Ritual Myth And The Modernist Text

Tracing the predominance of Hellenic maternal archetypes in the writings of James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf back to anthropologist Jane Harrison, this book discusses HarrisonAs influence over the modernist movement (late 19th and early 20th centuries). Myth criticism is established in this analystical text as one of the best apporaches to modernist fiction, most of which sought consciously to incorporate myth and ritual. The book revises what the author considers to be overemphasis on Frazer as the major anthroplogical influence on these writers by illuminating the historical development of comparative anthropology and redefining simplistic definitions of ritual theory. The author analyzes in detail the influence of HarrisonAs work on the works of these authors and shows how HarrisonAs more feminist view of Greek religion was inspirational for Joyce, Eliot and Woolf. Review: This is a creative work for linking literature, religion, and anthropology...the book would make for a valuable classroom text to explore such linkages in an introductory fashion. -Frank J. Korom, Boston University of Religious Studies Review