archaeological research and moved to London where she lived until
1898. A Girton student in 1910 took Cook’s course on Greek sculpture. In
1890, the same year she published Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens,
Harrison was asked to lecture at Newnham. Her lectures at the
Archaeological Museum were the first ones given in a University building by a
woman and were attended largely by Members of the University as well as the
women students. Harrison became a member of the college council in
1894; she came back into residence in 1898 and was appointed a staff
lecturer in 1899 In 1900-1903, she was the first holder of an Associates’
Research Fellowship. Her teaching schedule was flexible to allow for
travel and research, and she was able to publish nine books during that
time. Most of her teaching consisted of lectures preparing students for
Section D of Part II. In 1903, the Part II, Section D paper asked five
questions on mythology and religion drawn from Prolegomena; Harrison
became the first woman to have such an impact on the Tripos.
Broneer,
Oscar. “Eros and Aphrodite on the North Slope of the Acropolis in
Athens.” Hesperia 1(1932): 31-55.
Compares several translations and interpretations of the passage in which
Pausanias describes the descent of the Arrephoroi through an underground
passage, including those of W. H. S. Jones, Kavvadias, and Harrison.
Harrison suggested the westernmost stairway between the north porch of the
Erechtheum and the Propylaea, in Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens,
163. Kavvadias’s excavations (1897) found traces of an earlier stairway
and assumed that the Arrephoroi descended that one. The author proposes
the explanation that Pausanias confused the two sanctuaries of Aphrodite.
Burnside,
Carol. “Jane Ellen Harrison’s Contribution to the Study of
Religion.” Religion 24 (1994): 1: 67-72.
A review essay on Jane Ellen
Harrison: The Mask and the Self, by Sandra Peacock. Burnside’s critique
emphasizes the scholarly side of Peacock's analysis of Harrison. Finds
fault with Peacock’s analysis of the psychological side, Harrison’s personality
and life. Discusses Harrison's contributions to the academic study of
religion.
Burston D.
“Myth, Religion and Mother Right: Bachofen influence on psychoanalytic
theory.” Contemporary Psychoanalysis 22 (1986): 4: 666-87.
Bachofen’s theories on matriarchy were espoused by Harrison and helped to them
popularized through her works.
Carpentier
Martha. “Eleusinian Archetype and Ritual in Eumaeus and Ithaca.” James
Joyce Quarterly 28 (1990): 1: 221-38.
Harrison’s work in myth and ritual influenced Joyce’s writings.
---. “Orestes In The Drawing Room: Aeschylean parallels in T. S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion.” Twentieth Century Literature 35 (1989): 1: 17-42.
Cartwright,
Julia. A Bright Remembrance: The Diaries of Julia Cartwright,
1851-1924. London: Weidenfeld, 1989. 223.
Brief mention that Harrison fainted after a lecture at the Sesame Club in
February, 1898.
Christ, Carol
P. ‘”A Different World: Archaeology and the History of Religion: The
Challenge of the work of Marija Gimbutas to the dominant world-view of western
cultures.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12 (1996): 2: 53-66.
Scholars like Gimbutas and Harrison who promote the idea of matri-focality in
ancient religion, challenge the patriarchal dominance assumed by historians and
archaeologists and have not been given a fair hearing.
---. “The
Legacy of Marija Gimbutas: Introduction. Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion 12 (1996): 2: 31-35.
Harrison’s emphasis on the primacy of
the female principle has, in light of 20th century archaeological discoveries,
been expanded on by Gimbutas. This volume is dedicated to studies of
Gimbutas.
Clegg, David.
Letter. The Times Literary Supplement 17-23 Feb. 1989: 177.
Jane Ellen Harrison and Acting at Oxford. Notes an erroneous caption to
the photograph of Harrison as Alcestis, Oxford University Dramatic Society,
1877. The OUDS was not founded until 1885.
Clemens, Anna Valdine. "Art, Myth and Ritual in
Le Guin's The Left Hand Of Darkness." Canadian Review of
American Studies 17(1986): 4: 423-36.
Studies on the relationship between
ritual and art as conducted by Harrison and others can help elucidate themes in
The Left Hand of Darkness that have been previously overlooked.
The Foretelling ceremony, for instance, is a re-enactment of primitive ritual.
Comentale,
Edward. “Thesmophoria: Suffragettes, sympathetic magic, and H. D.’s
ritual poetics. Modernism/Modernity 8 (2001): 3:
471-92. Available fulltext in Project Muse by subscription.
Literary analysis that discusses Harrison’s views on ritual and her influence
on H. D.
