Oldal 21 [21]
OCR
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, drama 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 associated 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 mythology, 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 mythology. 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. +19 +
