James George Frazer's Anthropologic Heritage in the Work of Robert Graves

The works of Sir James George Frazer had an outstanding influence on the literature of modernism. Among those who benefited from Frazer's ritualism were W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot. James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Mary Renault, Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves and many others. Robert Graves was known for his famous adaptation of Frazer's concept of the sacred king who is sacrificed for the benefit of his subjects thus forming the narrative frame for the one of his most controversial novels. The dying king is also identified with the poet striving to attain the favour of the Triple Muse Goddess - who represents the embodiment of true poetic inspiration. The aforementioned concept is not the only thing that Graves inherited from his famous ancestor. In our analysis we laid stress on the customs, rituals, magic symbols and deities both authors dealt with. We also observed a striking resemblance of the style Greves and Frazer developed and their euchemeristic approach to myths as well.