Mimesis, Metaphor, and Sports’ Liturgical Constitution: Ricoeurian and Augustinian Contributions

Abstract

Several scholars have observed the constructive possibilities in approaching sport as cultural liturgy. In what follows, I turn to hermeneutic resources in Paul Ricoeur and Augustine to elucidate the means of sports’ liturgical appropriation and the capacity of this appropriation to mediate values of ideological and religious significance. Drawing on Ricoeur’s analysis of Aristotelian mimesis, I approach sport as embodied metaphor and so locate metaphor as a central problem in sport hermeneutics. Following Ricoeur, I address this problem primarily by way of the ‘surplus of meaning’ within metaphor and its reference, and the role of Wittgensteinian ‘seeing-as’ in metaphor’s interpretation. Following Augustine, I observe the pivotal roles of desire and tradition within ‘ways of seeing’ and their outworkings in Augustine’s liturgical interpretation of ancient spectacles. Translating these considerations into sport, I argue that sport’s liturgical appropriation similarly proceeds through ‘ways of seeing’ or experiencing the embodied metaphor of sport, and that these ways are deeply informed by particular desires and cultural and ideological traditions.