Lamb Historical Reenactment

Historical Re-enactment, Extremity, and Passion Author(s): Jonathan Lamb Source: The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 49, No.
3, Reconstructing History: Literature, History, and Anthropology in the Pacific (FALL 2008), pp. 239-250 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41447882 . Accessed: 22/05/2013 23:31
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Historical
Re-enactment,
Extremity, and Passion
Jonathan Lamb Vanderbilt University
on thetopicof was held at Vanderbilt In April, 2004,a conference University one generaland It was impelledby two questions, historical re-enactment. ofreconcerned thegrowing The general one particular. popularity question and popularknowledge. Once a as popularentertainment enactedhistory for enthusiasts weekendactivity (orwhatGregDeningcallsthehallucination ithas migrated to television to bein funny ofthepast as thepresent dress), in life modeofdocumentary comethepreferred of,for example, presentation WorldWar,or lifeas a in 1900,lifein a trench Greenwich duringtheFirst The particular questionconcerned fighter pilotduringtheBattleof Britain. ofthelatter third of ofus on there-enactment theexperience sharedby four the summer of commissioned 2001, JamesCook's first by voyage during as TheShip.It was on a variety ofnetworks broadcast BBC2,and eventually we all foundintense, six weeksofprivation, whichin different perdegrees I In want to outline someofthe and hard to summarize. this paper, plexing, and to indicate how these answerswe foundto thesequestions, provisional in historiography. to a new departure contribute might Theanswer tothegeneral seemsat first simple. History question relatively between thepast and seemsalwaysto renewitself thedistance by reducing An axiomof Enlightenment was thattheemothe present. historiography of past tions of the audience oughtto be engaged in any representation in and vivid order which therefore to be events, particular ought sufficiently itodd that Edward theattention David Hume considered to fix ofthereader. EarlofClarendon, shouldhurry overthedeathofCharlesI withHyde,first as ifhe "felt a pain from out givinga singlecircumstance of theexecution, and a reader as the whichan historian ofanother subjects, age would regard the mostagreemostpathetic and mostinteresting, and, by consequence, able/'1 Hume paused in his History to givea deForhis own part, ofEngland a sceneso vividone of taileddescription ofthedeathofMaryQueen ofScots, 239
The Tech vol. 49 no. 3 2008 Texas Press Eighteenth Century, University
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THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
his readers was able to form a miniature "I had waxwork ofit,and to report, the sorrowof seeingthe Queen, her two femaledomesticks . . . the executhecoffin, scaffold etc.all undera glasscase,and compleating a most tioner, Lord Kames was an enthusiast for this and affecting scenery/'2 proximate it to He called "ideal highlysympathetic approach history. presence"or the effect a reader a who aphistorian "wakingdream," procured upon by in to the and as and our peals eye, "represent[s] everything passing sight; ... in from readers orhearers, transform as it into a word us, were, spectators becomesdramatic as muchas possible."3 There werevariousmaevery thing chines builtin theeighteenth thesensations to excite to the century designed transformation couldtakeplaceand bring thepast pointwherethisdramatic intothepresent moment. De Loutherbourg's Eidophusikon PhilippeJacques and in one of its mostpowerful scenes it (1781) was the most elaborate, showedthewreckof theEast Indiaman with waves and Halsewell, crashing survivors to a rock. clinging In thenextcentury, theseefforts to reducethedistance between theaudience and the past were regardedas hopelessly because jejune. Probably Hume had alwayscoollybeenbalancing in and affective elements cognitive his negotiation Mill foundin his history of historical no traceof distance,4 fleshand blood. "Does Hume throwhis own mind into the mind of an oran Anglo-Norman? ifitcouldbe had,of Wouldnotthesight, Anglo-Saxon, a singletableor pairofshoesmade by an Anglo-Saxon, tellus, directly and . . . . more of his whole of life than Hume . . has contrived by inference, way to tellus?"5Eversince, historians havebeentrying imto reconcile cognitive with affective interest that histories respond to theprespartiality bywriting suresofthelivesofordinary butimmediately, domestipeople,notdistantly have seemedexoticabouthistory. catingwhatever might Perhapsthemost Croce and R. G. astonishing examplesof thisare providedby Benedetto for Croce and of forCollingwood, placessympathy sympathy a peculiarly - at theheartof thehistoriographical mal sort "Do wish to enterprise: you understand thetruehistory ofa Neolithic . . . if can to beLigurian? Try you comea neolithic in yourmind Do you wishto understand the Ligurian truehistory of a blade of grass?Tryto becomea blade of grass."6 As for while carefully in his of sympathy Collingwood, avoidingthe imputation ofre-enactment, he enjoins thedutyofsucha conception upon thehistorian withthehistorical identification complete objectthatit is indistinguishable from To writethe truehistory of ThomasBecketis to become sympathy. in so faras he was a thinking Becket: "For Becket, was mind,beingBecket also knowing that he was Becket; and for on the same to myself, showing, be Becket is to knowthat I am Becket, that I to know that am is, myown present selfre-enacting in Becket's that sense Becket."7 And it thought, myself being is to Collingwood we owe thename of thisintimate exercise: rehistorical enactment.
