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Chapter 24 - Beyond Raglan’s Hero: Ellison’s Ritualist Influences

from Part III - Literary and Critical Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2022

By
Bryan Crable
Edited by
Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
Affiliation:
United States Merchant Marine Academy, New York
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Summary

Scholars have long recognized the influence of the Cambridge Ritualists (the “myth and ritual school”) on Ralph Ellison’s life and work. Primarily, given Ellison’s many statements regarding the birth of Invisible Man, this has been limited to discussions of Ellison’s use of Lord Raglan’s The Hero. However, archival research in Ellison’s collected papers and preserved library reveals a much more complex portrait of Ellison’s reading of the Ritualists. In this chapter, I draw on this archival evidence to reconstruct the significant insights that Ellison drew from Raglan (and not just The Hero), Jane Harrison, George Thomson, and A. M. Hocart.

Keywords

Ralph EllisonCambridge RitualistsJane Ellen HarrisonA.M. Hocart
Type
Chapter
Information
Ralph Ellison in Context , pp. 260 - 269
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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