Rituals and Games in Narrative

FAIN: FA-11380-76

Claire Rosenfield
Brown University (Providence, RI 02912-9100)

To explore the way in which games, as they are used in the modern novel, give meaning and structure to the fictional world. Such games, grantee believes, now function as secular rituals whereas in past traditional societies both rituals and games had a sacred a religious function. Grantee will discuss anthropological and psychological material concerning the similarities and differences between the two, analyzing one work from the ancient world, The Odyssey, because it was written at a time when games were part of sacred rituals. Grantee will then discuss Shakespeare's "The Tempest" to show an art product from a world in which the separation between sacred and profane had already occurred.