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So thehistory ofhistory lookslikea continuous reduction ofhistorical disthedismantling oftheobstacles thatdivideus from ofthe tance, knowledge is toldofthepeople forthepeople,and sometimes seems past.Thishistory all from what of us recall, indistinguishable publicmemory: may giventhe mnemonic Some historians have warned the right jogs. against consequences of supposingno obstacles to existin historical work.EricHobsbawm, who has notedtheperilsofmistaking for believes that "the dehistory memory, struction ofthepast ... is one ofthemosteeriephenomena late twentiofthe ethcentury."8 an essaycritical has written ofhistorians who IngaClendinnen invite their readers intoan identification withhistorical figures by meansof whatshe calls "untutored Entitled "The History Question:Who empathy."9 Owns thePast?"theessayis unsettling in itsfailure to answeritsown quesforitis clearly notthehistorian, noryetthepublic.It maybe thedead, tion, or themostpopularlivingwriter of past events, or myth; but Clendinnen are all keenest of to their hands on it. suspects politicians get In themeantime, there has been a spateofre-enacted histodocumentary riesthatsupplythedemandfor particularity, immediacy, intimacy, pain,doand sympathy on realpeoplewho have volunteered to mesticity, byfocusing - 1900sHouse inhabit reconstructed ofthepast , 1940sHouse , Frondwellings tier House House Fort , Regency , Iron-age , and so on- and to endureall therigorsand privations oftheoriginals. Thisis onlya partoftheboomindustry of British historians such as Simon David and Niall Schama, history. Starkey, are celebrities, all biddingforcontrol ofthepublicimagination, all Ferguson tell to us what the was like from their of view. Ken eager past really point Burns is thesole trustee oftheiconicmoments oftheAmerican past:theCivil the and theSecondWorld War. In Britain, thesixtieth anniverWar, JazzAge, in 2004was a celebration notonlyof theevent, saryof theD-Day landings but also ofthevariety ofhistorical modesin whichhistory can be replayed. Thereweretalking oftraining and landing, dramatizaheads,re-enactments tionsintercut witharchival that resembled the footage remarkably opening scenesofStephen Private state atAr, ritual Spielberg's Saving Ryan pageantry romanches withheads ofstaterubbing shoulders withold infantrymen, and such as the old soldier from New Zealand heartwarming personalstories, who missedhis bus and got a liftback to Paris in President Chirac'senIt was proof oftheversatility ofan extremely tourage. popularand powerful academicdiscipline. The varieties ofitspresentational betoken a widestyles made present to theimagination of ordinary spreaddesireto have history and democratized. So domesticatpeople,takenout ofthehandsofan elite, historical in events a vivid and them homeliting recognizable way, bringing to the like the who of Scots into house, Queen erally gentleman brought Mary - thisis whatre-enactment hisparlor does best. In Northanger Austen has herheroine Catherine Morlandraise , Jane Abbey theseissuesjustat thetime whenHume'streatment ofhistorical distance was
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found tobe tooremote. and hissister Catherine's dialoguewithHenry Tilney Elinoron therelative merits and history offiction of brings up theproblem - a problem ofpain that is never far from the painand therepresentation very affective of the past. According to Catherine, presentation history always chronicles events or and ittransfers a portion of ("wars painful pestilences") thatpain to thereader. She imagines historians for the tor"labouring only in saying ment oflittle assumesthat so Catherine is boysand girls."10 Henry as a for but this be In the torment not so. using synonym instruction, may Gothic novelssheprefers toread,Catherine tobe movedtosympathy expects and ill-fated ofsomeinjured to nun,"usuallyadjacent by "awfulmemorials instruments oftorture, or by horrors suchas thosethatlie beneath theblack veil ofUdolpho.11 thatis horrid in fiction, She has an appetite for everything and a disgustforeverything in history. thatis painful ElinorTilney underthat itis notanyexclusive stands commitment tofactuality that makesa historian'storment in