Pallas (Dec 2009)
L’Apollodore de James George Frazer
Abstract
In 1921, J.G. Frazer published at Loeb’s an edition and English translation of Apollodore’s Library. What motivations drove the author of the Golden Bough and fierce advocate of a comparative mythology of extensive scope to become interested in an erudite mythological compendium yet devoid of any trace of fantasy like the one placed under the name of Apollodore ? Such is the inquiry here carried out through an examination of the context in which Frazer’s translation was performed and immediately received in the following months. The point is to understand how Frazer looked at the work and what he extracted out of it for his own conceptions of myth and its functions.
Keywords