Connelly, J. B. “Parthenon and Parthenoi: A Mythological interpretation of the Parthenon frieze. American Journal of Archaeology 100 (1996): 1: 53-80.
Cowart, D.
“Matriarchal Mythopoesis: Naylor's 'Mama Day.'” Philological Quarterly
77 (1998): 4: 439-59.
Analyzes Gloria Naylor’s work as a use of the myth of matriarchy noting that,
in Black culture, matriarchy is a major part of the social structure.
Cramer, Patricia.
“Matriarchal Myth-Making for a Post-Patriarchal Age: The Anti-war writing of
Virginia Woolf and Hilda Doolittle.” Ph.D. U of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, 1989. Abstract available in DAI 50-07A:2060, and online
in Dissertation Abstracts, First Search, by subscription only.
Woolf and Doolittle
analyzed the causes of war from a women's perspective. They interpreted
war as the inevitable consequence of a patriarchal culture centered on an ideal
of masculinity which fostered violence in men. This was commonly held by female
intellectuals of their time, notably, Karen Horney, Ruth Benedict, and Jane
Harrison. They were part of the literary movement of their time that
challenged traditional ideas of gender, sexuality, and myth. They were
particularly influenced by early twentieth century theories of myth, especially
concerning matriarchy.
---. “Virginia
Woolf: Matriarchal family of origins in Between the Acts.” Twentieth Century
Literature 39 (1993): 2: 166-84.
Discusses Harrison’s influence on Woolf’s work.
Davidson, C. “T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral and the Saints-Play Tradition.” Papers in Language and Literature 21 (1985): 2: 152-69.
Davidson,
James. “Secret History.” The Guardian: Saturday Review 29 July
2000: 10.
Considers Harrison a Decadent and Effeminate. Reviews Beard' book, The
Invention of Jane Harrison.
Davis, Philip G. Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of
Neopagan feminist spirituality. Dallas, Tx: Spence P., 1998.
Briefly
considers Harrison's Prolegomena for its theories that the profusion of
goddess cults reflected the high status of women and that it was the
patriarchal conquest that fragmented the original Mother Goddess into different
female deities. Later, in Themis, Harrison made the distinction
between matrilineality and matriarchy, and abandoned her earlier views.
Elizabeth Gould Davis (in First Sex,) not only ignored Harrison's later
views, "she effectively censored them" (286). Advocates in the
Goddess movement continue to celebrate Prolegomena.
Downing,
Constance. “Lesbian Mythology.” Historical Reflections/Reflexions
Historiques 20 (1994): 2: 169-99.
The fact that two women live together does not necessarily indicate they are
lesbians. Harrison’s so-called lesbian relationship with Hope Mirrlees
cannot be verified.
Downing, M.
“Prehistoric Goddesses: The Cretan challenge." Journal of
Feminist Studies in Religion 1 (1985): 1: 7-22.
The many figurines of the Serpent Goddess found in Crete give credence to the
idea of a Mother Goddess,
Demoor, M. “Portrait of the Anthropologist as a Young Woman: Jane Ellen Harrison's reviews for the Athenaeum.” Tijdschr Geschieden 112 (1999): 2: 191-201.
Di Donato, R.
Per una antropologia storica del mondo antico. Il pensiero storico
81. Florence, 1990, 255-63.
Jane Ellen Harrison e i Durkheimiens. Harrison was a proponent of Emil
Durkheim’s theories on religion. Her work was frequently cited and
reviewed in the Durkheimian publication, L’annee sociologique.
---. “Themis,
A Study on the Social Origins of Greek Religion.” Belfagor 52 (3):
366-69. May 31, 1997.
Appraisal of the importance and influence of Harrison’s work. In Italian.
Easterling,
Pat. “The Early Years of the Cambridge Greek Play: 1882-1912.” In Classics
in 19th and 20th Century Cambridge: Curriculum, Culture and Community.
Ed. Christopher Stray. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society,
supplement 24. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1999. 27-47.
At Oxford in 1883, Harrison was in the cast of an OUDS [Oxford University
Dramatic Society] production of Alcestis in English. Women could not take
part in Cambridge University productions until 1948, when they became members
of the University (the only exception being Janet Case, in 1885 (28)).
Edmonds,
Radcliffe. “Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A few disparaging remarks on
Orphism and original sin.” Classical Antiquity 18 (1999): 1: 35-73.
