The nature of ritual, liturgy, and drama

RITUAL

It is a commonplace to say that ritual defines and shapes society. Yet it is a justifiable claim that, despite ritual having in recent years become the focus for cultural analysis in a number of disciplines, the role of ritual in the relationships between religion, society, and culture has not been properly analysed. By way of example, I describe below three events that may be termed community rituals, chosen for particular reasons from a ‘hazy laundry-list’: these are different types of ritual, each with a different meaning for those who were present at it and thereby became part of it.

It is early November in the twenty-first century. A crowd numbering some twenty-five thousand people comes on foot, in darkness, to a large open space. A spectacular firework display is followed by the lighting of a huge bonfire on which is ceremonially burned the effigy of a man held to be a traitor. Afterwards the crowd disperses, most people probably unaware that what they had commemorated was the foiling of a Roman Catholic plot.

Picture the same large open space on Whitsunday – this could well be either in the same year or five hundred years earlier. A somewhat smaller but significant crowd gathers for a performance of a Passion Play. The Last Supper and trial scenes are followed by a realistic reenactment of the crucifixion of a man held to be a traitor. Afterwards the crowd disperses, most people probably unaware that what they had commemorated was the foiling of a Roman Catholic plot.