Rhetoric and Aesthetics of History

Wiley and Wesleyan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History and Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

Wesleyan University

Rhetoric and Aesthetics of History: Leopold von Ranke Author(s): Jörn Rüsen Source: History and Theory, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 190-204Published by: for Wiley Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505225Accessed: 07-08-2015 19:52 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Fri, 07 Aug 2015 19:52:21 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RHETORIC AND AESTHETICS OF HISTORY: LEOPOLD VON RANKE

JORN RUSEN

"Let's do the time warp again!"-Rocky Horror Picture Show

I. THE QUESTION

Historians normally do not look at the output of their work as literature but as a result of academic skill and endeavor. In remarkable opposition to this opinion, recent trends in the theory of history stress the poetical and rhetorical character of historiography -precisely the character generally overlooked in the self-awareness and self-understanding of most professional historians. There is a good deal of postmodernism in the quest for rhetoric and aesthetics of historiography, because the modernity of historiography is defined by its academic or - in a broader sense of the word -by its scientific character. And it is a widespread and deep-rooted opinion of academic historians, and of postmodernist theoreti- cians of history as well, that this scientific character is the opposite of rhetoric and aesthetics. In the following argument I would like to show that this contrast between the postmodernist understanding of historiography as rhetorical and the modernist scientific approach to historical knowledge leads us only to one- sided views of historiography.I

Ranke's work is a good example of the fact that rhetoric and aesthetics can be mediated with rationality, which defines the academic or scientific character of historical studies. Ranke is known for both aspects of historiography: his work represents the new academic standard, won by a process of scientification in the humanities since the late eighteenth century, and at the same time it represents a new literary quality of history writing, which makes it an integral part of the prose literature of the nineteenth century. We can look at it as a document of a scientified historiography and at the same time as an important part of the so-called narrative realism. So it seems to be worthwhile to confront Ranke's historiography with the postmodern question of the rhetorical principles of historiography on the one hand, and not to overlook the modernity of historical thought on the other, which historical studies realizes by its methodical rationality.

1. Cf. Jorn Rusen, "New Directions in Historical Studies," in Miedzy Historia a Teoria: Refieksje nad Problematyka Dziejow i Wiedzy Historycznej, ed. Marian Drozdowski (Warsaw, 1988), 340-355; and Rusen, "Historische Aufkldrung in Angesicht der Post-Moderne: Geschichte im Zeitalter der 'neuen Uniibersichtlichkeit,"' in Streitfall deutsche Geschichte: Geschichts- und GegenwartsbewuJflt- sein in den 80er Jahren, ed. Landeszentrale fur politische Bildung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Essen, 1988), 17-38. (A shortened English version appears in History and Memory 1 [19891.)


RHETORIC AND AESTHETICS OF HISTORY 191

1I. THE ANTI-RHETORICAL TURN OF HISTORY TOWARD SCIENCE

Seen historically, modern historical studies laid claim to methodological rationality by an emphasis on anti-rhetorical arguments, thus constituting its academic or scientific character and molding its status as an autonomous discipline in the humanities. A famous and influental document of this claim for a new standard of historical studies and of its anti-rhetorical turn is Ranke's first book, his His- tories of the Latin and Germanic Nations 1494 to 1514, first published in 1824.2 Here he wrote his famous declaration that history need not judge the past in order to teach the present for the sake of its future; his book, Ranke said, "only wants to show how it really had been."3 This claim of objectivity reflects the new self-understanding of historical studies as an empirical science with a special set of methodological rules, constituting historical knowledge as a process of research.4 Ranke got his chair in Berlin when he published his book; one of the main reasons for this advancement was its appendix, a critical analysis of the historiography of the time in question.5 Here Ranke presents a method to get from the sources valid knowledge of the past he wrote about: by going through the documents and reports of the past to gain an insight of what really had been.

In order to emphasize this new scientific approach of historiography, Ranke contrasted the way he thought history should be written with the traditional rhetorical attitude of historiography. Ranke gave as an example of this rhetorical attitude Guicciardini's historiography, where the actors in the historical events explain their intentions by speeches. These speeches have a rational function in the text: they explain the historically important actions by explicating the leading intentions of the actors. (The model of explanation used here is that of explaining actions by their intentions.6) Ranke does not argue against this explanation, but against the fictional character of the speeches; they are not documented by sources. They say what would have been said if the actors had been asked for the reasons for their actions. For Ranke it is the fictional character of the speeches which makes it impossible to insert them into the course of events, despite their ex- planatory function (which he did not discuss).

Fictional speeches in an historiographical text, which pretend to say what really had been in the past -that is what the intellectuals of that time meant by rhetoric. They understood by rhetoric a strategy of speaking or writing, character-

2. Leopold von Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Volker von 1494 bis 1514, 2nd ed. (Samtliche Werke, vol. 33/34) (Leipzig, 1874).

3. "zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen," ibid., vii. 4. Cf. Jorn Rusen, "Von der Aufklarung zum Historismus: Idealtypische Perspektiven eines Struk-

turwandels," in Von der Aufklarung zum Historismus: Zum Strukturwandel des historischen Denkens, ed. H. W. Blanke and J. Rusen (Paderborn, 1984), 15-57.

5. Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber (Samtliche Werke, vol. 33/34) (Leipzig, 1874). Cf. Ernst Schulin, "Rankes Erstlingswerk oder Der Beginn der kritischen Geschichtsschreibung fiber die Neu- zeit," in his Traditionskritik und Rekonstruktionsversuch: Studien zur Entwicklung von Geschichts- wissenschaft und historischem Denken (Gottingen, 1979), 44-64.

6. The logic of this mode of explanation is discussed in Jorn Risen, Rekonstruktion der Vergan- genheit: Grundztige einer Historik II: Die Prinzipien der historischen Forschung (Gottingen, 1986), 30ff.


192 JORN RUSEN

ized by the means of persuasion and by an absence of truth claims; one could say by using language-tricks, instead of convincing arguments. Rhetoric is the use of language for strategic purposes, whereas scientific historiography uses language to articulate the results of empirical research. To put it simply: truth instead of tricks. In Ranke's own words, directed against Guicciardini's presentation of fictional speeches: "We on our side have another concept of history. Naked truth without any embellishment; painstaking research into the particular; the rest lies in the hands of God; rejecting any fiction, even in the smallest matter, rejecting any fantasy whatsoever."'

Ranke confronts fantasy with truth. For him rhetoric in historiography en- dangers truth; it crosses the border which separates both. Opposed to this danger stands research, that is, the exposition of empirical evidence given by the sources, ruled by method. Research guarantees truth; it enables historians to say what really had been and lets them respect the border between empirical evidence or truth on the one side and fantasy or fiction on the other. This opposition belongs to the basic arguments by which professional historians have gained and are defending their image as experts, whose knowledge is indispensable for any convincing and respectable representation of the past.

Ranke's work marks a turning point in the development of historiography: it changed from literature to science. Traditionally the skill of historians was their ability to reach the mind of their audience by the persuasive force of their linguistic forms, in which the past becomes alive, speaking the language of common sense, teaching practical competence in mastering topical problems of present- day life.8 Historiography was oriented to the practical needs of its audience. It was guided by the principle of addressing an audience, by speaking to someone; it was indeed rhetorical. Now historiography became oriented towards research; it gained a new quality of empirical evidence. It claimed to speak the truth ir- respective of all expectations and prejudices of its audience. It no longer taught practical competence, but gave empirical knowledge. It simply said how it really had been.

After this turning point, when history was done in the form of an academic discipline, most historians presented and still present their vision of what historiography is and has to be in a remarkably narrow-minded way: for them, the main work of historians is research; historiography is basically nothing but a comprehensive summary of research results. The literary form of presenting these results is of no deep concern; it is of secondary importance, being functionally depen- dent on the methodological principles of gaining solid knowledge of the past from the sources.

111. THE UNENLIGHTENED SYNTHESIS OF ART AND SCIENCE

Ranked did not share this narrow-mindedness. On the contrary, besides his em-

7. "Wir unsers Orts haben einen andern Begriff von Geschichte. Nackte Wahrheit ohne allen Schmuck; grundliche Erforschung des Einzelnen; das ubrige Gott befohlen; nur kein Erdichten, auch nicht im Kleinsten, nur kein Hirngespinst." (Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber, 24.)

8. This is clearly worked out by Eckard Kessler: "Geschichte: Menschliche Praxis oder kritische



phasis on research as the basis of historiography, he nevertheless acknowledged the fact that writing history, that is, shaping research results into an acceptable story, is based on other principles besides research. Whereas the principles of research are scientific in their nature and belong to the realm of modern methodological rationality, the principles of writing history are artistic or poetic in their nature and belong to the realm of literature. In Ranke's own words:

History is distinguished from all other sciences in that it is also an art. History is a science in collecting, finding, penetrating; it is an art because it recreates and portrays that which it has found and recognized. Other sciences are satisfied simply with recording what has been found; history requires the ability to recreate.9

What does Ranke mean by saying that history as a science is "also" an art? What is the relationship between scientific and poetic principles? Is it characterized by a hierarchical order or is it mediated? Ranke does not give a clear and theoretically explicated answer. He explicates the scientific character of historiography by pointing to philosophy, which represents the decisive element, namely "discovering causality and conceptualizing the core of existence.""0 History, he says, does this discovering and conceptualizing by working with the sources, which give the empirical evidence of what really had happened in the past. The mode of "discovering causality and conceptualizing the core of existence" as it appears in the temporal course of human affairs in the past, is the historical method, the set of rules which guide historical research as a process of knowledge. Ranke described it briefly but very precisely as "collecting, finding, penetrating," thus indicating the three main operations of historical research: heuristics, critique, and interpretation." Besides that, he quite simply states the artistic or poetic character of historiography, describing it as "reproducing the appeared life."12 Ranke says that this reproduction is done by activating the "ability to recreate."'3 How does this ability work in historiography, and how is it related to the methodological principles of historical research?

Wissenschaft?" in Kessler, Theoretiker humanistischer Geschichtsschreibung (Munich, 1971); cf. Kessler, "Das rhetorische Modell der Historiographie," in Formen der Geschichtsschreibung, ed. Rein- hart Koselleck, Heinrich Lutz, and Jorn Rusen (Beitrage zur Historik, Bd. 4) (Munich, 1982), 37-85.

9. "On the Character of Historical Science (A Manuscript of the 1830s)," in Leopold von Ranke: The Theory and Practice of History, ed. Georg G. Iggers and Konrad von Moltke (Indianapolis, 1973), 33. ("Die Historie unterscheidet sich dadurch von anderen Wissenschaften, daB sie zugleich Kunst ist. Wissenschaft ist sie: indem sie sammelt, findet, durchdringt; Kunst, indem sie das Gefun- dene, Erkannte wieder gestaltet, darstellt. Andre Wissenschaften begnugen sich, das Gefundene schlech- thin als solches aufzuzeichnen: bei der Historie gehbrt das Vermogen der Wiederhervorbringung dazu." ["Idee der Universalgeschichte," in Leopold von Ranke: Vorlesungseinleitungen, ed. Volker Dotterweich and Walter Peter Fuchs (Aus Werk und NachlaB, vol. IV) (Munich, 1975), 72.])

10. "On the Character of Historical Science," in Iggers and Moltke, eds., 33 ("die Kausalitat zu ergrunden, den Kern des Daseins in dem Begriff zu fassen." [Dotterweich and Fuchs, eds., 721).

11. It was Droysen who first (1857) explicated the main operations of the historical method in this way. Cf. Johann Gustav Droysen, Historik, ed. P. Leyh (Stuttgart), 1, 67ff.

12. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 34 ("das erschienene Leben wieder zu reproduzieren," [Dotterweich and Fuchs, eds., 721).

13. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 33 ("Vermogen der Wiederhervorbringung," [Dotterweich and Fuchs, eds., 72]).


194 JORN ROSEN

These questions are not clearly answered by Ranke; he just says that in history there are two forces of the mind working, the intellectual force, whose most representative activity is philosophy, and the poetical force, whose most representative activity is art. In history they are mediated. "History brings both together in a third element peculiar only to itself."1'4 What is this "third element," constituting the peculiarity of historical studies, combining and mediating historical research and historiography to make a whole called "history"? This is the decisive question. It is decisive (at least for my argument) because it is related to the modernist character of history as a science as well as to the actual postmodern look at history as a rhetorical language game. Ranke himself refutes the dichotomy between scientific and aesthetic features of history by emphasizing the mediation of science and art in history. So I think it is worthwile to find out what he pointed to by speaking of the third element, which mediates the conceptualizing forces of the human mind with the reproducing ones.

Unfortunately his description is not very clear. He said that this element is a direction of the human mind and its forces of historical consciousness towards the real, which is common to the intellectual as well as to the artistic force of history. This approach to reality distinguishes both of them from philosophy and art, which are directed towards the ideal. This argument leads us back to Ranke's famous saying that he only wanted to show how it really had been.

Our question therefore should be, what leads to this objectivity of what had "really been"? For Ranke the answer is clear: it is research. If that is true, then the basic role of art in history escapes our attention, because research cannot mediate between itself and art in history. To quote Ranke again: "History is never the one without the other."1 So the question remains open: what is the mediating third element? What realizes the peculiar historical realism combining art and science?

Ranke did not deal with this question theoretically. For him the simple act of writing history using the results of empirical research proves sufficiently that there is a synthesis of science and art in historiography. Art just takes place in the act of history writing. Art is different from science, which needs conceptual and methodological clarity in the procedures of gaining knowledge. Art does not need rules or reflected principles. "Art rests on itself: its existence proves its validity. On the other hand, science must be totally worked out to its very concept and must be clear to its core."16 Apparently Ranke does not think that the artificial or poetic side of history requires historians to have a professional skill comparable to their ability as researchers. "The rest lies in the hands of god": we can read this word as hinting a non-rational, or better, a super-rational procedure, generated in a realm of the human mind, where cognitive principles and methodological rules have no place. It is the place which had formerly been taken by rhetoric.

14. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 34 ("Sie verbindet sie beide in einem dritten, nur ihr eigentumlichen Element," [Dotterweich and Fuchs, eds., 72]).

15. Idem. 16. Idem. ("Die Kunst beruht auf sich selber: ihr Dasein beweist ihre Gultigkeit, dagegen vollkommen



What happened to rhetoric when it got placed into God's hands? I would like to play a little bit further which these words. If you take them literally, the answer is: Rhetoric must have been spiritualized. And that was indeed the case: it got an aesthetical substance or at least elements of an aesthetics, which changed its character according to the modernizing rationalization of historiography by scientific research. The anti-rhetorical turn of historiography did not simply abolish rhetoric in it, but changed it, gave it a new character, a new form of speaking to its audience.

Ranke represents this novelty on both the practical and theoretical levels: On the level of praxis Ranke's main works have an undeniable aesthetic quality; they belong to the great prose literature of realism. This aesthetic quality is not simply the result of Ranke's unique gift as a writer; it is representative of European historiography of the nineteenth century in general. I think of Macaulay, Michelet, and mainly of the Nobel Prize for Literature for Theodor Mommsen's Roman History.

On the level of theory, Ranke speaks of art in history in a way that can easily be understood as in accord with classical aesthetics.17 Here art is seen as a precog- nitive procedure of producing an image of life without being submitted to rules; the procedure itself generates its rules, and the more original they are, that is, the less they are already formulated, the better and the more effective the artifacts are. This idea of art is fundamentally anti-rhetorical, because rhetoric gives rules for linguistic procedures, and the rules stand for their success and effect. This anti-rhetorical idea of art is the reason Ranke lets art "rest on itself" in history and concentrates his efforts in historical knowledge on research and not on its linguistic form.

Until now I have not only not answered the question about the peculiar historical element in the human mind mediating between science and art, but I have complicated this question even more by pointing to the aesthetical effect of the anti-rhetorical turn of history in Ranke's time. However, this complication is a way of answering the question. For Ranke, rhetoric is negated by scientific research, and there is only a residue of rhetoric remaining in a fundamentally changed form: the aesthetics of historiography. The mediating element in question now comes into view, when we ask whether Ranke's assertion that rhetoric completely vanished in aesthetics is convincing. I think that this is not the case. So I will ask about the hidden rhetoric in Ranke's historiography in order to find an answer to the question: what combines the conceptualizing forces of the human mind with the imagining forces and gives them both their specific historical character?

IV. BACK TO RHETORIC

From recent theory of history we can learn that the concept of rhetoric, under-

durchgearbeitet sein bis zu ihrem Begriff und uber ihr Eigenstes klar mud die Wissenschaft sein." [Dotterweich and Fuchs, eds., 73])

17. Cf. JoMn Rusen, Asthetik und Geschichte: Geschichtstheoretische Untersuchungen zum Begran- dungszusammenhang von Kunst, Geselischaft und Wissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1976), 14ff.


196 JORN ROSEN

lying the anti-rhetorical turn of history into historical studies as science and still vivid in the mind of professional historians, is too narrow.'8 Its wider meaning comes into view when we look at Ranke's arguments on science and art in history. As "active forces of the human mind" (tatige Geisteskrafte) both are dealing with the same matter, called by Ranke Leben (life-in the sense of human life) or Existenz. 19 History as a subject matter is the appearance of life in time. Science as historical studies recognizes it by conceptualizing the information of the source material. Art as historiography reproduces it by imagining the past as a vivid, temporal happening in human affairs. Both operations of historical consciousness are guided by underlying patterns of significance which give events and their temporal connection the character of life or existence - or in Ranke's words, the character of being something which "really had been."

What tells the historian what "really had been" in the temporal course of human affairs in the past? Although many historians - and maybe even Ranke - thought and think that this reality is an objectively given fact, told by the sources, it is something else, something even more "objective" in the sense of alive, effective, constituting human existence rather than a dead fact, a positive datum of what is or was the case. History represents this fundamental liveliness in linguistic form, it is the liveliness of language as a form of human existence.

The life of history presented by historiography lives in the language of the historian, by which he places his recollecting presentation of the past into the present life of the audience in such a way that it gains the liveliness of this present life. Where is history alive in this fundamental, existential way? Where is it a part of "real," that is, practical life? This place in life is the cultural orientation of human activity and suffering in social relations. History is an essential part of world- and self-interpretation without which human activity cannot take place.

What has this general argument to do with rhetoric? In fact I have already spoken of rhetoric, because rhetoric in history is nothing but a set of linguistic forms within which historical knowledge gains its elementary and basic liveliness in practical human life. The patterns of significance which give the facts of the past their sense and meaning for present-day life are linguistic forms of historical narratives which can be further described as topoi of the historiographical discourse.2

The rhetoric of history consists of a set of topoi, basic patterns of significance, which are used when, by narrative presentation, the past is to play a vivid role in actual life. Presented in these topical patterns, historical knowledge becomes

18. Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe (Bal- timore, 1973); White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, 1978); White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, 1987); Domi- nick LaCapra, History and Criticism (Ithaca, 1985); Jorn Rtisen, "Geschichtsschreibung als The- orieproblem der Geschichtswissenschaft: Skizze zum historischen Hintergrund der gegenwartigen Diskussion," in Koselleck, Lutz, and Rdsen, eds., 14-36.

19. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 33ff. (Dotterweich and Fuchs, eds., 72). 20. Cf. Jdrn Rusen, Lebendige Geschichte. Grundzige einer Historik III: Formen undFunktionen

des historischen Wissens (Gdttingen, 1989).



a part of practical life, of effective orientation of human activity and suffering in the course of time. Rhetoric furnishes historical knowledge with ideas of the course of time comprising past, present, and future into a thoroughgoing unit of sense, significance, or meaning for the action-guiding interpretation of world and humanity in human life.

This concept of rhetoric of course includes much more than merely the inser- tion of fictional elements in narratives of factual occurrences; it includes much more than merely a set of linguistic tricks to be used in the strategy of persuasion. It has to be seen as a necessary condition for an historical understanding of the past by placing it with the vitality of language in the actual course of present- day life.

How is this done by Ranke? It is not my intention to describe his network of rhetorical forms, which from past occurrences, as he has found them by research, creates a vivid historical narration. I can only hint at some of the most important rhetorical structures which are inherent shaping principles of Ranke's historiography.

Before doing so I would like to distinguish between different levels and aspects of rhetorical structures in historiography. The basic rhetorical structure of every historical text is constituted by a mixture of the four types of fundamental and elementary topoi of historical narration: the traditional, the exemplary, the critical, and the genetic mode of making sense out of the empirical facts of the past.2" This basic structure can now be filled in and made concrete with political aspira- tions towards the intended orientation of practical life in its temporal dimension by historical knowledge. Here we can easily distinguish between left and right, moderate and radical, feminist or patriarchal intentions, and so on -in short, it is possible to find every political position shaping the design of the past in historiography. Besides the political rhetoric we can find other intentional factors of practical life constituting the liveliness of historiography by rhetorical patterns, for example, ethics, religion, world-views, ideologies. We can describe and analyze these factors by means of typologies, and we can transform every ty- pology into a set of rhetorical topoi in historiography.

Going back to Ranke, I would like to desribe the rhetoric of his historiography by pointing to two levels or aspects: the basically historical and the political topoi. Both are well known as characterizing the peculiarity of Ranke's mode of history writing: he presents history predominantly in the meaning-constitutive topos of genetical narration, and his political attitude is historiographically visible as a moderate conservatism.

The genetical topos is present in the often used category of "development" (Entwickelung) and in a multitude of metaphors of movement, expressing the thoroughgoing historical sense of the presented occurrences of the past. The following quotation from the History of the Popes is typical of this rhetoric of the

21. Cf. JoMn Rfisen, "Die vier Typen des historischen Erzdhlens," in Koselleck, Lutz, and Rfisen, eds., 514-605; Rfisen, "Historical Narration: Foundations, Types, Reason," in History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 87-97; Riisen, Lebendige Geschichte.


198 JORN ROSEN

genetic type of historical orientation in time: "We are forced irresistibly to the conviction that all the purposes and efforts of humanity are subjected to the si- lent and often imperceptible, but invincible and ceaseless march of events." 22

Ranke presents this "march of events" as an historical process, leading to the political constellation of modern states in Europe, which Ranke thought to be predominant in his time. In the context of our quotation, Ranke expresses this leading genetic perspective of modern history as "a spirit of community in the modern world which has always been regarded as the basis of its entire development, whether in religion, politics, manners, social life, or literature."23

Ranke shapes this perspective politically mainly by presenting interactions of leading personalities, thus underlining the fundamental importance and competence of governments for the essential decisions without relating too much to the governed people and their normal life. Ranke's political ideas and his standpoint in political life are well known,24 as well as their manifestation in his historiography. But it is less known how he transforms them into rhetorical modes and strategies of history writing.

We can describe these modes and strategies by referring to perspectives within which acts of governments appear, and to attributes which characterize political actions and actors. Such a perspective often implies a view from above, favoring state-politics as the main force of historical development, and such attributes can be found in Ranke's characterization of mass-movements - like the peasant's war during the Reformation in Germany -as driven by blind natural forces rather than by reflected and culturally legitimized intentions.25

All these rhetorical strategies are at work in Ranke's historiography, as well as in historiography in general. So what about the anti-rhetorical turn of historiography towards its modern, scientific form? Recognizing the unbroken force of rhetoric in historiography, one could easily come to the opinion that all the anti-rhetorical sayings of research-based historiography are nothing more than rhetoric itself. It seems simply to hide the rhetorical character of historiography in order to take part in the cultural prestige of science and to legitimate the professional skill of historians, now cultivating an image of academic seriousness. This postmodern view of modernity which historiography has gained by historical studies and its scientific methods is seductive. It seriously takes into considera- tion the literary character of historiography and lifts the veil of ignorance which

22. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 185 ("Es ist nicht anders, als daB alles menschliche Tun und Treiben dem leisen und der Bemerkung oft entzogenen, aber gewaltigen und unaufhaltsamen Gange der Dinge unterworfen ist.") (Ranke, Die romischen Pdpste in den letzten vier Jahrhunderten [Samtliche Werke, vol. 37] [Leipzig, 1874], 23.)

23. Ranke, Die romischen Pdpste, 185 ("Es gibt eine Gemeinschaftlichkeit der modernen Welt, welche immer als eine Hauptgrundlage der gesamten Ausbildung derselben in Staat und Kirche, Sitte, Leben und Literatur betrachtet worden ist.")

24. Cf. Helmut Berding, "Leopold von Ranke," in Deutsche Historiker, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Gottingen, 1971), 1, 7-24.

25. Ranke's words: "Unaufh6rlich vernimmt man dies dumpfe Brausen eines unbandigen Elementes in dem Innern des Bodens, auf dem man steht." Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Samtliche Werke, vol. 1) (Leipzig, 1867), 1, 143.



the academic self-understanding of historians has spread on history writing as the main task of historians. But unfortunately the new awareness of historiography as a working process of writing produces a new veil over what historians do, now concealing the research-process as an important part of the work of historians.

I think it worthwhile, therefore, to ask, what are the consequences of the anti- rhetorical input of research into historiography? Is there any effect of it signalling a new, a specifically "modern" quality in the art of history writing? Looking at Ranke's work gives us an answer: it is aesthetics.

V. FORWARD TOWARDS AESTHETICS

What is the difference between rhetoric and aesthetics?26 By its rhetoric historiography realizes its practical function of orienting the practical life of its audience in the course of time. It transforms the necessity of action into the linguistic forms of its temporal orientation by historical memory. By doing so it follows the logic of practical needs in human world-interpretation and self- understanding. Aesthetics introduces the element of freedom into this constraint of practical needs shaping historiography; it unburdens action-leading historical memories from the dominance of practical interests and opens up a space for free self-reflection in the temporal orientation of human activity. It is the attrac- tiveness of freely dealing with historical knowledge while using it rhetorically in the cultural struggle for life.

We are aware of this appearance of freedom and acknowledge it when we ap- preciate and enjoy Ranke's historiography as very well written, or of a high literary standard, without accepting its standpoint in social and political life. Historiog- raphy has this aesthetical quality in common with literature such as poetry. So it seems to be a quality which has nothing to do with the anti-rhetorical turn which Ranke and all academic historians are so eager to emphasize.

I think that this is not true. For me the aesthetic appeal of the classical historiography of the nineteenth century is more than just a consequence of the per- sonal abilities of historians; it is a reflection of an inner rationalization of historiography by historical studies. It is the gleam of reason in the artistic or poetic dimension of historiography. For us the linguistic articulation of scholarly skills in historiography appears in footnotes.27 The more footnotes, the deeper the academic concern. Ranke's works do not have many footnotes. Their academic or scientific concern is much more internalized. It becomes visible in the way the claim for objectivity founded in historical research is a principle of shaping or linguistic presentation of historical knowledge.

It is often said that Ranke indicated historical objectivity by avoiding speaking of himself in his historiography. That he wanted to "extinguish my self and only

26. For a more detailed argument see Rusen, Lebendige Geschichte. 27. Cf. Peter Rief3, Footnotoly: Towards a Theory of the Footnote (Berlin, 1985).


200 JORN ROSEN

let speak the matter, make apparent the powerful forces,"28 is well known and seems to underline this attitude of authoritative narration. He speaks, nevertheless, of himself. I found the word "I" in the first volume of his History of the Popes thirteen times within a hundred pages. This "I" is the historian, wondering how he should understand an event or an action,29 explicating his source for a certain occurrence,30 complaining about the impossibility of describing the multitude of Renaissance art, and so on. This "I" in fact never reflects his concept of the whole interpretation, the comprehensive perspective within which the great march of events is presented. It deals with singularities and not with the whole. This whole, the internal and substantial temporal connection of events, occurrences, and actions, which forms the whole story, is implicated in this temporal connection; it appears in the mode of its narrative presentation. It is the luster of a universal order in the temporal change of the human world. Here lies the reason for the aesthetic quality of Ranke's historiography: it is his conception of temporal wholes and its narrative presentation in the form of temporal sequences of occurrences (mainly events).

Ranke avoids speaking of himself while presenting his conception, which comprises an integrative temporal whole that forms the basic sense of his historiography. He is convinced that this whole is essentially more than only a subjective construct of the historian, generated in his poetical mind. It is a real temporal chain of human affairs, defining their historical order. This great temporal chain of human affairs is pregiven in the source material. It can be found there, but it has to be worked out by historical research.

This basic concept of objectively pregiven, temporal wholes in the course of past events destroys rhetoric; it is the main argument against the rhetorical tradi- tion of historiography. In rhetoric it is the linguistic procedure of history writing which presents the past in such a way that the knowledge of it plays an active role in solving orientation-problems in present practical life. In Ranke's view it is the temporal whole of history itself, which combines the past so tightly with present time that its memory can work as an integral part in present-day activity. Historiography does not rhetorically mediate between present-day practical life and knowledge of the past, but it explicates scientifically an objectively pregiven internal connection between past and present.

The temporal wholes bringing about this connection are constituted by the moving forces of temporal change in the human world. Ranke and classical histori- cism of the nineteenth century saw these forces working in the action-guiding and -moving intentions of the human mind, called "idea" (Idee). For him it was the spirit of mankind, present in every word and deed of any member of the human race, which shapes the temporal whole, giving historical sense to its course

28. "Ich wunschte mein Selbst gleichsam auszuloschen, und nur die Dinge reden, die machtigen Krafte erscheinen zu lassen." (Englische Geschichte vornehmlich im 17. Jahrhundert [Samtliche Werke, vol. 151 [Leipzig, 18771, II, 103.)

29. Ranke, Die romischen Papste, 37. 30. Ibid., 39.



of events in the past, and combines this course with the actual change of the human world, happening in present actions and sufferings.

For Ranke, therefore, rhetoric is replaced by an idealistic philosophy of history.31 This philosophy lets historians find by research an underlying structure of temporal change shaped by the mental forces of human life, and this underlying structure comprises the actual occurrences of present-day life. In this way historical knowledge of what really happened in the past expresses what is really happening today. Past and present are combined by the actuality of mental forces ("ideas"), which place them into an intelligible order of time. The knowledge of this order is objective and theoretical (in the sense of intelligible), because it is empirically evident in the events of the past and can be discerned in the sources by research. At the same time it is subjective and practical (in the sense of orienting practical life or actions with an idea of a temporal direction of the change to be effected by practice), because it enlightens the intentional forces of present-day activity and suffering.

The scientific mode of thinking in historical interpretation is, therefore, already in principle a sufficient condition for the implementation of historical knowledge into the core of practical life. Rhetoric is no longer necessary as a strategy of such an implementation.

Relating to this philosophical ground of historicist historiography, we can understand the anti-rhetorical turn of historical studies as a theoretization of rhetoric, as an input of essential principles of reasoning concerning the temporal chain of human affairs into lingustic procedures, by which historical knowledge of the past becomes important for practical life.

It is this reason which gives Ranke's historiography its remarkable aesthetic character. Ranke did not conceptualize his basic philosophy of history because in his time philosophy of history was a form of historical knowledge competing with historical studies and not compatible with its strategies of empirical research. So he kept his conception of history in a pretheoretical status, which he called Ahndung (presentiment), and which can be described as a preconceptual con- templation. In this status his philosophy of history could work as an aesthetic element of historiography. The aesthetic luster of Ranke's historiography is a gloom of reason. It is reason which makes it possible to recognize temporal wholes in the underlying structure of events in the past, and which at the same time constitutes historical research as a rational procedure: to find out these wholes by "collecting, finding, and penetrating" the source material.

Characterizing aesthetics and its difference from rhetoric, I have said that aesthetics breaks the constraints of practical necessities in historiography in favor of a free relationship of its audience to historical experience and its role in the temporal orientation in practical life. By its aesthetics, historiography lightens the burden of history in the determination of human activity. It introduces into the historical predetermination of practical life. a chance for autonomy. How is

31. Cf. Michael-Joachim Zemlin, Geschichte zwischen Theorie und Theoria: Untersuchungen zur Geschichtsphilosophie Rankes (Wirzburg, 1988).


202 JORN RUSEN

this done by Ranke? His pretheoretical theory of history guides historians' sight through the empirical evidence of the sources to the moving mental forces of temporal change in the human world, and it makes these forces understandable as moving forces in the depths of historians' and their audience's subjectivity, where they constitute the historical identity, the "self' of them. So looking into the past, they find their self, the spirit of their life, in the form of a temporal whole. In Ranke's own words: the historian explicates with the experience of the past "the plans of God in his government of the world" and "the forces that are in action for the education of the human race."32 Historiography, therefore, by its aesthetics, addresses its audience in a way that makes visible the mental forces which constitute the identity of the addressed people in the temporal course of their life. This coming to oneself is the freedom inaugurated by historiography into the temporal orientation of practical life.

So far I have only characterized Ranke's aesthetics theoretically. It is still unclear what it means in respect to the political intentions and standpoints woven rhetorically into the texture of historiography, and it is still unclear as well how the deliberating and aestheticizing concept or vision of temporal wholes is presented historiographically.

How does one break historiographically the constraint of one's point of view, founded in one's standpoint in political and social life? It would be wrong to say that the objectivity of historical insight into the moving mental forces of temporal change neutralizes points of view or standpoints. Neutrality is not freedom; neutrality simply deprives historiography of the significance and importance of historical knowledge for practical life. Ranke's claim for objectivism should be understood quite differently: it does not avoid points of view or political and social standpoints, but offers a mode of dealing with them using a deeper and larger temporal perspective of actual practical life. It offers comprising, mediating, reconciling historical perspectives which can break the constraint of one- sided, exclusive points of view, without negating the practical needs for historical orientation. We can signify this historiographical introduction of temporal wholes into the dependence of practical life on standpoints, in Ranke's words, as guided by the intention "to let the people share divine liberty"33 in their practical life.

How is this done in the practice of history writing? This question leads us to Ranke's technique of historiographical composition. Its main principle is a narrative synthesis of general tendencies and structures and particular events. Ranke presents temporal sequences of events as manifestations of the fundamental forces of temporal change in the human world. He writes, so to speak, a structural history of the human mind in the form of a history of mainly political

32. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 184 ("den Planen der gdttlichen Weltregierung, den Momenten der Erziehung des Menschengeschlechtes nachzuforschen" [Ranke, Die r6mischen Papste, 221).