Due to the influence of scholars like Rohde (1894) and Harrison (Prolegomena,
1903), the myth of Zagreus
(dismemberment, punishment, anthropogony, original sin) became the accepted
central dogma of Orphism. Kern’s 1922 Orphicorum Fragmenta, still the
standard reference, accepts this interpretation. Orphism was considered to be a
reform movement, although its type depends upon the scholar. According to
Harrison, Orpheus was the prophet who reformed the primitive, ecstatic
Dionysiac religion, and may have been derived from some real martyr.
Fortuna,
Diane. “The Labyrinth as Controlling Image in Joyce’s A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man.” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 76
(1972): 120-80.
Joyce’s knowledge of the Cretan labyrinth came from the researches of Evans,
Frazer, and Harrison.
Foster, Arnold
W. “Dominant Themes in Interpreting the Arts: Materials for a
sociological model.” Archives Europeennes de Sociologie 29 (1979):
301-32.
Harrison’s theory of the ritualistic origins of art foreshadows the ideas of
Claude Levi-Strauss and James Fernandez.
Foley, Jack.
“’Walking Naked’: Tentative remarks about myth and poetry.” Mythosphere
1: 4 (1999): 429-47. Available online in Ebscohost, by subscription.
Discusses the remarks of several poets on the relation between myth and poetry
in their works. The poet Charles Olson was influenced by Harrison, as he
notes in his 1970 work, The Special View of History.
Fry, Roger. The
Letters of Roger Fry. Ed. Denys Sutton. New York: Random House,
1972. Vol. 1.
Fry mentions Harrison in several letters. He purchased Primitive Athens for his
father. In August, 1895, he joined D. S. MacColl, MacColl’s sister, and
Harrison in France. “ . . . Miss Harrison who is very fine . . . has a
very masculine mind and is quite apostolic. MacColl on the other hand I
find on close acquaintance is touched with Oxford and journalism, two things
for which I have an unreasoning hatred” (164). In 1925, he described
Harrison as “always charming and in great form and thoroughly ribald . .
..” (577).
Falk, Alice.
“It is to the Greeks That We Turn”: Greek and Women Writers.” Ph.
D. Diss. Indiana University, 1992. Abstract available in DAI
53-09A: 3221. Available online in Dissertation Abstracts in First Search,
by subscription only.
Views the study of Greek, long a male prerogative and denied to women, as a
means of obtaining “cultural credentials” for women writers in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Engagement of Greek could empower
women. Focuses on the responses of Harrison as well as Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf. Discusses Harrison’s
involvement with Greek (associated with “Oxbridge,) and her ultimate rejection
of both.
Firth,
Raymond. “Ritual and Drama in Malay Spirit Mediumship. Comparative
Studies in Society and History 9 (19667): 2: 190-207.
Harrison was one of the most noteworthy classicists of importance to
anthropology. Influenced by Durkheim and Rivers, she emphasized the
importance of collective elements and social structure to the study of
religion, though Firth wishes she would have included economic factors in the
transition from ritual to art. Firth describes an example of a spirit
medium performance among the Malay to discuss the relation between art and
ritual. In her work on ritual, Harrison clearly distinguishes between
participants and spsectators, and Firth elaborates on the spectator role in
Malay ritual. It is in her emphasis on “potencies” (daimones) not personal
gods, and on emotion rather than reason, that her work may once again be of
interest to anthropologists studying religion.
Fowler,
Robert. “'On not Knowing Greek:’ The Classics and the Woman of
Letters.” Classical Journal 78 (1983): 4: 337-49.
Women were at a disadvantage in scholarly communities, a situation that was not
changed until the twentieth century. Due to the lack of education for
women, those who studied Greek on their own or with tutors were not as well
prepared and proficient in Greek as men who had formal studies in the
language. Harrison was one such woman. Critics frequently mentioned
her deficiencies in translation. She was insecure about this deficiency
all her life, though Gilbert Murray wrote several times that she was just as
competent as men in her knowledge of Greek (note especially his defense of her
to M. R. Rhodes regarding Harrison’s “The Head of John Baptist,” in the
Classical Review, 1916-1917.
Furtwangler,
Adolf. “On some points in Furtwängler's theories regarding the Parthenon,
and on the translation by E. Sellers.” Classical Review 9 (1895)
85.
In light of Mary Beard’s work on Harrison and Sellers, it is important to note
that Furtwangler’s work was translated by Sellers, who was friend and roommate
to Harrison at the time.
Garnett,
David. The Golden Echo. London: Chatto & Windus.
1953.
