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POETIC RITUALITY AND TRANSCULTURALITY
a specific literary and dramatic adaptation of ritual patterns, types, genres,
symbols, ways of speaking, and phrases. Poetic rituality can be recognized if
the relation to a ritual determines the aesthetic construction and concept of
a drama or theater performance in an essential way. Just because a funeral is
being depicted on stage, does not mean that we can speak of poetic rituality
right away. But if the play, for instance, follows the structure of the Catholic
requiem, this reference opens up connotations that enrich the significance of
what is happening on stage as well as the effect on the audience that the play
is trying to achieve. Max Frisch’s drama Nun singen sie wieder — Versuch eines
Requiems [Now they’re singing again: Attempt at a Requiem],”° first staged in
1945, for example, is profoundly related to the Catholic requiem, which de¬
termines the dramaturgy and structure of this play. At first glance, it seems
plausible that Frisch, after the Second World War and in the face of violence
and death, adapts the genre of the requiem, which is dedicated to symbolically
dealing with death for those left behind. Yet Frisch’s drama reflects on the
problematic continuity of the ritual in view of National Socialist propaganda,
which made excessive use of genres such as the oratorio and the requiem. For
Frisch, a non-reflective use of such religious genres is just as impossible as is
a meaningful or even reconciling interpretation of the suffering experienced
during the war. Therefore, the drama is related to the requiem in a fundamen¬
tal way, and at the same time questions if the requiem is the right genre to deal
with the experiences of the war.
Similarly to rituals, poetic rituality also unfolds in a broad range of ritual
forms. At one end of the spectrum, poetic rituality can evolve as the attempt
of a drama or performance to present itself as being as close to a ritual as pos¬
sible, aiming to eliminate the differences between art and ritual. At the other
extreme, poetic rituality can be shaped as a distant, self-reflective, even self¬
critical form of rituality. Due to the wide scope in which poetic rituality can
occur, poetic rituality should not be seen as a restraint but as an expansion of
the artistic and theatrical modes of expression. The category of poetic ritual¬
ity emphasizes the productivity of an artistic adaptation of ritual. Building on
Victor Turner, the adaptation of ritual in drama and theater can be described
as an artistic and innovative liminal process.”' Turner sees rituals as actions
“betwixt and between the positions as signed and arrayed by law, custom, con¬
vention, and ceremonial.”” He also stresses: “In liminality, new ways of acting,
20
Max Frisch: Three Plays. Santa Cruz - Now They’re Singing Again — Rip van Winkle, trans.
Michael Bullock, Vancouver, Ronsdale Press, 2002.
Victor Turner: Variations on a Theme on Liminality, in S. F. Moore — B. G. Myerhoff (eds.):
Secular Ritual. A Working Definition of Ritual, Assen/Amsterdam, Van Gorcum, 1977, 36-52,
40.
Victor Turner: The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure, London, Routledge 1969,
95; Arnold van Gennep: Les Rites de Passage. Etude systematique des Rites, Paris, Editions
A&J Picard, 1981.
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