Full Description
Drawing on the work of Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, Dumezil, Van Gennep, Eliade and many others, Dr. Marsland proposes a dual/triune structure to early religion - a structure which appears to be worldwide. Marslander discusses the ideas of E.B. Tylor's "Primitive Culture" (1872); James Frazer's "Golden Bough" (1890): the work of the Cambridge Ritualists, such as Jane Harrison's "Themis" (1912) and F.M.Cornford's "Origins of Attic Commedy" (1914); and, Jessie Weston's "From Ritual to Romance" (1920). Also explored in this title are the epistemological dilemmas of culture-formation and cultural diffusion based on mythic and societal change. Sex and transgressive sexual modalities are explored. This synthesis encompasses in a coherent whole gods, goddesses and their functions, festival rituals, the composition of sacred sites, the meaning of animal emblems and symbols in art, along with tribal social patterns. Taking a post-Lacanian view of the religious origin of culture, Dr. Marsland posits the use and structure of symbol in new and intricate ways.