Garnett’s mother, Constance, was a student at Newnham. Constance Garnett
had a “passionate admiration” for Harrison, who Garnett describes as “a young
don at Newnham, whose short curls and freedom from the trammels of her sex
aroused as much awe as envy” (6).
Gilbert, Sandra
M. “Potent Griselda: ‘The Ladybird’ and the Great Mother.” In D.
H. Lawrence: A Centenary Consideration. Ed. Peter Balbert and Phillip
L. Marcus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1985. 130-61.
Lawrence was aware of maternal primacy, had read the works of speculative
anthropologists such as Bachofen, Frazer, and Harrison who asserted the primacy
of matriarchy. Harrison’s Prolegomena may have been one of
Lawrence’s sources.
Gillen, P.
“The Last Man of Letters: Jack Lindsay.” Westerly 39 (1994):
3: 83-87.
Lindsay was influenced by Harrison’s work on myth. He helped to
popularize many of her theories.
Goldstein,
Leonard. “On the Origin of Medieval Drama.” Zeitschrift fur Anglistik
und Amerikanistik 29 (1981): 101-15.
Examines Harrison’s views on the transition from ritual to drama: “she
best indicates the nature of the problem and contributes significantly to its
solution” (102).
"Greek Plays at
the Universities.” Woman’s World 1 (1888): 121-28.
Notes that Harrison took part in several productions in both Greek and English
at Cambridge University.
Gregg, M. “The
Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe.” Studia mystica 7 (1984): 4: 71-76.
Influenced by the writings of Harrison, Marija Gimbutas has popularized the
theory of a primary Great Goddess in the ancient world.
Haller,
Evelyn. “Isis Unveiled: Virginia Woolf’s Use of Egyptian Myth.” Virginia
Woolf: A Feminist Slant. Ed. Jane Marcus. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P, 1983. 109-131.
Woolf’s reading of Harrison influenced her writings, notably in Between the
Acts.
Halliday, W.
R. “Picus-Who-Is-Also-Zeus.” Classical Review 36 (1922): 110-12.
Examines Harrison’s (and C. Bailey’s) contention that a woodpecker god was
worshipped in Crete. Concludes that their source (Suidas) was not a
reliable one.
Hartman,
Geoffrey. “Structuralism: The Anglo-American adventure.” Yale
French Studies no. 36/37 (1966): 148-68.
The first modern structuralists are Harrison (Themis, 1912), Cornford (The
Origins of Attic Comedy, 1914), and Murray. Myth criticism became a
form of literary criticism as a natural development from structuralism.
Murray sought similarities between the stories of Hamlet and Orestes and
applied a theory of a collective unconscious. Collective representations
are the structural principles of literature; Murray “was unable to
dissociate poetics from the historical study of ritual and religion” (155).
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Hamlet’s Mother and Other Women. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.
Henderson,
John. “Farnell’s Cults: The Making and Breaking of Pausanias in Victorian
Anthropology. In Pausanias: Travel and memory in Roman Greece.
Ed. Susan E. Alcock, John F. Cherry, and Jas. Elsner. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2001. 207-23.
Discusses three nineteenth-century works that attempted to link philological
scholarship with anthropology and history based on archaeological finds:
Harrison and Verrall's Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens (1890),
J. G. Frazer's Description of Greece (1898), and L. R. Farnell's Cults
of the Greek States (1896-1909). Each one relied on Pausanius, but
each took a different path in revising classical studies. Frazer sought a
universal mythic map of mankind, Farnell remained entrenched in a Hellenism of
the higher morality. In his trip to explore Greece for his Pausanias,
Frazer took with him the travel guide by Harrison and Verrall which had already
become a commercial success (something Frazer's book would not be able to achieve.
Harrison was runner-up for the Yates Chair at UCL twice; "the brew
of 'anthropological' rant and radicalism Harrison lent, pur, and lost her name
to was making her the perfect candidate for round rejection by hordes of
classical men . . .." (215). Outlines the relationship between
Harrison and Farnell: "for the pair of them, more was at stake than
intellectual rift or personal-political style war; their standing and good
name, their prospects and life course" (221).
Henig, S.
“Queen of Lud: Hope Mirrlees.” Virginia Woolf Quarterly 1 (1972): 8-23.
Mirrlees, the companion to Jane Ellen Harrison who moved with her to Paris in
1922, was a minor writer of fantasy. Her book, Lud in the Mist, is
a classic.
Henrichs, A.
“The Raving God: The Psychology of Dionysus and the Dionysian in myth and
literature. Antike und Abenland 40 (1994): 31-58.