Catherine's is unequal to a novelist's eyes,forCatherine aware thathistory with is partly embellished scenes that never took fiction, arerepresented, and speeches that werenever as placeas they actually spoken arewritten. that historians "arenothappyin No, itis (as Elinor surmises) they their Ifthey offancy."12 Catherine be as happily were, however, flights might tormented them it as she is Mrs. Radcliffe. For is while she is immersed by by in herhistorical novelsthatshe experiences Karnes's ideal presence, forthe in them are so have "the effect to the reader as images complete, they transport the and time I into of the action." "While have bymagic very place important Oh! The Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobodycould make me miserable. dreadful blackveil!"cries Catherine.13 is therelation between Here,then, past violenceand present thatHume defended from Clarendon's agreeableness laconic willsoonbe abletoanswer, on a question Catherine but pen.Itfocuses notin theway shethinks: "What was itliketobe Mrs.Tilney?" Thestory that unfolds withherinsideis nottheone she was trying to tell.She willbecome Mrs.Tilney and in an unexpected theidentification herself, way experience witha figure from thepastdescribed and Croce by Collingwood. Theproper ofpainto sympathy seemsto provide theaffective adjustment basis of re-enactment, and I wantto probethisaspectof it further. The Enturned often to thequestion ofwhywe delight in scenesofsuflightenment first of all by way ofcommentary view oftragedy on Aristotle's as a fering, ofthepassions, and secondly as an opportunity ofanalyzing purgative symthere were fourdivisionsintowhichsympathy fellin the pathy. Roughly, two of which were to Aristotle's eighteenth century, only responsive theory oftragedy. There was moralsympathy, an instinctive desiretobe at one with others that thesentimental ofsociety and virtue, foundation accordprovides to Francis Hutcheson.14 Theatrical of the sort recommended ing sympathy by Adam Smith a degreeofself-control in order from thevictim to win required theaudience'scompassion, foruntutored and agonyis alwaysunattractive
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whichwe cannot avoid hardto share.Thenthere was mechanical sympathy, in Bernard it foundpatrons when confronted feeling by scenesof distress; Mandeville,Edmund Burke,and to some extentLaurenceSterne.Then, - a fullsubstitution was whatHumecalled"compleat there sympathy" lastly, in whichpassionson bothsidesreachthesamepitch, ofspectator for victim, whatthe otheris feeling.15 Aristotelian and theone knowsexactly tragedy and second, butthethird is purely could easilyco-opt thefirst spontaneous, in extent. Neitheris and so is the fourth, being unlimited ungovernable, ifthesight ofaffect ofpain is to stay themodifications necessary adaptedfor thetorments within ofpleasure.Mandeville examined ofmetheboundary in a notorious chanicalsympathy sceneofa pig eatinga childin TheFableof villain the Bees , whosemoralvalue was nil,he said,becauseeventhegreatest on earthwould notbe able to beholdit unmoved.William Godwindramain CalebWilliams. tizedthehorrors ofcomplete sympathy in theaffective Giventheinvestment ofre-enactment rather thanthecogitis intriguing thatitfallsroughly intothe nitive elements ofhistory, to find as eighteenth-century mesamedivisions Disinterested, theatrical, sympathy. and unlimited to thefourchief divisions of chanical, sympathy correspond that I namehere:pageant, re-enactment theater, house,and realist. includes ofa pastactorevent, suchas representation Pageantry anyritual a passionplayor a church mass or a publicexecution, whosepurposeis the affirmation ofa senseofcommunity, whether offaith, Here place,or nation. tends be and to is because it unites pain exemplary, sympathy heartwarming the spectators withthe participants in a public testimony of the value of sharedsuffering. WhenHutcheson, and AdamFerguson the Burke, imagined of a scene of public sympathy, possibility theychose a large open space wherea statecriminal was aboutto be executed. Deningis alludingto pageantwhenhe talksofhistory as publicknowledge ofthepast,"notpublicin the sense of beinginstitutional, but publicin the sense of beingculturally shared."16 Two