The Sense of the Past: History and Historical Criticism

2007 ◽  
pp. 192-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Buelens ◽  
Celia Aijmer
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past

The Criminal Emperors of Ancient Rome and Wilde’s ‘true historical sense’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shushma Malik
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Picture Of Dorian Gray ◽  
Dorian Gray ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores how Wilde uses ‘historic sense’ (the intuition of a learned historian and the antecedent of historical criticism) as a tool with which to analyse the past, particularly the criminal emperors of ancient Rome. In his essay ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’, Wilde claims that ‘true historical sense’ in relation to the past allows us to ignore the crimes of Nero and Tiberius, and instead to recognize and appreciate them as artists. His decadent reading of the past is undermined, however, when we compare this version of historically guided intuition with his definition of the phrase in other works. By examining ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’ alongside The Picture of Dorian Gray and ‘Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis’, we can see how Wilde manipulates his readings of the criminal emperors of Rome in order to fit his own changing relationship with Decadence and the (im)morality of crime.

scholarly journals xxx.—On the Agrarian Laws of Lycurgus, and one of Mr Grote's Canons of Historical Criticism

1864 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-432
Author(s):  
Blackie
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Authority ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Of Greece

The History of Greece, by Mr Grote, perhaps the most notable production of modern English scholarship, is characterised, amongst many great virtues, by what has always appeared to me, in a historian, a great fault—a tendency to undervalue traditional authority, and to over-rate the importance of conjectural ingenuity, in the reconstruction of the past. One of the most remarkable instances of this tendency which has fallen specially under my view, is his treatment of Lycurgus and his legislation, as it occurs near the end of his second volume. The fallacies which seem to me to lie in this treatment, it is the object of this paper shortly to set forth.

Obituary notices of fellows deceased

1877 ◽  
Vol 25 (171-178) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reign Of Terror ◽  
Accurate Observation

George Poulett Scrope. It is scarcely possible at the present day to realize the conditions of that intellectual “reign of terror” which prevailed at the commencement of the present century, as the consequence of the unreasoning prejudice and wild alarm excited by the early progress of geological inquiry. At that period, every attempt to explain the past history of the earth by a reference to the causes still in operation upon it was met, not by argument, but by charges of atheism against its propounder; and thus Hutton’s masterly fragment of a ‘Theory of the Earth,’ Playfair’s persuasive‘ Illustrations,’ and Hall’s records of accurate observation and ingenious experiment had come to be inscribed m a social Index Expurgatorius ,and for a while, indeed, might have seemed to be consigned to total oblivion. Equally injurious suspicions were aroused against the geologist who dared to make allusion to the important part which igneous forces have undoubtedly played in the formation of certain rocks; for the authority of Werner had acquired an almost sacred cha­racter; and “ Vulcanists ” and “ Huttonians ” were equally objects of aversion and contempt. To two men who have very recently—and within a few months of one another—passed away from our midst, science is indebted for boldly en­countering and successfully overcoming this storm of prejudice. Hutton and his friends lived a generation too soon ; and thus it was reserved tor Lyell and Scrope to carry out the task which the great Scotch philosopher had failed to accomplish, namely, the removal of geology from the domain of speculation to that of inductive science.

Colonising the Past? History, Medicine, and Reality Television

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-146
Author(s):  
Susan Hardy ◽  
Anthony Corones
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Past History ◽  
The Past

What is a Classic in History?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Jaume Aurell
Keyword(s):  
Literary Texts ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
The Past ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
Historical Text ◽  
Historical Condition ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Narrative Language

Abstract What is the classic in history? What is a classic in historical writing? Very few historians and critics have addressed these questions, and when they have done so, it has been only in a cursory manner. These are queries that require some explanation regarding historical texts because of their peculiar ambivalence between science and art, content and form, sources and imagination, scientific and narrative language. Based on some examples of the Western historiographical tradition, I discuss in this article to what extent historians should engage the concept of the classic – as has been done for literary texts. If one assumes that the historical text is not only a referential account but also a narrative analogous to literary texts, then the concept of the classic becomes one of the keys for understanding the historical text – and may improve our understanding not only of historiography, but of history itself. I will argue in this article that it is possible to identify a category of the classic text in some historical writings, precisely because of the literarity they possess without losing their specific historical condition. Because of their narrative condition, historical texts share some of the features assigned to literary texts – that is, endurance, timelessness, universal meaningfulness, resistance to historical criticism, susceptibility to multiple interpretations, and ability to function as models. Yet, since historical texts do not construct imaginary worlds but reflect external realities, they also have to achieve some specific features according to this referential content – that is, surplus of meaning, historical use of metaphors, effect of contemporaneity without damaging the pastness of the past, and a certain appropriation of literariness. Without seeking to be normative or systematic, this article focuses on some specific features of the historical classic, offering a series of reflections to open rather than try to close a debate on this complex topic.

Preserve the past [history - architecture]

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 46-49
Author(s):  
H. Pozniak
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
The Past

scholarly journals The Old Greeks

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Kouvaros
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Siegfried Kracauer ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Dead

In his final unfinished book on the writing of history, Siegfried Kracauer wonders about his increasing susceptibility to ‘the speechless plea of the dead’. ‘[T]he older one grows, the more he is bound to realize that his future is the future of the past—history.’ For the children of migrants, the question of how to speak well of the dead is distinguished by complex feelings of attachment and rejection, identification and denial that are expressed in a range of everyday interactions. ‘The Old Greeks’ examines the part played by photographic media in this process of memorialisation. It elaborates a series of propositions about the value of photographic media that are tested through a consideration of the events that surrounded the author’s first years in Australia.

Revisiting the Past: History and Historical Memory during the Leningrad Blockade

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Alexis Peri
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Past History ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Crimean War ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Historical Reflection

AbstractThis article examines the everyday practices of historical reflection, recollection, and reconstruction as revealed in diaries of the Leningrad Blockade. In particular, it focuses on how Leningraders who chose to keep diaries of their experiences worked to make sense of the siege by situating it historically and comparing it to two other historical moments, the blockade of Petrograd during the Civil War and the siege of Sevastopol' during the Crimean War. Their evaluations of these historical analogies were based on a combination of personal and collective memories as well as on their understandings of state-sanctioned accounts of these events. Ultimately, these historical refl ections alerted the diarists to what they came to see as the unique and incomparable aspects of Blockade.

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