The ecstatic rituals of Dionysus serve to symbolize the uncontrollable
unconscience in mankind. This theory was promoted by Nietzsche and later
used by myth and ritual theorists like Harrison. Poets and novelists,
notably the Modernists, made use of this symbolism in their works.
---. “Loss of
Self, Suffering, Violence: The Modern view of Dionysus from Nietzsche to
Girard.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 88 (1984): 205-40.
Based on studies of their respective rituals, Dionysus has been contrasted with
Apollo, the one described as irrational and violent, the latter as reasonable
and serene.
“Hera:
Festivals.”
Uses Harrison’s findings to describe Greek and Roman festivals.
“Het leven en werk
van Jane Ellen Harrison.” 1: “A beautiful Green Beetle,” Frons 11.2
(1990): 20-25; 2: “Only Trade Routes,” Frons 11.3 (1991): 20-25;
3: “Awful Nervous Prostastaion,” Frons 11.4(1991): 21-25.
Frons
is the journal of the Leiden University Department of Classical Studies.
All articles are in Dutch, despite the titles.
Hinden, M. “Drama
and Ritual once Again: Notes toward a revival of tragic theory.” Comparative
Drama 29 (1995): 2: 183-202.
The myth and ritual theories of the Cambridge Ritualists were utilized in
dramas in the early to mid-twentieth century. Those theories are now
appearing in current drama.
Hinz, E. J.
“Ancient Art And Ritual and The Rainbow.” Dalhousie Review 58 (1978): 4:
617-37.
Harrison’s work was influential in D. H. Lawrence’s writing of The Rainbow.
--- and Teunissen, J. J. “Savior and Cock: Allusion and icon in Lawrence’s 'Man Who Died.’” Journal of Modern Literature 5 (1976): 2: 279-96.
Hodgen, Margaret
T. “Survivals and Social Origins: The Pioneers.” American
Journal of Sociology 38 (1933): 583-94.
In discussing the influence of Emile Durkheim, Hodgen notes that Themis is
“a brilliant work whose importance lies in its illumination of the process of
interaction between religious and other objects, and of the effects of such
interaction upon both” (738). The major defect of the work is
overgeneralization.
Hoffman, A.
G. “Demeter and Poseidon: Fusion and distance in To The
Lighthouse.” Studies in the Novel 16 (1984): 2: 182-96.
Virginia Woolf used ideas from Harrison’s work in writing her novel.
Hoffmann, G.
“Pandora, The Jar and Hope.” Etudes Rurales (1985): 97-98: 119-32.
Relates Harrison’s retelling of the Pandora myth. Harrison may have been
the first to discern the change over time in the myth and its revelation of a
growing misogynism.
Humphreys, S.
C. “The Work of Louis Gernet.” History and Theory 10 (1971): 2:
172-96.
A classical scholar and sociologist, Gernet was a Durkheimian who provides a
link between Harrison and the early Cornford and modern classicists once again turning
to anthropology. The enthusiasm of Harrison and Cornford for Durkheimian
sociology was met with caution by later classicists. Though influenced by
Harrison in his early work, Murray “shared Wilamowitz’ antipathy to the
primitive” (176). Gernet, unlike Harrison and George Thomson, did not
accept the idea of a totemistic survivals in Greece. The “Appendix: Some
Notes on the Durkheim School” discusses the use of evolutionary theory by
Harrison and Cornford. Themis and Cornford’s From Religion to Philosophy
make use of an evolutionary theory of religion, perhaps helped by
Radcliffe-Brown’s lectures in Cambridge, 1909, which Harrison attended.
The Annee sociologique school frowned on Cornford’s use of Durkheimian
theories on primitive classification and religious origins of philosophy to the
early Greek philosophers. See Maxime David 12 (1909-12): 41-44.
Themis also got a dubious reception (David, 254-60). Cornford’s
unfinished last work, Principium Sapientiae, critiques the mythical
tradition in poetry as intermediate stage between religion and philosophy.
Hutton R “The
Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in modern tradition.” Antiquity 71
(1997): 271: 91-99.
Much speculation and study has been devoted to a so-called “Great Goddess” who
reigned worldwide in Neolithic cultures. The archaeological evidence
so far does not substantiate this claim.
Jones, Henry
Festing. Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (1825-1902): A Memoir.
2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1919. v. 2, 1885-1916.
Recounts that Butler thought Harrison was scandalized by his 1892 lecture on
“The Humour of Homer,” given at the Working Men’s College. She disliked
the lecture but, as Butler later learned, she did not write the critical Spectator
review of the lecture.
Kaplan, S. J.