yearsago, theBattle ofWaterloo was re-enacted in Belgium, and in theSolent, of them made of maneuvered to reprewood) ships(one sentthebattleof Trafalgar. in in the north of Recently Hexham, England, there was a re-enactment ofan eventthattookplace 243 yearsbefore, when PitttheElderimposedconscription on thelocal population and fifty people - a lotmorelivesthanwerelostat Peterloo, werekilledwhileresisting it as theorganizers Partnerpointedout. It was runby theHexhamCommunity both the sense of community and partnership were ship; presumably, the exercise. strengthened by The theater ofhistory is rather moreintimate, and perhaps closest to what calls and what Catherine Morland would call Dening performance happy of fancy. A certain amountofextravagance in orderto is appropriate flights lift above thelevelofliteral butnotquiteto theheight of spirifact, history or communal In Smith'stheater of sympathy, for tual,national, pageantry.
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is a careful betweentheneeds of an individual example,there negotiation and theinclinations in or tasteofthepublic.The artis notto suffer ritually in sucha waythat likethestate buttostageone's suffering it criminal, public, willbe acceptable to theaudience;thenand onlythendoes a reciprocal imensurea degreeof mutualapprovalthat pulse betweenactorand spectator - certainly the art new The mostsuccessful to themost keepslifting heights. - experiment esteemed in thisline of theater is Jeremy Deller's TheBattle of whichrecreated one ofthemostbitter encounters between miners Orgreave, and police duringthe 1984 miners'strike. Deller used former and miners members of military re-enactment thatwas societies to producesomething neither norrealism, rather a curiously tender to frame the pageantry attempt of the and to familiarize whatever had been unforeseen or unagony original, in it.Shortlisted for theTurner Prizein 2000and then madeintoa intelligible film Mike it as a notable what W. of G. Sebald by Figgis, qualified example calls "therepeatedand virtuoso of anrepresentation suffering." Similarly, otherartwork Yinka in shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2005 Shonebare, by Bucket , is a maskedball along withanother piece by Deller called Memory inmaschera) theassassination ofGus(based on Verdi'sUn ballo representing tavIII ofSweden.Three times themurder is repeated, thesame usingexactly and three times thevictim in rearises, stepsand gestures, finally performing versethehighly ornate of his into the sequence entry palace. The third I call "house" as shorthand ofre-enactment forall recategory enactments of and consisting privateparticulars literally copiouslyassembled in a closedspace.Lacking a publicor theatrical or anyclaim dimension, to virtuoso house re-enactment concentrates awkward on the performance, little that define an historical moment. Itsinterest for a viewing things public lies in the accumulating frustrations suffered who are by the re-enactors, often foundweepingor shouting withexasperation at their to coninability whatthey trol aredoingorwhere in in this are. House has a lot common they with for the those incalculable TV, respect reality spectator eavesdrops upon thatconstitute accidents the interest of the scene,as thereis scarcely any TheShip theconflict between theappeal of , a sortofhouse,exemplified story. accidents and an intentional narrative. The drama the voyage unexpected was supposed (at least at first) to re-enact was Cook's dilemmawiththe - whether Great Barrier Reef to sail insideand makediscoveries at therisk of hisship,ortosailoutside, and ignorantly. hisjob was tosee if safely Basically, Australia was joinedbythehip or shoulder to theGreat Southern Continent. The dramaofthissearchencapsulated thegreat of Cook's career as paradox Cook saw it:whether he was tobe damnedfor when he lost his temerity ship or damnedfortimorousness whenhe lostAustralia. With a globalpositionto supplement thelunarobservations and scant ofthenavigators, ingsystem interest in theniceties shownby anybutthehistorians ofeighteenth-century thisdramanevertookoff as thecontinuous re-enactment ofan earlier charts,
