Playing Games with Death: Reflections on the Irish Wake
The symbolism of chaos which emerges from the "amusements" around which traditional Irish funerals were organized brings home an essential truth about corporate rituals: that they serve to focus our awareness of a global truth embodied within an articulated gesture of human meaning. In the...
| Published in: | Implicit religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Equinox
[2011]
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| In: |
Implicit religion
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| Further subjects: | B
CHAOS (Christian theology)
B Symbolism B Irish wakes B Rituals B Ireland B Funerals B Ritualism B Meaning B new order |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The symbolism of chaos which emerges from the "amusements" around which traditional Irish funerals were organized brings home an essential truth about corporate rituals: that they serve to focus our awareness of a global truth embodied within an articulated gesture of human meaning. In the act which signifies a specific dying, a message about all human life is encapsulated. The funeral is seen as a communication about survival. Examples of this are given, and it is argued that the structure of such ceremonies reveals the underlying function of ritual itself. Corporate rites present us with a paradigm of the use of chaos to clear a way for new kinds of order. In their three-fold configuration, rites of passage reveal the need for genuine beginnings to be preceded by actual endings. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-1697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Implicit religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/imre.v14i1.93 |