“The Ballad and the Source: A Confrontation with the Great Mother.” Twentieth
Century Literature 27 (1981): 2: 127-45.
Rosamond Lehmann was among the modernist writers who were influenced by the
theories of Harrison. Her work utilizes the symbol of the Great Goddess.
Katz, M. A. “The Character of Tragedy: Women and the Greek imagination.” Arethusa 27 (1994): 1: 81-103.
Keller M L.
“The Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone: Fertility, sexuality, and
rebirth. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 4 (1988): 1:
27-54.
Notes the cycle of nature as a major structural component in ancient Greek
myths, as delineated by Harrison. The rituals as well must have
incorporated symbols of this cycle, making use of stalks of wheat and other
items referring to the seasons of life. Demeter’s search for her daughter
was probably re-enacted before the initiates. Likewise, the initiates may
have undergone a similar journey, plunged into darkness, taken through a tunnel,
and then exposed to bright light.
Krappe, A. H.
“Picus Who is Also Zeus.” Mnemosyne 9 (1940-1941): 241-57.
Sides with Harrison regarding the relationship of the woodpecker and
Zeus. Uses a detailed analysis to conclude that “Picumnus and Pilumnus
are faded thundergods in woodpecker form.” Comparative mythologists (e.g.
Harrison) “were not always as far from the truth as some of its modern
opponents have claimed. Modern folklore, in more cases than one, has
confirmed its speculations, while at the same time putting them on a more solid
base.
Lahti, K.
“‘Vladimir Mayakovsky’: A Dithyramb.” Slavic and East European Journal
40 (1996): 2: 251-77.
The dithyramb connotes a wild, uncontrollable song, and may have originated in Dionysian
rites, as theorized by Harrison.
Lardinois, A. “Greek Myths for Athenian Rituals: Religion and politics in Aeschylus’ Eumenides and Sophocles Oedipus Coloneus.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 33 (1992): 4: 313-27.
Lee, Ronald J.
“Ritual and Theatre: An Overview.” Academy: Lutherans in Profession 38
(1982): 132-49.
Discusses the theory that drama
developed from ancient religious rites. A “tragic plot,” a chronological
sequence from birth to death to rebirth (portrayed symbolically) is common to
both.
Lee, Vernon [Violet
Paget.} Letters. Ed. I. Cooper Willis. 1937.
Paget was a friend to Eugene Sellers, friend and roomate to Harrison until some
disagreement broke this friendship.
Lefkowitz, M.
R. “Jane Made Unplain.” American Scholar
(1989): 464-68.
Review of Jane Ellen Harrison: The Mask and the Self, by Sandra J.
Peacock.
Levine, Philippa. “Love, Friendship, and Feminism in later 19th-Century England.” Women Studies: An International Forum 13 (1990): 1-2: 63-78.
---. “So Few
Prizes and so Many Blanks: Marriage and feminism in later 19th-century
England.” Journal of British Studies 28 (1989): 2: 150-74.
Quotes Harrison’s Reminiscences of a Student’s Life (1925), on the
incompatibility of marriage with her life-style. Like Emily Davies,
Dorothea Beale, and Constance Maynard, Harrison was immersed in her life’s
work.
Lincoln Bruce. “The Rape of Persephone: A Greek scenario of women’s initiation.” Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979): 3-4: 223-35.
Lloyd-Jones,
Hugh. “Jane Harrison, 1850-1928.” In Cambridge Women: Twelve
Portraits. Ed. E. Shils and C. Blacker. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1996.
Details Harrison’s life and works.
Lowenstam, S.
“The Uses of Vases: Depictions in Homeric studies.” Transactions of
the American Philological Association 122 (1992): 165-98.
Scenes from the tales of Homer were commonly depicted on Greek vases. As
Harrison has shown, these visual images frequently tell us more about the
stories and their relationship to Greek society and culture.
Lowry,
Elizabeth. “Superwoman in Cambridge.” The Times Literary Supplement 30
June 2000: 12.
Harrison was the most famous female classicist in Britain and also the most
controversial.
McGinty, Park. Interpretations and Dionysos.
Reviews:
Ackerman, Robert. Gnomon
52 (1980): 673-75.
Mclean, B. “On the Revision of Scapegoat Terminology.” Numen 37 (1990): 2: 168-73.
Harrison used the
idea of a pharmakos, or scapegoat, to explain some of the Greek rituals.
However, the term may not relate to a victimization of an individual but rather
the elevation in status of that individual.
