Literature and sport as ritual and fantasy

Papers on Language and Literature, Fall 2001 by Meyers, Ronald J

These events culminate in modern ritual engagements in sporting events annually, or quadrennially like the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, the golf and tennis open competition in diverse countries, and the Olympics; recently there was the competition to be the first balloonist to circumnavigate the globe first rendered in the literary fantasy of Jules Verne in the nineteenth century, then in the popular and successful film by Mike Todd, and finally with the art and science of Dr. Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones in Breitling Orbiter 3. All give expression to universal fantasies and provide us with an opportunity to glean our deepest human concerns and satisfy our eternal quest for the uncommon participatory experience.

Diverse scholars like Joseph Campbell, Paul Weiss and Johan Huizinga have developed the idea of this relationship among myth, drama, ritual, and fantasy. Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces characterizes the monomythic hero in ritual and literature as one who "ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man" (30). Might he not as well be describing an athlete and the athletic contest-"the quest for the gold"? The conflict or agon that is the basis of drama and much literature finds expression in the "agony" of sport. The games of war from earliest times served to train and prepare tribe members for the battle and constitute the earliest experience of education. From infancy games prepare us for the business of life. And most of these games express the competition for survival. The ancient epic had its counterpart in athletic contests just as the medieval romance had its counterpart in jousts and tournaments between knights.

In Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry, Paul Weiss also observes the elements of "make believe" as well as "wish fulfillment"-the drive to fulfill some childhood desire-and emphasizes the element of "fantasy" common to the hero of sport and of literature. When we watch an athlete perform, he writes, "we feel as though we ourselves had personally achieved something. By representing us, the athlete makes all of us be vicariously completed men" (14). The search for excellence becomes, according to Weiss, a driving force in our lives:

Excellence excites and awes. It pleases and it challenges. We are often delighted by splendid specimens whether they be flowers, beasts, or men. A superb performance interests us even more because it reveals to us the magnitude of what can be done. Illustrating perfection, it gives us a measure for whatever else we do. Unlike other beings we men have the ability to appreciate the excellent. We desire to achieve it. We want to share in it. Even though it may point up the fact that we are defective, less than we might have been, we like to look upon it. It is what ought to be. (3)