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tobecomevividat all on TheShip neededalwaysto , there voyage.Forhistory be some sortof excitement in the present whichcorresponded purelyby chancewiththehistorical factsand suddenlyauthorized their importance. thatcontingent Without sentimental remainedinvisible. aperture, history a at a remote thesewerethenecor sickness, island, 9/11; Nostalgia, landing with stimuli to the the essary sympathy past.Although producer began the that what he called "extreme had to voyagebyemphasizing history" nothing in fact it had a deal in with it. In do withreality common both cases TV, great theinterest is keptup by thecrisesthatdevelopfrom moment to moment; and theseare owing almostexclusively to the artificial restrictions of the - theship,theisland,theroom.Certainly house it is no exaggeration to call theserestrictions or thefeelings SamuelJohnextreme, theyarouseintense. son's comment on Clarissa well to these extreme situations: applies equally we would fret ourselves to deathto finda plot,we mustinsteadrespondto thesentiment. Nor does there seem to be any limit to thisextremity. Threeyearsago a in took Channel 4's Brother house when two evictedcontestfight place Big antswerereintroduced after a week on their former housespending spying mates.David Wilson, a professor ofcriminology, as a consultant to resigned theprogram, he couldno longer be associated witha showthat"prosaying voked interpersonal violenceforentertainment."17 But thishigh degreeof tension is themagnet for thespectator, and itgenerates a powerful mechanical sympathy betweenthehumanobjectand theviewer. Here is a viewer's accountof watching row withVictor Emma,who had a fierce duringthe brawl on the Big Brother as she in brooded the aftermath: "Emma is set, shownsitting a with a mealone,watching screen, ravenous, eatingcrisps chanicalmotion. 'Poor sod,' I think. Then I realizethatI am sitting alone, a screen, 1 mechanical motion."18 watching eatingpeanutswitha ravenous, think Mandeville is right, to pointout thatthere is no moralvalue however, in thiskind of sympathy: it is as ungovernable as the scene provoking it. Perched on thematchstick ofa topgallant braced yard, by mythighs against theyard, on a thread offootrope, withtheleachofa sail beating me myfeet I felt on theface, so bereft ofpresence ofmindthat all I couldpossibly representwas an object, and nota verygraceful one. A shipmate on a safer level me an to A in Channel The 4's compared ill-parked Volkswagen. participant Trench sued thecompany for stress as post-traumatic disorder, unsuccessfully itturned there is no necessary orfore-orout;butthesuitservesto showthat dained limitto extremity; and thegreater theextremity, thegreater thecuthat willbe shownbytheaudience. riosity Butwhatis remarkable aboutbecoming theobjectofmechanical sympais that it is a In fact, it conforms thy verypassionate experience. veryclosely to thedifference betweenactionand passion,thedifference betweendoing and done to established oneself, something havingsomething by Spinoza in
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: "We act when something takesplace within us or outsideof us the Ethics whoseadequatecausewe are/'19 On theother oraffectus arises hand,emotion from thosemodifications ofthebodybymeansofwhichitspowersofaction are augmented or diminished: "Insofar as themindhas adequateideas,thus faritnecessarily and insofar as it has itis necacts, ideas,thusfar inadequate A mind the under influence of essarily passive/'20 operating passionis in a vain pursuit ofan adequateidea. The reasonitwillneverfind itis owingto thefact that thebodyhas beenchanged it. bythepowerofsomething beyond Itmaytry an adequateidea,butsuchan explanation willalwaysbe toinvent a fiction: "The essenceof passion cannotbe explainedmerely our through essence... it mustnecessarily be definedby the power of some external cause compared withourown."21 Passionis whathappenstous whichis not in thisalone,that our own: "Weakness consists manallowshimself tobe led which are and outside is determined them to do those him, by things by of externalthingsdemands."22 thingswhich the common constitution Catherine Morlandfeelsthetruth ofthesepropositions, as she becomespart of a story she was nottelling ofherself. feelsit too:all those Anyre-enactor awkwardlittle