Oldal 21 [21]
RITUAL AND AESTHETIC PRESENTIVITY
for Morike. It is highly productive to view literature as a symbolic act, both
from the perspective of the study of literature and the study of rituals.’ Vom
Kult zur Kunst (From Cult to Art), as Bruno Quast puts it: the matter is clearly
not quite so simple.’
Important genres of lyric poetry, such as hymns, odes, and psalms, have still
not fully lost their ritual/religious elements. Even in post-1945 literature, dra¬
ma offers adaptations of religious genres (cult games and initiations, requiems,
oratorios, songs).’° As with the relationship between religion and literature in
general, the relationship between ritual and literature in particular is not to
be viewed as a competitive relationship (which can, of course, be the case in
an individual situation) which has been secularised over the course of history.
Simple, linear, and constant, or compensational, processes of secularisation
(e.g., from myth to logos) are highly questionable. The religion of art around
the turn of the nineteenth century did not simply replace the apparent decline
in religion, or compensate for it. Rather, it expanded the space within which
aesthetic, religious gestures could be made.
Despite these statements of relativity, it is particularly challenging to relate
ritual to literature in the modern age. Regardless of all the talk of the death of
the author and the disappearance of the subject, Schiller’s statement does still
apply: “All a poet can give us is his individuality” (On Biirger’s Poems, 1791). It
seems difficult to reconcile this standpoint with ritual. Ritual is always associ¬
ated with the community: ritual is created by or designed for the community.
Of course, Schiller says immediately after this that individuality’s aesthetic
expression must be “purified up to the level of humankind.” He speaks here of
form’s ability to create communities [Vergemeinschaftung]. This is not only
an expression of his Classicism. On its own, this would not explain very much.
The subjectivity of the artist must challenge us, and aesthetic judgment must,
in line with Kant, be justified to such an extent that it can be required of others.
This issue also raises its head in discussions about the need for a new mythol¬
ogy, led by the early Romantics, during which they reflect upon the key role
played by poetry. Romantic poetry strives to be identical to the new mythol¬
ogy. As modern, ironic, procedural poetry that challenges us individually, it
is both a practice and a medium of bringing people together (cf. Das älteste
Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus [unknown authorship, 1796/97] and
Kenneth Burke: Dichtung als symbolische Handlung: Eine Theorie der Literatur, Frankfurt
a. M., Suhrkamp, 1966. [The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, Baton
Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1941.]
Bruno Quast: Vom Kult zur Kunst: Öffnungen des rituellen Textes in Mittelalter und früher
Neuzeit, Tübingen/Basel, Francke, 2005.
Saskia Fischer: Ritual und Ritualität im Drama nach 1945: Brecht, Frisch, Dürrenmatt,
Sachs, Weiss, Hochhuth, Handke, Paderborn, Fink, 2019.
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