Without the guidance of The Golden
Bough I should probably, as the late M. Gaston Paris happily expressed
it, still be wandering in the forest of Broceliande!
During the Bayreuth Festival of 1911 I had frequent opportunities of
meeting, and discussion with, Professor von Schroeder. I owe to him
not only the introduction to his own work, which I found most helpful,
but references which have been of the greatest assistance; e.g. my
knowledge of Cumont's Les Religions Orientales, and Scheftelowitz's
valuable study on Fish Symbolism, both of which have furnished
important links in the chain of evidence, is due to Professor von
Schroeder.
The perusal of Miss J. E. Harrison's Themis opened my eyes to the
extended importance of these Vegetation rites. In view of the
evidence there adduced I asked myself whether beliefs which had found
expression not only in social institution, and popular custom, but,
as set forth in Sir G. Murray's study on Greek Dramatic Origins,
attached to the work, also in Drama and Literature, might not
reasonably--even inevitably--be expected to have left their mark on
Romance? The one seemed to me a necessary corollary of the other,
and I felt that I had gained, as the result of Miss Harrison's work,
a wider, and more assured basis for my own researches.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25