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The Correspondence of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff with Sir James George Frazer1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Robert Ackerman  and
William M. Calder III
Robert Ackerman
Affiliation:
Yeshiva University
William M. Calder III
Affiliation:
The University of Colorado
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Extract

In any exchange, information streams back and forth in numerous channels. This truism is worth recalling when the exchange in question is between scholars, where the temptation, reenforced by tradition, is to focus on the obvious intellectual content and ignore the rest. But no matter how strictly the writers seem to discuss only ‘objective’ matters, there is always a nonintellectual component present, and if the social and psychological context is available or can be reconstructed, then the biographer or historian finds much besides the issues discussed. In this exchange of letters between the Cambridge scholar, Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848-1931), the latter makes some keen observations about the limited value of the comparative method so far as classical studies are concerned. But beneath the text of these letters exists a personal ‘subtext’, which permits us to read the letters in a fresh or unexpected light.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 24 , 1978 , pp. 31 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

NOTES

2. No adequate biography exists. Two memoirs by R. Angus Downie, a journalist who became Frazer's amanuensis in the 1930's when he had gone blind, are: James George Frazer: the portrait of a scholar (London 1940)Google Scholar and Frazer and the Golden bough (London 1970)Google Scholar. Of importance is Marett, R.R., ‘James George Frazer 1854-1941’, PBA 27 (1941) 377–91Google Scholar. Besterman, Theodore, A bibliography of Sir James George Frazer O.M. (London 1934)Google Scholar is invaluable. See also Ackerman, R., ‘J.G. Frazer revisited’, The American Scholar 47 (1978) 232–6Google Scholar.

3. See Ackerman, Robert, ‘Sir James G. Frazer and A.E. Housman: a relationship in letters’, GRBS 15 (1974) 339–64, esp. 348-56Google Scholar.

4. The letters between Frazer (and Lady Frazer) and the House of Macmillan are now B.M. Add. MSS 55134-55 and cover 1884-1940.

5. Frazer was a lifetime Fellow of Trinity College and never held a university teaching post at Cambridge. He did hold the chair of social anthropology at Liverpool for only one year (1907-08), but never lectured there. His shyness is attested by Jane Harrison (letter to Lady Mary Murray, February 1901) apud Stewart, Jessie, Jane Ellen Harrison: A portrait from letters (London 1959) 37Google Scholar and Malinowski, Bronislaw, ‘Sir James George Frazer: A biographical appreciation’, A scientific theory of culture and other essays (Chapel Hill 1944) 181–2Google Scholar.

6. For a representative modern assessment of Frazer by a leading anthropologist see Evans-Pritchard, E.E., Theories of primitive religion (Oxford 1965) 27ffGoogle Scholar. Frazer has probably had more lasting effects on literary criticism than on anthropology: see Hyman, S.E., The tangled bank (New York 1962)Google Scholar and Ackerman, R., ‘Mythbegotten’, Denver Quarterly 8 (1974) 91–9Google Scholar.

7. After Preuss: see Murray, Gilbert, Five stages of Greek religion (London 1946) 2Google Scholar, originally published in 1912 as Four stages of Greek religion.

8. Wilamowitz had succeeded to Curtius' chair in the spring semester 1897 and by now had held for eight years the most prestigious chair of classical philology in Europe.

9. Frazer, J.G., Lectures on the early history of the kingship (London 1905)Google Scholar.

10. This is certainly true for Wilamowitz’ own popular lectures but holds as well for most of his more specialized works.

11. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ‘Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen’, apud Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. v. und Niese, B., Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen und Römer = Kultur der Gegenwart II.IV.1 (Berlin/Leipzig 1910Google Scholar; ed.21923) 1-207. The lectures that formed the basis of this book were being held at the Victoria-Lyzeum in Berlin. Among the fascinated hearers was the schoolboy Ed. Fraenkel (1888-1970): see HSCP 81 (1977) 276Google Scholar.

12. See esp. op. cit.1, 26-60 = ed.2 27-64.

13. See esp. Frazer, , Lectures, 37ff., 81ff., 112ffGoogle Scholar.

14. See, e.g., Staat und Gesellschaft 1 30 (= ed.2 31): ‘Aber von der primitiven Ungestalt zu der Menschengestalt der homerischen Götter und von da zu dem rein geistigen Götter eines Aischylos, das ist ein Aufsteigen aus einer Sphäre des religiösen Empfindens in eine andere und wieder eine andere.’ The whole page deserves attention in this context.

15. ‘Schulpfortedeutsch’ sc. Latinized spelling. Wilamowitz, e.g., always wrote College.

16. See Staat und Gesellschaft1 17-18 (=ed.2 19-20).

17. The title of his teacher's book: Usener, Hermann, Götternamen: Versuch einer Lehre von der religiosen Begriffsbildung3 (Frankfurt/Main 1948Google Scholar; first published 1895). Usener often asked Georg Karo to translate Frazer's GB to him: see Karo, Georg, Fünfzig Jahre aus dem Leben eines Archäologen (Baden-Baden 1959) 33Google Scholar.

18. Perhaps Hefermehl, E., Studia in Apollodori περὶ θεῶν (Diss. Berlin 1905)?Google Scholar

19. That is letter No. 1 of 26 November 1905. Frazer, as was his custom, replies almost by return mail.

20. Despite Frazer's protestations of his debt to German learning, it is difficult to specify its dimensions above and beyond the obvious fact that anyone trained in classical philology, as was Frazer (second classic, tripos 1878), was necessarily conversant with both general and specific developments in German scholarship. Certainly at the end of the century anthropology was an English, not a German, science. The cause for Frazer's move from classics to anthropology was the advent of and his friendship with William Robertson Smith at Trinity College in 1884. (R.A.)

