Bibliography
For Ancient and Primitive Ritual the best general book of reference is:
Frazer, J. G. The Golden Bough, 3rd edition, 1911, from which most of the instances in the present manual are taken. Part IV of The Golden Bough, i.e. the section dealing with Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, should especially be consulted.
Also an earlier, epoch-making book:
Robertson Smith, W. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 1889 [3rd edition, 1927]. For certain fundamental ritual notions, e.g. sacrifice, holiness, etc.
[For Egyptian and Babylonian ritual: Myth and Ritual, edited by S. H. Hooke, 1933.]
For the Greek Drama, as arising out of the ritual dance: Professor Gilbert Murray’s Excursus on the Ritual Forms preserved in Greek Tragedy in J. E. Harrison’s Themis, 1912, and pp. 327-40 in the same book; and for the religion of Dionysos and the drama, J. E. Harrison’s Prolegomena, 1907, Chapters VIII and X. For the fusion of the ritual dance and hero-worship, see W. Leaf, Homer and History, 1915, Chapter VII. For a quite different view of drama as arising wholly from the worship of the dead, see Professor W. Ridgeway, The Origin of Tragedy, 1910. An important discussion of the relation of tragedy to the winter festival of the Lenaia appears in A. B. Cook’s Zeus, vol. i, sec. 6 (xxi) [1914].
[More recent works on Greek drama: A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, 1927; G. Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens, 1941.]
For Primitive Art:
Hirn, Y. The Origins of Art, 1900. The main theory of the book the present writer believes to be inadequate, but it contains an excellent collection of facts relating to Art, Magic, Art and Work, Mimetic Dances, etc., and much valuable discussion of principles.
Grosse, E. The Beginnings of Art, 1897, in the Chicago Anthropological Series. Valuable for its full illustrations of primitive art, as well as for text.
[Boas, F., Primitive Art, 1927.]
For the Theory of Art:
Tolstoy, L. What is Art? Translated by Aylmer Maude, in the Scott Library.
Fry, Roger E. An Essay in Æsthetics, in the New Quarterly, April 1909, p. 174.
This is the best general statement of the function of Art known to me. It should be read in connection with Mr. Bullough’s article, quoted on p. 129, which gives the psychological basis of a similar view of the nature of art. My own theory was formulated independently, in relation to the development of the Greek theatre, but I am very glad to find that it is in substantial agreement with those of two such distinguished authorities on æsthetics. For my later conclusions on art, see Alpha and Omega, 1915, pp. 208-220.
[Caudwell, C., Illusion and Reality, 1937.]
For more advanced students:
Dussauze, Henri. Les Règles esthétiques et les lois du sentiment, 1911.
Müller-Freienfels, R. Psychologie der Kunst, 1912.