| Durkheim's central conclusions center around universal social rituals. Durkheim claims that these rituals were initially religious but deviated over time, so that some evolved into recreational activities. He declares that, akin to the "death of the author" in literary theory, religious symbolistic rituals now contain a multiplicity of meaning, drawing on the imaginary. To this point, Durkheim states, "So the world of religious things is a partially imaginary world, though only in its outward form, and one which therefore lends itself more readily to the free creations of the mind. ... A surplus generally remains available which seeks to employ itself in supplementary and superfluous works of luxury, that is to say, in works of art" (18). Further elaborating on this notion, Durkheim states, "Art is not merely an external ornament with which the cult has adorned itself in order to dissimulate certain of its features which may be too austere and too rude; but rather, in itself, the cult is something aesthetic. Owing to the well-known connection which mythology has with poetry, some have wished to exclude the former from religion; the truth is that there is a poetry inherent in all religion" (18). | **Durkheim's central conclusions center around universal social rituals.** Durkheim claims that these rituals were initially religious but deviated over time, so that some evolved into recreational activities. He declares that, akin to the "death of the author" in literary theory, religious symbolistic rituals now contain a multiplicity of meaning, drawing on the imaginary. To this point, Durkheim states, //"So the world of religious things is a partially imaginary world, though only in its outward form, and one which therefore lends itself more readily to the free creations of the mind. ... A surplus generally remains available which seeks to employ itself in supplementary and superfluous works of luxury, that is to say, in works of art" (18).// Further elaborating on this notion, Durkheim states, //"Art is not merely an external ornament with which the cult has adorned itself in order to dissimulate certain of its features which may be too austere and too rude; but rather, in itself, the cult is something aesthetic. Owing to the well-known connection which mythology has with poetry, some have wished to exclude the former from religion; the truth is that there is a poetry inherent in all religion" (18)//. |
