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RITUAL AND AESTHETIC PRESENTIVITY
It is possible to differentiate between the various types of ritual on the basis
of form and meaning and on the basis of social function. These types include,
for example, transitional rituals (Les rites de passages — Arnold van Gennep);
hunting/sacrifice rituals (Walter Burkert); scapegoat rituals (René Girard);
liminality rituals, ie., particular rituals to give experience and strength to a
community across social boundaries (Victor Turner); and cleansing and purity
rituals (Mary Douglas). Literature can participate in all these types of rituals:
semantically, thematically, socio-functionally, and structurally. The (dramatic)
tragedy is the most conspicuous genre when demonstrating the links between
literature and ritual. Indeed, it is possible to discuss tragedy as being a form
of sacrificial ritual.*
RELIGION, CIVIL RELIGION, AND RITUALS
Rituals seem to be universal cultural components that extend across all reli¬
gions and all societies. Namely, “religion” and “society” demand determined,
repetitive social practices to encourage people to perform good deeds and
live a good life, to depict and honour saints, and to mark the culmination of
religious and secular communitisation.
Even traces left by prehistoric humans often contain an indication of ritual
practices which demonstrate a need for sense and a focus on meaning. For
societies founded on religion, the ritual system gives a shared ritual structure
to life as a whole. This ritual system covers ritual practices over the course of
the growing cycle, or the arrangement of the ecclesiastical year. However, the
study of the sociology of religion has long shown the strength of social and
cultural practices in modern societies. Such modern societies would certainly
describe themselves as secular, but they are also characterised by pervasive
“religioid” elements (with the word “religioid” being based on Georg Simmel
and Robert Musil’s coinage, “ratioid”). It is worthwhile keeping an eye open for
the “religioid” dimension of allegedly secular rituals, such as in politics. Totali¬
tarian regimes (Nazism, Stalinism, youth initiation ceremonies in former East
Germany) tend to make use of “religioid” rituals in order to give legitimacy
to their politics in an aesthetic, performative, theatrical and dramaturgical
way. Even in secular civil society there are inescapable, supreme values that
provide a sense of community and unity. The upholding of these values can
be described as a “civil religion.” They also call for performative acts and aes¬
thetic experiences, in a manner akin to the ritual (national public holidays,
international volunteering day, Labor Day). Nevertheless, rituals cannot be
3 Anton Bierl — Wolfgang Braungart (eds.): Gewalt und Opfer: Im Dialog mit Walter Burkert,
Berlin/New York, De Gruyter, 2010.