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RITUAL ASPECT IN SHAKESPEARE’S DRAMAS IS RELATED

TO EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION

Back Ground

THE RITUAL is part of the Law of the Fraternity. The Ritual has equal force and validity in all respects with the Constitution of theFraternity. The matter contained in the Constitution, however, is not secret in character while that contained in the Ritual is inviolably secret, except the special services as therein specified.

The further laws of the Fraternity applying to the Ritual and Ritualistic Statutes, including their force and validity, their safekeep-ing, their secrecy, and the methods of their amendment, are in the Governing Laws of the Fraternity.

Although the Ritual and Ritualistic Statutes are closely related parts of our Governing Laws, each is a separate entity. Each has its own procedure for amendment. Material from the two documents is integrated throughout this book but is clearly identified as Ritual or Ritualistic Statutes.

What is a Civilization?

Without going through the variety of concepts and terminologies on the subject, civilizationsimply means: the comprehensive development of the human potentialinall its dimensions: physical, intellectual, spiritual, moral and psychological. To achieve this potential, civilizations strive to develop, utilize, and conserve the natu

ral resources,the benefits of which should fairly reach the whole society, and bring about positive effects on the whole world.

Given this definition, it is obvious that a civilization has certain requirements to deserve its name. After all, civilization is a collective effort by the whole society, and its

benefits cannot be restricted to few individuals or be limited to certain groups. Civilization has to bear fruits to all members of society. Besides although civilization development may not affect all sides of society at the same level, it nonetheless, remains inclusive and comprehensive. Civilization there fore has to maintain continuation and duration, and it cannot be considered as such if it just emerged to disappear. Another merit of civilization is that it as the potential of spreading to other societies, and that it

can be adapted when it influences others. This civilization merit is being felt enormously in our times of amazingly speedy transportation of persons and goods, and communication of information everywhere in the world

Discussion

Research by cultural anthropologists and historians has contributed greatly to our understanding of the significance of ritual and ceremony in Shakespeare's plays. These scholars have demonstrated that when a community observes traditional ceremonies, it expresses its belief in universal order and affirms its own continuity. They also point out that although a society may be renewed through rituals, it can be disrupted when the sacred origins of these ceremonies are perverted to serve ideological purposes or personal ambition. Many literary critics argue that the disruption of ritual, the desacralization of ceremony, and discrepancies between the intent and the effect of ritual observances are central features of many of Shakespeare's plays, especially the English histories.

William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the plays are divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy; they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being conShakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s, dramatists writing for London's new commercial playhouses (such as The Curtain) were combining two different strands of dramatic tradition into a new and distinctively Elizabethan synthesis. Previously, the most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays, celebrating piety generally, use personified moral attributes to urge or instruct the protagonist to choose the virtuous life over Evil. The characters and plot situations are largely symbolic rather than realistic.tinually performed all around the world.

I say European civilization, because there is evidently so striking a uniformity in the civilization of the different states of Europe, as fully to warrant this appellation. Civilization has flowed to them all from sources so much alike—it is so connected in them all, notwithstanding the great differences of time, of place, and circumstances, by the same principles, and it so tends in them all to bring about the same results, that no one will doubt the fact of there being a civilization essentially European.

At the same time it must be observed that this civilization cannot be found in—its history cannot be collected from, the history of any single state of Europe. However similar in its general appearance throughout the whole, its [2] variety is not less remarkable, nor has it ever yet developed itself completely in any particular country. Its characteristic features are widely spread, and we shall be obliged to seek, as occasion may require in England, in France, in Germany, in Spain, for the elements of its history.

The situation in which we are placed, as Frenchmen, affords us a great advantage for entering upon the study of European civilization; for, without intending to flatter the country to which I am bound by so many ties, I cannot but regard France as the center, as the focus, of the civilization of Europe. It would be going too far to say that she has always been, upon every occasion, in advance of other nations. Italy, at various epochs, has outstripped her in the arts; England, as regards political institutions, is by far before her; and, perhaps, at certain moments, we may find other nations of Europe superior to her in various particulars: but it must still be allowed, that whenever France has set forward in the career of civilization, she has sprung forth with new vigor, and has soon come up with, or passed by, all her rivals.

Civilization is just one of this kind of facts; it is so general in its nature that it can scarcely be seized; so complicated that it can scarcely be unravelled; so hidden as scarcely to be discernible. The difficulty of describing it, of recounting its history, is apparent and acknowledged; but its existence, its worthiness to be described and to be recounted, is not less certain and manifest. We have seen a crisis of an opposite nature; a crisis affecting not the intellectual, but the outward condition of man, which has changed and regenerated society. This also we may rest assured is a decisive crisis of civilization. If we search history through, we shall everywhere find the same result; we shall meet with no important event, which had a direct influence in the advancement of civilization, which has not exercised it in one of the two ways I have just mentioned.

