Electra 1962[/caption]The high culture of Athens centred on the theatre, and in particular on tragedy. But tragedy was a dramatisation and deepening of the religious experience. Tragedies were religious festivals and in many of them we see enacted, in a varied and agonised form, the central drama of the cult — the drama of the individual, who falls from grace by some sacred fault, and is thereby sundered from his congregation. The catharsis (as Aristotle described it) that is brought about by the hero’s death is itself a religious feeling — a sense of the restored community, into which, through death and transfiguration, the erring hero is re-absorbed. The movement of many Greek tragedies can best be understood in terms of the religious archetype of the cult — for this makes sense of the strange experience of peace that emerges from these obligatory murders.
In no genuinely religious epoch is the high culture separate from the religious rite. Religious art, religious music and religious literature form the central strand of high culture in all societies where a common religious culture holds sway. Moreover, when art and religion begin to diverge — as they have done in Europe since the Renaissance — it is usually because religion is in turmoil or declining. When art and religion are healthy, they are also inseparable.
— Roger Scruton, Modern Culture
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