McManus, Barbara F. “Macurdy Scholarship.” http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/books.html
Grace Macurdy’s
early work was influenced by the Cambridge Ritualists and her research was
particularly interested in women in the ancient world. She dedicated her
Troy and Paeonia to Harrison, “one of the greatest of living scholars, the
splendor of whose intellect is equaled by the candor and generosity of her
spirit. Quotes Harrison’s response (30 December 1925): “[I] was
filled with fresh wonder at the vigour and originality of yr mind . . .. you
have given me one of the greatest pleasures in my life . . ..”
Marcus Jane. “Years as Greek Drama, Domestic Novel, and Gotterdammerung.” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 80 (1977): 2: 276-301.
Virginia Woolf’s
work, The Years, is structured much like a Greek play, dispaying a
sequence from birth to death to rebirth.
Maurizio, L. “Performance, Hysteria, and the Democratic Identities in the Anthesteria.” Helios 28 (2001): 1: 29-41.
Cites Harrison’s studies
and her insights into the annual Greek festival.
Mazza, Mario. “Ritorno alle scienze umane. Problemi e tendenze della recente storiografia sul mondo antico.” Studi Storici 19 (1978): 469-507.
Harrison was one of the first scholars to apply the insights of the social sciences to ancient history. This approach gained force after World War II. In Italian.
Nasstrom, B.
M. “The Study of Greek Religion during the Past Few Decades.” Temenos
29 (1993): 115-32.
Nielsen, Donald A. “Pericles and the Plague: Civil religion, anomie, and injustice in Thucydides.” Sociology of Religion 57 (1996): 4: 397-407.
Examines these
sociological concepts in Athenian society as depicted in Thucydides' narrative
of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles’ funeral oration, as an embodiment of
Athenian civil religion, is juxtaposed with the description of Athenian
demoralization and anomie during the subsequent plague. These concepts are
linked to the problem of injustice in The Melian Dialogue, describing Athenian
behavior toward the island’s population. Thucydides associates these
ideas with the idea of Fortune and the resulting defeat of the Athenians.
As Cornford maintained in his classic work, Thucydides is a pioneer in the
systematic use of these sociological concepts. Agrees with Harrison and
Cornford that Durkheim is one of the more “classical” of modern sociologists.
[Note.] The Times 19 May 1887.
Notes Harrison’s
lectures: “a lady . . . giving in Oxford a successful course of lectures
on Greek sculpture.” M. Beard says this was probably a series of
University Extension lectures (Invention, 186).
Olson, Charles. The Special View of History. Ed. Ann Charters. Berkeley: Oyez, 1970.
Quotes passages from
Themis in his discussion of myth. Olson was a poet particularly
influenced by Harrison, as he notes in this work.
Oppenheim, Janet. “A Mother's Role, a Daughter's Duty: Lady Blanche Balfour, Eleanor Sidgwick, and Feminist Perspectives.” Journal of British Studies 34 (1995): 2: 196-232.
Harrison was the
first recipient of a Newnham College research fellowship, established by
principal Eleanor Sidgwick (also a major contributor) to encourage a woman to
make an original contribution to the academic disciplines. In 1900, there
were not yet enough funds to endow a fellowship of 100 pounds per year, but
Sidgwick announced that the first such fellowship would begin immediately, and
the stipend would come out of capital.
Pace, Jean. Letters to Jessie. 1992.
Jessie Crum
(Stewart’s) granddaughter published letters congratulating Crum on earning a
First on the archaeological section of the Classical Tripos. Harrison was
Crum’s mentor at the time; the two travelled to Greece together in 1901,
and Harrison gave her a suggested reading list to prepare for the Tripos.
Pace remembers Harrison as a familiar figure with her ‘picturesque dress.’
Park, Robert E. “Sociology and the Social Sciences.” American Journal of Sociology 26(1921): 4: 401-24.
An historical review
of the discipline of sociology, which originated with the effort to make
history scientific. In Themis, Harrison bases her concept of the
origin of Greek religion on a sociological theory: “religion reflects
collective feeling and collective thinking.”
Parsons, Elsie Clews. “Ceremonial Impatience.” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 15 (1918): 6: 157-64.
Cites Harrison’s translation of the Greek word for rite of growing up, becoming complete (telete) in Ancient Art and Ritual that and notes that it incorporates the attitude of the crisis or epochal ceremonial that Parsons calls ceremonial impatience.
Passman, T. “Out of the Closet and into the Field: Matriculture, the lesbian perspective and feminist classics.” In Feminist Theory and the Classics. Ed. N. S. Rabinowitz and A. Richlin. New York: 1993. 181-208.
