Sacred culture

In a study of adaptations of Shakespeare in the 17th and 18th century, Jean Marsden argues that there was an inversion in the approach to Shakespeare sometime in the 18th century. Prior to that time, Shakespeare’s words were changed and modified, while the contexts of his plays remained the same; since the 18th century to today, we feel free to modify the contexts of the plays but consider the words sacrosanct.

Marsden says, “Today the idea of changing Shakespeare’s words seems blasphemous.” That description, which is perfectly accurate, got me to thinking about all the ways that “high” cultural products are today described and treated as sacred and challenges and defacements of high cultural products are treated and described as defilements, acts of sacrilege.

And that leads to a question: To what extent is the formation of elite high culture a matter of setting up boundaries between sacred and profane? (Think of the awed, cathedral hush expected in a museum, and usually imposed by the museum’s architecture if not the museum’s guards.) And that leads to a further question: Is it at all useful to describe the formation of elite culture as a kind of Judaizing – that is, the re-erection of boundaries destroyed by the gospel?