Jane Ellen Harrison

Who was Jane Ellen Harrison?

Jane Ellen Harrison was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have become standard. Contemporary classics scholar Mary Beard, Harrison's biographer, has described her as "in a way ... [Britain's] first female professional 'career academic'". Ellen Wordsworth Crofts, later second wife of Sir Francis Darwin was Jane Harrison's best friend from her student days at Newnham, and during the period from 1898 to her early death in 1903.