21. Elizabeth (Lilly) Frazer (ob. 1941).

22. He refers to the visit of December 1902: see GRBS 15 (1974) 348Google Scholar.

23. Frazer wrote to Dr Solomon Schechter on 22 December 1902: ‘We heard lectures by Pfliederer, Paulsen, Diels, and Wilamowitz, and we were introduced to all these eminent men’: see GRBS loc. cit. In winter semester 1902/3 Wilamowitz offered Ausgewählte hellenistische Gedichte and Antike Lyrik, a meeting of either or both of which Frazer would have attended.

24. Golden bough1 I. 62ff., 129ffGoogle Scholar; III. 458.

25. Lectures 278-9.

26. Cf. supra n. 18.

27. A reprint of Griechische Tragoedien II: Orestie (Berlin 1900)Google Scholar. The whole series was often reprinted.

28. GrTr II. 209–51Google Scholar.

29. Cf. supra n. 27.

30. It is always easier to thank an author before reading the book.

31. For W.H.D. Rouse (1863-1950) see The Times of 11 February 1950 and CR 64 (1950) 42–3Google Scholar. His most lasting contributions to classical scholarship are the Nonnos, Loeb and Greek votive offerings: an essay in the history of Greek religion (Cambridge 1902)Google Scholar. Oddly Frazer does not mention the latter book.

32. Rouse, edited CR 1907–1920Google Scholar. Later through Frazer's influence he became an editor of the Loeb Library: see Illinois Class. Stud. 2 (1977) 319 n. 21Google Scholar.

33. Rouse apparently requested Wilamowitz to write an article on teaching the classics for CR. The letter does not survive in the Göttingen Nachlass.

34. The Jakata; or stories of the Buddha's former births, ed. Cowell, E.B. (Cambridge 1895)Google Scholar includes translations by Rouse.

35. See Gray, J.M., A history of the Perse School (Cambridge 1921)Google Scholar. Rouse was Headmaster of the Perse 1902-28.

36. Rouse was a keen exponent of the ‘direct method’. Teaching was in Latin and Greek. Students spoke no English in class.

37. Adonis Attis Osiris: studies in the history of Oriental religion (= GB3 IV.1, 2) (London 1914Google Scholar; first edition London 1906).

38. Cf. supra n. 22.

39. A reference surely to Solomon Schechter (1847-1915), Reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge (1892-1902), later president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (1902-1915). Born in Rumania, Schechter lived long in Vienna and Berlin and would qualify as German. See further n. 23 above.

40. See supra n. 37.

41. Wilamowitz had only read volume I.

42. Probably The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia 2 vols. (Oxford 1895–1897)Google Scholar. In December 1908 Sir William Ramsay (1851-1939) visited Berlin to greet Wilamowitz on his sixtieth birthday in the name of his English colleagues: Erinnerungen 2 313.

43. This strikes at the heart of Frazer's method and could not have pleased him. Perhaps it was another reason for Frazer's later distaste for Wilamowitz: see GRBS 15 (1974) 348ffGoogle Scholar.

44. See GB3 IV.1. 254ff., 305ffGoogle Scholar.

45. Ibid. 310ff.

46. For an authoritative evaluation of Frazer's prose see Read, Herbert, English prose style, revised edition (Boston 1953) 186Google Scholar, where Frazer is one of ‘those writers whom we may regard as constituting the English tradition, beginning with Dryden’. He includes a selection from GB as illustration.

47. For his early study of Italian and French see Erinnerungen 2 77-8 (Italian from Koberstein). French was spoken in the family: see ibid. 54. Wilamowitz just knew it. He never studied it.

48. He had read two tragedies of Shakespeare and the shipwreck from Byion, Don Juan IIGoogle Scholar with Volkmann, Dieterich at Schulpforte, (Erinnerungen 278)Google Scholar but still in 1908 confided to Finsler: ‘Murray wird für mich zwei Vorträge übersetzen, die ich Anfang Juni in Oxford halten soll, von der Universität ganz officiell eingeladen, wo ich denn nicht ablehnen durfte, so schwer es mich belastet, zumal ich englisch reden gar nicht kann’: Briefe von Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff an Georg Finsler mitgeteilt Tièche, von E. (Bern 1953) 20Google Scholar.

49. The description of the ‘Examenmann’ at Schulpforte is certainly colored by Frazerian theory: Erinnerungen 2 67. He cites Frazer, 's name at Glaube der Hellenen I 2 (Basel 1956) 137Google Scholar: ‘Es ist von grösster Wichtigkeit, dass die merkwürdigen Arten des Königtumes welche Frazer im Anschluss an den rex nemorensis verfolgt hat, den Hallenen fremd sind.’

50. Praelections delivered before the Senate of the University of Cambridge, 25, 26, 27 January 1906 (Cambridge 1906)Google Scholar. For the circumstances of the volume see Headlam, Cecil, Walter Headlam (London 1910) 131 ffGoogle Scholar. and Parry, R. St John, Henry Jackson, O.M. (Cambridge 1926) 72ffGoogle Scholar. Wilamowitz’, review is published at CR 20 (1906) 444–6Google Scholar.

51. 6-12 August 1908 in Berlin: see Erinnerungen2 313Google Scholar.