in thehouse are pushing himor herintoa passionate things with events and aboutwhichno coherent or experience totally unplanned, idea can be formed. the frustration and the Hence, Hence, adequate shouting. theeagercuriosity whatcouldpossibly oftheaudience: happennext? Ifthere is a pointto thissheerly fortuitous itlies in thesharper extremity, and sharper of what it is like tobe someone else.WhatI wantto specification - Croce as a considernow are the circumstances of a limitless sympathy blade ofgrass.How might thisbe possible, and whatwould itseffects look like?All four kindsofsympathy aretheresult ofasking, "Whatis itliketobe in someoneelse's shoes?"One answersuitableto all is, "It is likebeingin kindofsympathy is so hardto imagine or compain."The reasonthefourth is that the be a has to linked to or rather If two pass pain person, persons. Catherine Morland is togetan answer toherquestion, "What was itliketobe Mrs. Tilney?" there mustbe two people representing thepersonwiththat name.Similarly, theanswertoThomasNagel's tougher on thetopic question of sympathy, "Whatis it liketo be a bat?"requires thatthere be something whichitis liketo be a bat,whatever itis thatrepresents thebat to itself, and thehumanwho can identify withthatrepresentation.23 This is how Smith is very putsitin TheTheory ofMoralSentiments: "Though sympathy properly said to arisefrom an imaginary of with situation the change personchiefly concerned, yetthisimaginary changeis notsupposedtohappento me in my own personand character, but in thatof thepersonwithwhomI sympathise."24 That is to say,it happensto me in the personof the personwith whomI sympathize. Let us go back to Collingwoodand his sympathy forThomasBecket. Whatwas Becket whenhe was beinghackedto deathon thealtarof feeling
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cathedral? he Canterbury Collingwoodas Becketdoes not say. Although for Smith's structure ofsympathy hisinterrogation ofthepast, adaptsexactly in feelings. Hereis how he positions has no interest his person Collingwood in far so as he was a Becket's: "For Becket, mind, thinking being alongside and formyself, thathe was Becket; on thesame Becketwas also knowing is to knowthatI am Becket, thatis,to knowthatI am to be Becket showing, Becket's own self thought, myself beingin thatsense my present re-enacting of the he derives Becket."25 But as forany sympathetic seasoning thoughts "Weshallnever thisnarrowing ofhistorical he is unequivocal: from distance, in thegarden felt knowhow theflowers smelt ofEpicurus, orhow Nietzsche we cannot relive thetrithewindin his hairas he walkedon themountains; or thebitterness of Marius;but theevidenceof what umphofArchimedes is in our hands;and in re-creating thesethoughts in our thesementhought we createwere theirs."26 own minds... we can know. . . thatthethoughts and cognition: ofthought historical re-enSo, itis all a matter Collingwood's actment is specifically non-affective. Here is a veryancient wheretheoppositeis the exampleofre-enactment In case. theeighth book of TheOdyssey, as a stranger in the Ulyssesarrives court ofAlcinous and hearsDemodocussingoftheTrojan war.Thesongis so as you had bin there," that vivid,"so lively forming Ulyssesasks thebardto and tellof thestratagem whichbrought ruinto thetownand its continue, to thetaleofhisown deeds,Ulyssesexperiences hisforpeople.As he listens mervictory as an appalling and breaks down: disaster, did so give Thisthedivine Expressor Bothactand passionthat he madeitlive, AndtoUlysses' facts didbreath a fire So deadlyquickning that itdid inspire Old deathwith and renderd life so sweet life, Andpassionate that all there felt itfleet Which madehimpitie hisownecrueltie, Andputintothat ruth so purean eie Ofhuman that tosee a man frailtie, Could so revive from Death, yetno waycan Defend from his owne itmade death, quickepowers Feelethere death's andhe felt life fade. horrors, In teares hisfeeling braine swet:for inthings Thatmovepastutterance, teares ope all their springs. inthePowres Norarethere that all life beares Moretrue ofall than teares.27 interpreters Here is a doublere-enactment: Demodocusrecites whatHomerhas already and what relives he has Theresult is an entold, Ulysses already experienced.
