Culture and Sacrifice: Ritual Death in Literature and Opera

by Derek Hughes

Human sacrifice has fascinated Western writers since the beginnings of European literature. It is prominent in Greek epic and tragedy, and returned to haunt writers after the discovery of the Aztec mass sacrifices. It has been treated by some of the greatest creative geniuses, including Shakespeare and Wagner, and was a major topic in the works of many Modernists, such as D. H. Lawrence and Stravinsky. In literature, human sacrifice is often used to express a writer's reaction to the residue of barbarism in his own culture. The meaning attached to the theme therefore changes profoundly from one period to another, yet it remains as timely an image of cultural collapse as it did over two thousand years ago. Drawing on sources from literature and music, in this 2007 book Derek Hughes examines the representation of human sacrifice in Western culture from The Iliad to the invasion of Iraq.

326 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Woodall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting study of cultural perspectives (mostly European) on sacrifice throughout human history. Hughes provides an in-depth progression, through select literary pieces, to demonstrate the fluctuation of ritual denotation from mass sacrifice to individualized sacrifice and from religious sentiment to societal sentiment. Although this read is rather lofty and slow going, there are some insightful points of topical interpretation and progression. Unfortunately, Hughes relies too heavily on the audience’s knowledge of the literature he is examining and as a result provides very little context to his arguments. Essentially, it was easier to follow his train of thought on pieces that I have read than on the ones that I was unfamiliar with.