Lord Raglan (1885–1964)
Auteur de The Myth of the Birth of the Hero
A propos de l'auteur
Notice de désambiguation :
(eng) FitzRoy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan (1885–1964) was a British soldier, farmer and independent scholar best known for his work The Hero.
Crédit image: Family photo of Lord Raglan standing in front of Raglan Castle
Œuvres de Lord Raglan
How came civilization? 2 exemplaires
Jocasta's crime : an anthropological study 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom légal
- Raglan, FitzRoy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron
- Autres noms
- Baron Raglan
- Date de naissance
- 1885-06-10
- Date de décès
- 1964-09-14
- Lieu de sépulture
- Llandenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- UK (birth)
- Lieu de naissance
- Westminster, London, England, UK
- Lieux de résidence
- Cefntilla Court, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK
Hong Kong
Egypt
Sudan
Palestine - Études
- Eton College, Eton, Berkshire, England, UK
Royal Military College, Sandhurst - Professions
- military officer
beekeeper
independent scholar
farmer
landowner - Organisations
- Grenadier Guards
British Association for the Advancement of Science
Royal Anthropological Institute
Folklore Society
National Museum of Wales
British Army - Prix et distinctions
- Officer of the Order of the Nile
- Notice de désambigüisation
- FitzRoy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan (1885–1964) was a British soldier, farmer and independent scholar best known for his work The Hero.
Membres
Critiques
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 7
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 327
- Popularité
- #72,482
- Évaluation
- 3.4
- Critiques
- 5
- ISBN
- 27
- Langues
- 4
This book starts from a significant and valuable observation: That a great many tales of heroes have a great deal in common. For example, most heroes are brought up by someone other than their parents -- a fact that is true of everyone from Moses to Oedipus to Cyrus the Great to (in more recent tales, which were not known to the authors of this book) Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter. This point has been made by many scholars, most notably Joseph Campbell, and is freely accepted by all three contributors to this book; it need not be questioned.
What these three essays (especially the first two, by Rank and Lord Raglan) attempt to do is to study why folktales have this common element. This is a much better question.
It's too bad it gets such lousy answers.
Otto Rank tries to explain it in Freudian terms. In essence, he says that the Oedipus tale is as it is because we all have Oedipus complexes. As for where the rest of the details come from -- that's because we're all a bunch of paranoids.
For starters, of course, Freud's hypotheses are absurd. But it seems to me that Rank isn't even applying them correctly. Rags-to-riches stories don't appeal to us because we're paranoid; they appeal to us because we want to succeed!
Lord Raglan isn't as badly deceived by incompetent psychologists, but he has his nose so high in the air, it's a wonder he finds anything up there to breathe. He looks down on the primitive myths, completely failing to understand their purpose and treating them as pure fiction -- and bad fiction, and then denying that primitive peoples even have the brains to invent such things! I can't claim to know much about psychology, but I know folklore, and Raglan just doesn't get it. Often the best work in fact comes from the illiterates, the hunter-gatherers, the primitives -- what else do they have to do at night except tell stories?
To give one specific example of Raglan's complete wrong-headedness, on pp. 146-147, he attempts to place Robin Hood in the "hero" mold, giving the outlaw 13 of a possible 22 points. But six (arguably eight) of those alleged 13 points are either not explicit in the earliest references to Robin, or are the hack work of later broadside-writers. The Robin Hood of the folk both predates Raglan's version and is folkier -- but less like a hero.
The final essay, by Alan Dundes, is much better; at least it brings real insight into the myths themselves -- and covers a topic which many have feared to address. But it can't wipe out the bad taste left by the others. In one sense, Rank is surely right: hero tales around the world are alike because they strike some deep inner chord in all of us. But the reason they do so is not because we are sick, or neo-primitive, or suffer some sort of religious mania. It's because the hero tales exalt values which make for better, stronger, more stable societies. Heroes are heroes because they make us better, not because they make us inferior.… (plus d'informations)