In the preceding Lecture, I endeavored to give an explanation of civilization in general. Without referring to any civilization in particular, or to circumstances of time and place, I essayed to place it before you in a point of view purely philosophical. I purpose now to enter upon the History of the Civilization of Europe; but before doing so, before going into its proper history, I must make you acquainted with the peculiar character of this civilization—with its distinguishing features, so that you may be able to recognize and distinguish European civilization from every other.

When we look at the civilizations which have preceded that of modern Europe, whether in Asia or elsewhere, including even those of Greece and Rome, it is impossible not to be struck with the unity of character which reigns among them. Each appears as though it had emanated from a single fact, from a single idea. One might almost assert that society was under the influence of one single principle, which universally prevailed and determined the character of its institutions, its manners, its opinions—in a word, all its developments.

In Egypt, for example, it was the theocratic principle that took possession of society, and showed itself in its manners, in its monuments, and in all that has come down to us of Egyptian civilization. In India the same phenomenon [27] occurs—it is still a repetition of the almost exclusively prevailing influence of theocracy.* In other regions a different organization may be observed—perhaps the domination of a conquering caste: and where such is the case, the principle of force takes entire possession of society, imposing upon it its laws and its character. In another place, perhaps, we discover society under the entire influence of the democratic principle; such was the case in the commercial republics which covered the coasts of Asia Minor and Syria—in Ionia and Phœnicia. In a word, whenever we contemplate the civilizations of the ancients, we find them all impressed with one ever-prevailing character of unity, visible in their institutions, their ideas, and manners—one sole, or at least one very preponderating influence, seems to govern and determine all things.

Civilizations, on the other hand, are usually regarded as extended human communities that

develop over large-scales of time and space, developing unique 'high cultures'. They are also

usually associated with cultures that leave large-scale artifacts behind them, such as those of the Egyptians and Maya. It is true that these large-scale urban and religious centres have helped us enormously in the discovery of such societies, but it must rememb

ered that this is not the only way to go about building a humanized world. The Plains Indians of north America (see, for example, H. Storm's, Seven Arrows, a didactic novel which provides a modernised account of the complex culture developed by these peoples), the Scythians of central Asia, and the indigenous peoples of Australia also created not just cultures, but civilizations based on art, oral literature, and complex social patterns. But these civilisations filled a religious and social space more than an material culture. Their civilisations could change and grow, could be articulated as new story-tellers, new heroes entered their worlds. They were static, only on dimensions which really didn't matter to those peoples, while stability was held to be crucial in others, e.g. the cycle of hunting within the natural year. The notion of these 'prehistoric' peoples being somehow trapped in time also ignores how many innovations they did use and develop: when, for instance, did some of the plains Indians develop sign language, and learn to use it when communicating with tribes speaking other verbal languages? Or we can mention the complex, layered storytelling of most Australian tribal groups. Dozens of other inventions, technological and social, could be listed with respect to these so-called 'primitive' peoples. These cultures are

only static when compared to the dynamism of the post-Industrial-Revolution West.

References

Sigma-chi, THE RITUAL, http://download.cabledrum.net/wikileaks_archive/file/sigma-chi-ritual-2002.pdf

Richard Sosis, The Adaptive Value of Religious Ritual, http://evolution-of-religion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/sosis-2004-american-scientist.pdf

John L. Sorenson, A Complex of Ritual and Ideology Shared by Mesoamerica and the Ancient Near East , http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp195_mesoamerica.pdf

François Guizot, General History of Civilization in Europe [1828]   http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2244

NN, Ritual and Rationality: Some Problems of Interpretaton in European Archaeology, http://eja.sagepub.com/content/2/3/313.full.pdf+html_European

R. James Ferguson, Dreams of Europe and Western Civilization: Culture and Frontiers, http://www.international-relations.com/History/Civilization.pdf

NN, William Shakespeare Essay - Ritual and Ceremony in Shakespeare's Plays, http://www.enotes.com/topics/william-shakespeare/critical-essays/ritual-and-ceremony-shakespeares-plays

Dr. Fathi Osman, Toward a Muslim Constructive Role In the Contemporary World Civilization,http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/private/cmje/pluralism_cont/Toward_a_Muslim_ Constructive_Role_in_Contemporary_Society.pdf

Erdal Yavuz, EARLY CIVILIZATIONS, https://www.yeditepe.edu.tr/dotAsset/74061.pdf

Samuel P.Huntington, The Clash of Civilization, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/ Acrobat/Huntington_Clash.pdf