Passman maintains that Harrison wrote and lived as a lesbian (181), noting her anthropological work on women and her relationship with Hope Mirrlees. Cites especially Harrison’s theories of a primitive matriarchy and its subsequent abolishment by a patriarchal social structure.
Partridge, Frances. Love in Bloomsbury: Memories. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. 24, 60-61.
Recounts that her parents tried to marry Harrison to D. S. MacColl. Gives a description of Harrison at Peile Hall circa 1918: curious, intelligent; she “treated the young absolutely as equals. I had never before met a much older person who had this gift and I found it irresistible” (60).
Peacock, Sandra. Jane Ellen Harrison: The Mask and the Self.
Peacock received much criticism for her Freudian interpretation of Harrison’s life (a “psychobiography”), including the idea that Harrison was in love with Francis Cornford (20 years her junior) and suffered a breakdown when he married Frances Darwin.
Reviews:
Burnside, Carol E. Religion
24 (1994): 1: 67-72.
Calder, William M., III.
Gnomon 63 (1991): 10-13.
Ellsworth, Edward W. American
Historical Review 95 (1990): 826-27.
Fowler, Robert L. Echos du
Monde Classique/Classical Views 35 ns 10 (1991): 129-34.
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Women’s
Review of Books 6 (1989): 8.
Howarth, Janet. Gender &
Education 2 (1990): 2: 246-47.
Huys, M. Etudes Classiques 57
(1989): 360-61.
Kimball, Roger. The New
Criterion (1989): 72??
Lefkowitz, M. R. American
Scholar 58 (1989): 464-68.
Levine, Phillippa. .Journal of
Modern History 63 (1991): 1: 137-38.
Michels, Agnes K. Classical
Journal 86 (1991): 362-64.
S.J.P. History & Theory
29 (1990): 1: 127-28.
Segal, Robert A. Journal of
American Folklore 103 (1990): 370-72.
Stray, Chris. Liverpool
Classical Monthly 16 no. 7 (July 1991): 103-111.
Stuttaford, Genevieve. Publishers
Weekly 22 July 1988: 48-49.
Pedersen, J. S. “Some Victorian Headmistresses: A Conservative
tradition of social-reform.” Victorian Studies 24 (1981): 4: 463-88.
Petrie, Flinders. Seventy Years in Archaeology. 1934. New York: Greenwood P, 1973. 174.
The search committee for the Yates Chair of Archaeology was “on the point of naming Jane Harrison” but Petrie’s remarks in favor of Ernest Gardner “carried the day.”
Phillips, K. J. Jane Harrison and Modernism.” Journal of Modern Literature 17 (1991): 4: 465-76.
Harrison was an important influence on Modernist writers. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Themis influenced and were influenced by the popular theories of the early 20th century. She believed in the primacy of emotion over reason and defined an individual as a fluid self rather than as an isolated whole. She foresaw the possibility of modern artists using myth in their spiritual quest and not merely for structural unification. (Infotrac)
Prins, Y. “Greek Maenads, Victorian Spinsters. In Victorian Sexual Dissidence. Ed. R. Dellamora. Chicago, 1999. 43-81.
Revell, Donald. “Invisible Green II.” The American Poetry Review 30 (2001):2: XX. Excerpt available online: http://www.aprweb.org/issues/mar01/revell.html
Characterizes poetry as alive, active, not an object of contemplative reading, citing Harrison’s Ancient Art and Ritual.
Rich, Adrienne. “’When We Dead Awaken’: Writing as re-vision.” College English 34, no. 1 (1972): xxx. Rpt. in American Poets. Ed. William Heyen. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976. Pp. XXX. Rpt. in Arts of the Possible: Essays and conversations. New York: Norton, 2001. Pp.
Originally written for a forum on “The Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century,” presented in Chicago, December 1971, by the Modern Language Association’s Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession. Responds to Harrison’s question posed to Murray in a 1914 letter regarding “why Woman is a dream and a terror to man and not the other way around?” Male judgement and the thwarting of women artists’ needs have created problems of language, style, energy, survival, and contact with herself. Rich uses the example of her own life.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford UP, 2002.Forthcoming.
Researched over a period of two decades, Robinson’s work aspires to be the definitive critical and biographical work on Harrison.
Rosenbaum, S. P. Victorian Bloomsbury: The Early literary history of the Bloomsbury Group. London: Macmillan, 1987. Vol. 1.
The Bloomsbury set perhaps knew Harrison's work better than that of any other Cambridge classicist or historian.&