Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:04:49.099Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Myths of Anthropology: Eliot, Joyce, Lévy-Bruhl

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

David Spurr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The emerging science of anthropology created myths of the primitive that became important to literary modernism's mythic interpretation of contemporary history. T. S. Eliot and James Joyce in particular were attracted to the work of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, whose theory of the mentalité primitive appeared to offer alternatives to prevailing modes of Western logic. Eliot took this myth of anthropology and other ones at face value insofar as they contributed to his theories of poetic origins and to his attacks on modern civilization. He opposed a primitivist ideal of tradition to the notion of a corrupt civilization embodied in the figure of the Jew. In contrast, Joyce treated anthropology ironically as a discursive construct rooted in colonizing enterprises of European institutions and thought. He satirized anthropology's pretensions while exploiting its material for his artistic ends.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 109 , Issue 2 , March 1994 , pp. 266 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Ackroyd, Peter T. S. Eliot: A Life. New York: Simon, 1984.Google Scholar
Balakian, Anna André Breton: Magus of Surrealism. New York: Oxford UP, 1971.Google Scholar
Blanchot, Maurice The Infinite Conversation. Trans. Hanson, Susan. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993.Google Scholar
Breton, André Entretiens 1913–1952. Paris: Gallimard, 1969.Google Scholar
Breton, André Second manifeste du surréalisme. Manifestes du surréalisme. Paris: Gallimard, 1973. 65–150.Google Scholar
Cailliet, Emile, and Bédé, Jean-Albert “Le symbolisme et l'âme primitive.” Revue de littérature comparée 12 (1932): 356–35.Google Scholar
Cazeneuve, Jean Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Trans. Rivière, Peter. New York: Harper, 1972.Google Scholar
Clifford, James The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, Thomas The Personal Library of James Joyce. Buffalo: U of Buffalo Bookstore, 1957.Google Scholar
Crawford, Robert The Savage and the City in the Work of T. S. Eliot. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987.Google Scholar
de Man, Paul Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques Writing and Difference. Trans. Bass, Alan. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S After Strange Gods. London: Faber, 1934.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S Christianity and Culture. New York: Harcourt, 1968.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909–1950. New York: Harcourt, 1952.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, 1971.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley. New York: Columbia UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S The Letters of T. S. Eliot. Vol. 1 (1898–1922). Ed. Valerie Eliot. New York: Harcourt, 1988.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S “Notes towards the Definition of Culture.” Eliot, Christianity 79–202.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S “A Prediction in Regard to Three English Authors, Writers Who, Though Masters of Thought, Are Likewise Masters of Art.” Vanity Fair Feb. 1924: 29+.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S Rev. of Group Theories of Religion and the Religion of the Individual, by Clement C. J. Webb. International Journal of Ethics 27 (1916): 115–11.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S Rev. of The Growth of Civilization and The Origin of Magic and Religion, by W. J. Perry. Criterion July 1924:489–91.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S Selected Prose. Ed. Kermode, Frank. New York: Harcourt, 1975.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. London: Faber, 1933.Google Scholar
Ellmann, Richard James Joyce. New York: Oxford UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage-Random, 1970.Google Scholar
Gifford, Don Ulysses Annotated. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.Google Scholar
Goldwater, Robert Primitivism in Modern Art. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Gordon, Lyndall Eliot's Early Years. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Gray, Piers T. S. Eliot's Intellectual and Poetic Development 1909–1922. Brighton: Harvester, 1982.Google Scholar
Gregory, Augusta Poets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish. 1903. New York: Oxford UP, 1974.Google Scholar
Jones, Ernest Essays in Applied Psycho-analysis. 2 vols. New York: Intl. Universities, 1964.Google Scholar
Joyce, James The Critical Writings. Ed. Mason, Ellsworth and Ellmann, Richard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Joyce, James Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939.Google Scholar
Joyce, James Ulysses: The Corrected Text. New York: Vintage-Random, 1986.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude La pensée sauvage. Paris: Plon, 1962.Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien Les cornets de Lévy-Bruhl. Paris: PUF, 1949.Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien Les functions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures. 1910. Paris: Alcan, 1918.Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien History of Modern Philosophy in France. Trans. Coblence, G. London: Kegan Paul, 1899.Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien La mentalité primitive. Paris: Alcan, 1922.Google Scholar
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien “Primitive Mentality and Gambling.” Criterion Feb. 1924: 188–200.Google Scholar
Lewis, Wyndham Time and Western Man. London: Chatto, 1927.Google Scholar
Littleton, C. Scott “Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and the Concept of Cognitive Relativity.” Introduction. How Natives Think. By Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Trans. Lilian A. Clare. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1985. v-lviii.Google Scholar
Manganaro, Marc “Dissociation in ‘Dead Land’: The Primitive Mind in the Early Poetry of T. S. Eliot.” Journal of Modern Literature 13 (1986): 97–110.Google Scholar
Manganaro, Marc Myth, Rhetoric, and the Voice of Authority: A Critique of Frazer, Eliot, Frye, and Campbell. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maurer, Evan “Dada and Surrealism.” “Primitivism” in Twentieth Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. Ed. Rubin, William. Vol. 2. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1984. 535–53.Google Scholar
McHugh, Roland Annotations to Finnegans Wake. Rev. ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1991.Google Scholar
McHugh, Roland The Sigla of Finnegans Wake. Austin: U of Texas P, 1976.Google Scholar
Meisel, Perry The Myth of the Modern: A Study in British Literature and Criticism after 1850. New Haven: Yale UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Mercanton, Jacques Les heures de James Joyce. Lausanne: Age d'homme, 1967.Google Scholar
Mercier, Paul Histoire de l'anthropologie. Paris: PUF, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Christopher Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1985.Google Scholar
Monnerot, Jules La poésie moderne et le sacré. Paris: Gallimard, 1945.Google Scholar
Ricks, Christopher T. S. Eliot and Prejudice. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.Google Scholar
Said, Edward Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.Google Scholar
Smith, Grover, ed Josiah Royce's Seminar, 1913–1914: As Recorded in the Notebooks of Harry T. Costello. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1963.Google Scholar
Sultan, Stanley Eliot, Joyce, and Company. New York: Oxford UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Tindall, William York A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake. New York: Farrar, 1969.Google Scholar
Vickery, John B The Literary Impact of The Golden Bough. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973.Google Scholar
Wentinck, Charles Modern and Primitive Art. Trans. Davies, Hilary. Oxford: Phaidon, 1979.Google Scholar