Rite de passage

it seems that the beginning of the decline of this traditional rite de passage should be traced back to the break effected by the Reformation, though the change also had sociological causes, notably the decline of the tightly knit community in which an individual death created an immediate void.

Stravinsky's wistful and brutal “Rite of Spring” has become a rite de passage for choreographers attracted to its rhythmic intricacies.

Males hoping for acceptance must undergo a perilous rite de passage.

Our Fifth Congress, “A Time for Action” was indeed a rite de passage, a coming of age, for adolescent health, acknowledging that this is an important international issue, a universal and long-neglected cause.

An ailment can be a rite de passage, a childhood illness an essential preliminary to entry into adulthood.

Parents operate in a culture where views on teenagers and substances are hopelessly polarised. On one side, excess is a rite de passage undergone by all "proper" teenagers.

It would not have been a rite de passage stricto sensu, but it would have encapsulated and condensed symbolically some of what the ephebate as a whole, the true transitional process or initiation, sought to achieve.

For generations, the foreign exchange trip has been a rite de passage for British teenagers. True, we Brits rarely improved our language skills significantly as a result of a two-week stay with a continental European family. But we learned other, perhaps even more valuable, life lessons.

I spent last year conducting an anthropological study of the British Humanist Association (BHA), an organisation which on first thought might not bring to mind a commitment to rites de passage. For the association, however, providing funerals to those who do without God is a major aspect of its work.

Jayanta Mahapatra’s ‘Grandfather’ encapsulates a past hopelessly trapped in memories of the grandfather’s diary, dating back to the Great Odisha Famine of 1866. Torn, moth-eaten, it remains a prized possession; bringing history, memory and desire seamlessly together. A scroll of despair, the poem becomes a rite-de-passage.