HARRISON, JANE E. (1850–1928), English authority on ancient Greek religion. Harrison, one of the first female students of the University of Cambridge, taught classics throughout her career at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her reputation rests primarily on three works: Prolegomena to the History of Greek Religion (1903), Themis (1912), and Epilegomena (1921).

Prolegomena, published when its author was fifty-three years old, testifies to her recognition of the importance of the still comparatively new disciplines of archaeology and anthropology at a time when most teachers of the Greek and Latin classics were convinced not only that the objects of their study contained nothing of the "primitive" but also that the behavior of "primitive" societies could teach them nothing relevant to their studies. For Harrison, the living essence of Greek religion was not the Olympians, so prominent in the literature and in the major temples of Greece, but the ancient rituals...