Literary notes about rite (AI summary)
Writers use the word "rite" to evoke ceremonies that are both external acts and potent symbols of deeper cultural, religious, and social meanings. In literary narratives, a rite may be described with an almost sacred dignity, as when a character’s tone or gesture imbues the act with a priestly solemnity ([1]), or when epic verse captures the gravity of ritual celebrations that mark the passage of time and the renewal of communal bonds ([2], [3]). In ethnographic and anthropological writing, the term serves to detail ritual actions that define a group’s identity and order, from the communal food offerings and ceremonial libations observed in island societies ([4]) to discussions about the underlying connection between ritual and belief ([5], [6]). This multifaceted use of “rite” enhances both narrative depth and the exploration of human social life.
- “Now, we must set the table,” said Anne, in the tone of a priestess about to perform some sacred rite in honor of a divinity.
— from Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery - There, till the setting sun roll'd down the light, They sate indulging in the genial rite.
— from The Odyssey by Homer - I spurn thee: can the altar dight With vessels for the sacred rite, O'er which the priest his prayer has said, Be sullied by an outcaste's tread?
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Kaymwaloyo rite over the mint boiled in coco-nut oil, performed by the toliwaga .
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski - It is possible to define the rite only after we have defined the belief.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - So manifest an error seems hardly intelligible so long as we see in the rite only the material end towards which it seems to aim.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim