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withdeathso passionate counter and overwhelming that Alcinous has toput an end to theperformance. Demodocusgivesthoseofus interested in re-enactment a useful hint. Unlimited is not it is for the dead. Catherine sympathy onlypain, sympathy Morlandembarks in sympathy withthepastbygazing upon herexperiment at theportrait of a dead woman.In Wilfrid Owen's poem "MentalCases/' whichJonSilkinhas characterized as "sensuousre-enactment" thevictims are introduced as "menwhosemindstheDead have ravished." RomeoDaltheCanadiancommander oftheUN peacekeeping in Rwanda, force belaire, came a mentalcase because his mindwould fillagain and again withthe soundsand smellsof genocidehe witnessed and could notstop,and he resomepartofme wantedtojointhelegionsofthedead."28 This calls,"I think desireis strongly in one of the best anecdotal histories of re-enactpainted in theAttic. Robert Lee Hodge, his hero, ment, TonyHorwitz'sConfederates a as He can do Civil War Bloat at the performs corpse. dropofa hat,a flawless counterfeit ofphotographs ofthedead atAntietam and Gettysburg: "His handscurled, his cheekspuffed in a rictus ofpain out,his mouthcontorted and astonishment."29 It is his party buthe has learnedit whileclosely trick, Matthew ofcorpses, thekindofdocstudying Brady's photographs gleaning evidence that willdistinguish hishardcore from that of umentary re-enacting "farb" amateurs who neglect Distinctive belt the width buckles, authenticity. and colorofthepipingon thetrousers, thestrips ofcarpet used as bedrolls, thecorrugated tinof a canteen to the waist of a dead Confederate strapped - theaccuracy soldier ofsuchdetailsis crucial tothesuccessofre-enactment. ofmarching sometimes without until Hence,thenecessity shoes,ofslimming fit narrow dimensions ofa butternut uniform cutto thesize you intothevery of original uniforms. The 1860spatinaof thebrassbuttons is obtainedby - "a bitof graycloth and thetexture of thematerial soakingthemin urine, - is kept withjusttheright amount ofdye and theexactnumber ofthreads" never it.30 There is no limit to the of this sort offigenuine by washing pursuit if it involves discomfort or the delity, especially pain.Authenticity provides evidential into the while and the road cold,fatigue, misery bridge past; open to thestateofintense rapture Hodge callswargasm, peaking, rushing, being and Nirvana.Whenhe arrives at thesestatesof tapped,Goose-bump City, - not himself as a person in a photograph feeling, Hodge is able toexperience as a bloated corpse or a generalized unknownwarrior, not as an actual namedindividual witha history, but as an anonymous actualother person who fought and probably died at Manassas,or Shiloh, or Gettysburg amidst a setofhistorical circumstances that can but reHodge partly very accurately At his that is to at the extreme of his best, produce. say edge game,Hodge is thepersonofthat person. If we speak of history withthe dead, if thatis ultithrough sympathy thepointof thevarioustypesof sympathy whichre-enactment demately
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to speak?Fromthedead? I think ploys,whencedo we derivetheauthority or nothing but a not,fortheytakeour personand give us none in return, name.Or they driveus mad. In anycase,we getaccessto them onlyby passion,whenwe arein thegripofan idea whoseadequacywe cannot possibly determine. that invites us into is not one of our Anystory passion inventing or telling. Mechanical and unlimited and there-enactments sympathy, they - house and realist - are awash in incalculable chancesand unforesponsor seen contingencies forwhichno one is fully derives responsible. Authority thennotfrom our representation ofthefatalities ofhistory butfrom History and itsarrangement oftheseunpredictable circumstances. auitself, History thorizes us as its actorsto speak on its behalf. we speak most Presumably whenthere is theleastof us left, whenwe are