Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 9 Number 2, August 2008
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Barbara Kowalzig. Singing for the Gods: performances of myth and ritual in archaic and classical Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 508 p. ISBN 978-0-19-921996-4 (hardback).
Reviewed by
University of California, Santa Barbara
This book is a fascinating and ground-breaking study of the relationships between myth and ritual in Greek religious practices, specifically how archaic and classical Greek religious songs appear in ritual performances of myth. The interrelationships between ritual and myth are complex and challenging, yet the author is able to fully explore Greek choral performance through ancient Greek civilization by mapping its stages of development. This is done through extensive examination of the poems of Pindar, Bacchylides, and Simonides. Social and political change within Greek society are mirrored in these choruses, and are shown to be integral to the local and regional identities. Contemporary debate regarding interconnections on ritual, performance and myth in a number of fields are also discussed, including theatre studies, social anthropology, and modern history.
The introduction to this study provides a conceptual framework for what the author calls her “unorthodox observations.” The study of myth and ritual has made little progress conceptually, and so Chapter 1 lays out much of the opening assumptions for later arguments. Aetiology, ritual, and the power of performance are examined and pulled apart along with the concepts of myth and ritual. Chapter 2, then, presents what has survived of early fifth-century myth-ritual performance, specifically choral performance at Delos. The author uses this chapter to establish a kind of “base” practice, which spread all over the known Greek world from Delos. The following chapters then look at entire myth-ritual landscapes during this time period, including Megale Hellas in southern Italy, the Argolid, central and northern Greece, the Saronic Gulf, and the Dodekanese. What is not examined is Kyrene in North Africa, as the author points to numerous other studies that have already discussed this location.
There are many black and white photos and plates showing locations mentioned in the book, as well as a number of quoted Greek passages along with English translations. An extensive bibliography is include, along with an index locorum as well as a subject index.