Now and Forever in Greek Drama and Ritual

The relation between drama and ritual is an absorbing and complex question, too vast even to begin to address in this short chapter. All I attempt here is a preliminary sketch of just one of its many aspects, the way drama and ritual – and more particularly Greek tragedy and ritual – relate to time. I was first made to think about this years ago when I came across an account by the neurologist Oliver Sacks of a patient he called the ‘lost mariner’, a man whose memory of a large portion of his past – and of his identity – had vanished, and whose state of mind was only free from deep disorientation when he was attending a religious service, watching a play, or taking part in a game. 1