33. Ranke, De historiae et politices cognatione atque discrimine [On the Relationship and Differ- ence between History and Politics, inaugural lecture, 1836] (Sdmtliche Werke, vol. 24) (Leipzig, 1877), 290.



events.34 This is done in a very artistic way by fitting different levels of occurrences into each other.35

The deepest level is that of the principle of historical time in general. Ranke calls it the "great world-governing necessities"36 or the "invincible and ceaseless march of events."37 It appears historiographically only in very short passages surrounding important occurrences, bridging different sectors of the text. It appears not at all in the form of a theoretical digression or explanation, but in the form of a rather casual, accidental, and arbitrary remark.

The next level is that of an abstract appearance of this principle in the form of modes of temporal movements. Ranke speaks of tendencies of universaliza- tion and of tendencies of particularization, both fighting with each other and constituting a complexity of directions of temporal change. This level appears in the text in the form of summarizing passages, which indicate the place of particular developments that comprise the temporal whole.

The next level is that of actions of individuals, mainly of those persons who represent a political system, such as kings, popes, ministers. Their activity appears as the surface of historical occurrences; it fills the main stream of the narrative. Events thus are the flesh of empirical evidence on the bones of principles. By narrating them, the mental underlying structure of temporal wholes appears at the surface of what happened as reported in the surviving documents. Ranke narrates the temporal sequence of events in such a way that it appears as an ema- nation of non-eventful but - as we call them - structural processes, such as nation- building, constituting political relationships between states, emerging of political cultures, and so on. The events hold the place and actualize underlying structures of temporal wholes in their comprising tendencies. This significance of events is an outspoken formative element of Ranke's historiography. He speaks of "great moments"38 in which the general course of history is concentrated, and he uses the denomination and description of those moments as a dramatizing factor. He enlarges the description of those moments with considerations of alternative developments, of conflicting forces, of flashbacks and projections, thus elucidating the historical role of events as emanations of the temporal wholes, which give the course of events an historical meaning. Finally, they point to the temporal change in present-day life.

Ranke presents events as symbols; they appear in their narrative connection

34. Cf. Hans Schleier, "Narrative und Strukturgeschichte im Historismus"; Georg Iggers, "Histori- cism (A Comment)"; and Jorn Ruisen, "Narrative und Strukturgeschichte im Historismus," in Storia della Storiografia 10 (1986), 112-152.

35. In the following remarks I agree with a good deal of Hermann von der Dunk's observations in "Die historische Darstellung bei Ranke: Literatur und Wissenschaft," in Leopold von Ranke und die moderne Geschichtswissenschaft, ed. Wolfgang J. Mommsen (Stuttgart, 1988), 131-165, mainly 151ff.

36. "groJ3e weltbeherrschende Notwendigkeiten," (Ranke, Die romischen Pdpste, 64); in Iggers and Moltke, eds., 203: "coercive circumstances with universal implications."

37. Iggers and Moltke, eds., 185 (der "gewaltige und unaufhaltsame Gang der Dinge," [Ranke, Die romischen Papste, 23]).

38. For example, Die Romischen Pdpste, 57, 129.


204 JORN RUSEN

as units of singular occurrence and general significance, as temporally happening mediations of facts and meanings. This is how reason as the knowledge of temporal wholes appears historiographically as an aesthetic sparkle on the surface of a history of events. In his historiography Ranke seems to follow Hegel's philosophy of art, which defines beauty, the essential aesthetic quality of human products, as "the sensual shining of the idea."39

VI. OUTLOOK OF THE PRESENT DISCUSSION

It is not my intention to praise Ranke's Hegelianism or to give his mode of historiography an obligatory relevance for present-day history writing. I wanted simply to remind us of an historically important introduction of reason into historiography, which gave it a certain aesthetic quality. Historical studies has forgotten this aesthetic quality of modern history. It fell out of the self-awareness of professional historians, becoming an extradisciplinary gift and losing its internal relationship with the methodological rationality of historical research. It still remains forgotten in the postmodern turn of theory of history, rediscovering the rhetorical principles and procedures of historiography. Here it is forgotten as long as we do not distinguish between rhetoric and aesthetics, and ask ourselves how we can introduce the deliberating forces of reason into the restraints of practical needs effective in historical narration (as its rhetoric). We know that we cannot do it in the way of Ranke and his contemporary historiographers, because we have lost their confidence in an idealistic philosophy of history. That is not at all an argument against reason in history, but rather an argument to strengthen our quest for it. The post-modern recognition of rhetoric in historiography should not lead us back to premodern rhetoric but forward to a rhetoric of historiography which preserves the necessity of liberating reason in historiography and which reflects this reason not simply as a technique of research, but with a much wider and deeper approach to historical studies as a question of the aesthetics of historiography.

Universitdt Bielefeld

39. G. W. F. Hegel, Asthetik, ed. Friedrich Bassenge (Berlin, 1955), 146.


Documents

Rhetoric and Aesthetics of History