maximally depersuasively as something or someoneelse and mostcompletedby sympathy, figured in service to theagencyofwhichwe speak.Whenwe are no longer pletely ourselves and can talkwitha delegate'sconfidence of an inhuman strictly a force whose effects we can and whose is its power, onlydescribe, tendency own business,then do we achieve the kind of re-enactment of history as thebasis ofrealhistoriography. Butour performCollingwood imagined ances underlicenseof thepersonifications of Death and History make the to us in theleastconsoling how poorly we pastpresent way, byemphasizing control itsemergencies, how poorly ourinadequate ideas embrace and them, how quickly and totally can silenceus. Sebald warnsofthisstateofafthey fairs inhisessay, "On theLiterary ofTotalDestruction." He menDescription tionstheblindness and confusion of thosecaughtup in History, and says, "The autonomy in thefaceoftherealor potential ofhumankind destruction that ithas causedis no greater in thehistory ofthespeciesthantheautonomy oftheanimalin thescientist's 1think thebewilderment we historians cage."31 felt on TheShipwas thefirst whiff of thisterror: we wereitsnativeinformants. NOTES 1.DavidHume, and inMark Salber , Moral, Political, (1742, 1752), Essays Literary qtd. Inwardness: Historical Distance andthe Transition from Phillips, "Relocating Enlightenment toRomantic PMLA 18(2003): 442. 436-49, Historiography," 2.Gentlemen's November inJayne ///rThe Sorrow ofseeing 1789, Lewis, Magazine, qtd. the ofScots andthe British ofSensibility/' Passionate EnQueen7: Queen Mary History counters ina Time eds.Maximillian Novak andAnne Mellor, (Newark, 2000), of Sensibility, 194. 3.Henry Lord 2 vols. Elements 1:95-96. Home, Kames, Criticism, 1765), of (Edinburgh 4.Phillips, 441. 5.John Stuart "Review ofCarlyle's The French onFrench HisMill, Revolution," Essays and Historians M.Robson andJohn C. Cairns, 135. , eds.John (Toronto, 1985), tory 6. Benedetto Croce The IdeaofHistory, ed. Jan vander qtd.in R. G. Collingwood, Dussen 199. See alsoCroce, as the trans. (Oxford, 1994), History Story ofLiberty, Sylvia 2000). Sprigge (Indianapolis,
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7.Collingwood, 297. 8. Eric inIngaClendinnen, 'TheHistory Who Owns the Hobsbawm, Question: qtd. Past?" 23(2006): 65. Quarterly Essay 9.Clendinnen, 20. 10. 70. Austen, (London, 2000), Jane Northanger Abbey 11. 90. Austen, 12. 70. Austen, 22. 13. Austen, 14.Francis AnInquiry into the Ideas andVirtue Hutcheson, Original ofour ofBeauty 225. (London, 1725), A Treatise 15.Hume, Human ed.L.A.Selby-Bigge, 388. Nature, (Oxford, 1978), of 16.Lreg 36. (Melbourne, 1996), Dening, Performances i/.Andrew baator neaitn l ne orotner ornousemates, zu jonnson, Dig inaepenaent, 9. 2004, June 18.Hermione "The The 20June 9. 2004, Eyre, Q Interview," Independent, 19.Benedictus deSpinoza, trans. Ethics Andrew andG.H. R.Parkinson (16 77), Boyle 83. (London, 1993), 20.Spinoza, 84. 21.Spinoza, 146. 22.Soinoza. 164. 23.Thomas "What Is ItLike The toBe a Bat?," Review 83,no.4 Nagel, Philosophical 435-50. (October 1974): 24.Adam The Moral Sentiments eds.D. D. Raphael andA. L. Smith, [1759], Theory of 317. Mcfie, 1976), (Indianapolis, 25.Collingwood, 297. 26.Collingwood, 296. 27.Homer, trans. 8.708-23. York, (New 2000), [1616] Odyssey, George Chapman "AHero 28.Samantha ofOurTime," New York Review 18November Power, Books, of 9. 2004, 29.Tony inthe Attic: the War Civil Horwitz, Confederates Dispatches from Unfinished 8. (New York, 1998), 30.Horwitz, 388. 31.W.G. Sebald, "OntheLiterary ofTotal Santo Destruction," Description Campo 89-90. (London, 2005),

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Historical Re-enactment, Extremity, and Passion Author(s): Jonathan Lamb Source: The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 49, No.

Extremity, and Passion

Jonathan Lamb Vanderbilt University

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY