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WOLFGANG BRAUNGART THE RITUAL? The ritual is a regulated, sequence-based (that is, inherently structured) act performed by a community or for a community. The following elements can be seen to represent the constituent parts of both sacred and secular rituals: (1) the ritual repeats a set act; (2) it is unequivocal and visible, staged and theatrical, possibly verging on having a certain celebratory, festive nature; (3) it is aesthetically elaborated and self-referential; (4) it can be understood symbolically; (5) it requires participants who must be specifically legitimised for it, and additional participants who acclaim the ritual or are included within it. These five aspects constitute the ritual as a whole and determine the overall form of the ritual. Within this whole, the ritual takes on specific social and cultural functions, and plays a communicative role. The ritual is one of the fundamental types of social action. As a generic concept, it covers sacred rites (religious cults, liturgies), secular rituals (celebrations that take place at various points during an individual’s life and emphasise its particular stages or give structure to the life of the collective), traditional customs (rites of chastisement and reprehension, clubs’ and societies’ rituals), and highly regulated, institutionalised, often public/state-centred ceremonies (the opening of parliament, the assumption of office, coronations, state visits). However, a ritual does not need to solely be a formal, strict, serious activity. Any wedding or children’s birthday party shows this. Indeed, laughter can have a place in a ritual (as in Mardi Gras carnivals) even within a sacred setting (risus paschalis). TYPES OF RITUAL Rituals are (or can be) based on biological and anthropological drives — as shown by human courtship rituals. However, within the framework of cultural anthropology, the term “ritual” refers to a symbolic, repeated, sense-giving action, and must therefore be separated from the biological term “ritual,” or “ritualisation.” This biological term refers to a pattern of behavior occurring on the basis of necessity and as a result of consequential outcomes; a pattern of behavior that is the remnant of a different interaction between biological functions. ? Wolfgang Braungart: Ritual, in D. Weidner (ed.): Handbuch Literatur und Religion, Stuttgart, Metzler, 2016, 427-434. I am grateful to Jennifer Caisley for the translation from German into English of this chapter. Further elaborated in Wolfgang Braungart: Form und Subjektivitat. Ritual und Liturgie als Praktiken literarischer Kommunikation, in R. M. Erdbeer — F. Klaeger — K. Stierstorfer (eds.): Grundthemen der Literaturwissenschaft: Form, Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, 2020. s ]4 e
