Do This

Richard D. Mccall

Description

Dramatic elements have always been apparent in the historic Christian liturgy. Because the liturgy is a structured action and not merely a verbal narrative, it has historically been both illuminated by and confused with other types of performance, such as theatre and drama. This confusion has been compounded by the fact that much analysis of liturgy has focused on the linguistic and theological aspects of the event and not on its elements of performance.

In Do This: Liturgy as Performance, Richard D. McCall presents a systematic approach to the liturgy as event rather than text, using tools made available by contemporary performance theory. McCall follows the rise of dramatic interpretation of the early Christian liturgy from its beginnings through such elements as costumes, interpretative text, and gesture. He then examines the development of performance theory, focusing on the work of Victor Turner and Richard Schechner, and asks if it can be applied to the liturgy. Three views of liturgical theology, especially that of Aiden Kavanagh's, which holds that the liturgy as enacted is liturgy properly presented, set the stage for McCall to construct a definition of liturgy as a mode of performance. In chapter 4, McCall brings Aristotle’s categories in the Poetics to bear on liturgical action. In the final chapter he analyzes an actual liturgical enactment: the celebration of the Mass at Rome in the early eighth century according to the Gregorian Sacramentary and the actions described in Ordo Romanus I.

Do This: Liturgy as Performance bridges the work of performance scholarship and liturgical studies in a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary way. The book will interest seminarians and liturgical scholars in a variety of fields, including theology and the arts, early Christian liturgy, Church history, and liturgical theology.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Practice
• Christian Rituals
• Philosophie et théologie
• Richard Schechner
• Liturgy
• Worship
• Aristotle
• Victor Turner

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268162092
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Do T his

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Liturgy as Performance . R     D.MC  

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright ©by University ofNotre Dame Notre Dame,Indiana www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Reprinted in 208, 2012

This ebook has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCall,Richard D.,‒ Do this :liturgyas performance / Richard D.McCall. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. -: ----(pbk.:alk.paper) -: ---(pbk.:alk.paper) . Liturgics..Performance —Religious aspects—Christianity. . Liturgy and drama.I.Title. . .—dc 

∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

For T E R R Y

Contents

1. Introduction: The Varieties of Liturgical Performance 2. Performing Liturgical Interpretation in the Medieval West 3. Performing Drama, Liturgy, and Being-as-Event 4. Constructing Sacrament: Poetics of the Liturgy 5. The Performance ofOrdo Romanus Primus

Appendix Ordo Romanus IIntegrated with the Text of from the Gregorian Sacramentary

Notes

Bibliography

Index

the Easter Mass

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. 1 .

Introduction The Varieties of Liturgical Performance

F or centuries Christians have explained their repeated enactment of the Holy Eucharist as an attempt to remain faithful to Jesus’ words at the 1 Last Supper: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Justin Martyr (c. ‒c.), whoseFirst ApologyandDialogue with Tryphoare two of the oldest explana- tions of the Christian meal, traces its celebration to these very words: “The apostles, in their memoirs which are called gospels, have handed down that they were commanded to this: Jesus took bread, and, after giving thanks, said ‘Do this in remembrance of me; this is my body.” And again, “[ T ]he offthe bread of the eucharist which our. . . was atype of ering of fine flour Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to offthe Passion He en-er in memory of 2 dured.” This “argument” would be repeated over and over again by apolo- gists and theologians East and West and would survive into the modern pe- riod in the debate between Protestants and Catholics over the place of the Eucharist in the life of the church. The unfortunate consequence of this obsession with the so-called “institution” of the Eucharist by Jesus at the Last Supper would be a medi- eval legalism that required such warrant for all sacramental acts and that reduced liturgical performance to the minimum needed to adhere to Jesus’ command. On the positive side, however, the ordinance to do something may have ensured that Christian spirituality could never be reduced to mere

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