Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

In theatre, actors often perform religious rituals on stage. In this article, we argue that in some cases, like in Plautus and Simone Weil, religious rituals are not just imitated but the specific performative structure of the ritual enhances the affective charge of the theatre play. To illustrate this technique we apply Gérard Genette’s theory of hypertextuality to develop a new concept of hyper-performativity. Consequently, we analyze Plautus’ Rudens and Simone Weil’s Venise sauvée to portray their hyper-performative techniques, in antiquity as well as in late modernity, how to write religious rituals into theatre.

In this article, I draw attention to the gods’ pickiness in the audible flow of their utterances, a prosodic characteristic of speech that evokes the presence of the divine. Hexametric poetry itself is the language of permanency, as evidenced by wisdom literature, funereal and dedicatory inscriptions: epic poetry is the embedded direct speech of a goddess. Outside hexametric poetry, the gods’ special speech is primarily expressed through prosodic means, notably through a shift in rhythmic profile. Such a shift deliberately captures, or recalls, the well-known rhythmic profiles, phrases, and clausulae from epic and wisdom literature. Embedded in other prosodic profiles, these audibly alienating and isolated utterances both bewilder through their unexpected appearance, and reassure because of their familiarity for the listening audience. Resembling and evoking the language of permanency for embedded divine speech, quotations in hexameter lend a sense of ritual to their performance in other rhythmic environments. A performer temporarily impersonates a speaking divinity, as the audience experiences the revelation’s premiere staging.

CHAPOT, FRÉDÉRIC, GOEKEN, JOHANN and PFAFF-REYDELLET, MAUD (eds.) (2018). Figures mythiques et discours religieux dans l’Empire gréco-romain. Recherches sur les rhétoriques religieuses 27. Turnhout: Brepols. 293 pp., 80,00€ [ISBN  978-2-5035-8079-1] [Book review]

A key aspect of Theseus’s exponential growth in popularity between the 6th-4th cent. BCE, was an increased association with various festivals and their ritualized acts. Most prominently, it was the episode of the Cretan adventure that informed these rites. In their claimed, and emphasized, Thesean aetiologies, these festivals are revealed as vital mechanisms by which the cultural collective memory of the hero was generated. Moving beyond simply approaching ritual as an expressive mnemonic object, this paper considers the contingent and re-constructive methods by which this collective memory was produced. Moreover, by examining the embodied experience of recalling Theseus, we are provided much firmer ground in commenting on their formative force on various Athenian identities.

PACHOUMI, ELENI and EDWARDS, MARK (eds.) (2018). Praying and Contemplating in Late Antiquity Religious and Philosophical Interactions, Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 229 pp., 79,00€ [ISBN 978-3-1615-6119-1] [Book review]

This paper analyzes the presentation of rural festivals in Ovid’s Fasti using the concept of lived ancient religion and especially the idea of individual appropriation of religious norms, actions and beliefs. As a literary work, the Fasti draw on material from other Augustan poets and appropriate it to the composition of the work and especially to the context of the Roman festival calendar. In the case of the rural festivals that are presented in the Fasti, this appropriation can be seen for example in the treatment of the importance of peace for rural life. In the Fasti, the idealized rural scenes are not an object of the speaker’s desire as they are for example in Tibullus’ elegies. Instead, the described peace is identified as the Pax Augusta and the speaker utters thanks to the emperor who makes it possible that the celebrating rustics can enjoy this peace. Thus, the rural festivals are connected to urban politics and to the urban festival calendar. In the Fasti, the rural and urban festival communities do not exist isolated from each other as they share the same conditions (the Pax Augusta) and emotions (joy and gratitude) and thus form an emotional community.

SANTAMARÍA, MARCO ANTONIO (ed.) (2019). The Derveni Papyrus. Unearthing Ancient Mysteries. Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava, 36.  Leiden-Boston: Brill. viii, 173 pp., 116,00€ [ISBN 978-9-0043- 8484-2] [Reseña]

Mientras que los banquetes sacrificiales políados han recibido en los últimos años una merecida y justa atención por parte de los especialistas en la cultura griega clásica, no ha ocurrido lo mismo en el caso de los banquetes sacrificiales de carácter familiar. En esta contribución vamos a explorar uno de los aspectos más importantes de este tipo de celebraciones: la adquisición, preparación, exhibición y consumo de los alimentos en el marco de estas festividades. De este modo, vemos cómo estas prácticas se relacionan con procesos más generales en el mundo griego en los que el alimento se constituye como un elemento clave para pensar, comprender y expresar las relaciones interpersonales a lo largo del siglo IV a.C.

Los sacrificios han caracterizado las religiones de la antigüedad. Son muchos los elementos que han sido utilizados para tales prácticas apareciendo en determinadas ocasiones los seres humanos. Lejos de entrar en el debate historiográfico que se centra en la veracidad de los sacrificios de personas o hablar de éstos ligados a un determinado estadio evolutivo dentro de las distintas sociedades, el interés de este artículo es el análisis de las víctimas. No deja de ser interesante acercarse al sacrificio humano para saber que caracteriza a aquellos hombres y mujeres que son elegidos para ser inmolados por el bien de la comunidad. A modo de ejemplo para ilustrar esta situación, he seleccionado los casos que aparecen en las Tragedias de Eurípides, texto en el que encontramos determinados ejemplos de sacrificios humanos, los cuales analizaré teniendo en cuenta conceptos como virginidad, linaje y género.

El término μάγειρος se utiliza en la antigua Grecia para designar a un personaje complejo. Originalmente era el oficial que en los sacrificios se encargaba de dar muerte a la víctima y después, una vez separada la parte destinada a los dioses, la cocinaba para el banquete sacrificial. A partir de esta segunda función y con la extensión de los nuevos refinamientos gastronómicos, se fue especializando como cocinero profesional contratado para la preparación de banquetes con motivo de celebraciones de diverso tipo. De esta manera se produjo progresivamente un desplazamiento del terreno público al privado y del religioso al profano, hasta ser identificado propiamente con un cocinero y no con un sacrificador.