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The Analysis of Culture Revisited: Pure Texts, Applied Texts, Literary Historicisms, CulturalHistoriesAuthor(s): Warren BoutcherSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jul., 2003), pp. 489-510Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654237
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T h e Analysis o C u l t u r e Revis ited
u r e T e x t s p p l i e d T e x t s L i t e r a r y
Historicisms u l t u r a l Histories
WarrenBoutcher
Theory
Whatis the relationshipbetween studyof canonicaltexts and broaderso-
cial and culturalhistory?Thisquestion ies behindthecontemporary cademic
issue of historicism and the public culturewars thatbroke out in the late
1980s,butitwas askedby RaymondWilliams n the late 1950s andby German
and French ntellectualsof the 1930s. Forthepurposesof thepresentargument
I shall distinguishbetween threebroadphases in the responsesof those whohave taken the inquiry up most actively. Each phase began with what were
perceivedas crises orturning-pointsn thehumanitiescorrespondingo water-
shedsin widerhistory.The first andmostprofoundbeganafter heglobal crisis
of 1929-33 and continuedthroughthe global wars that followed. A second
beganin the mid-1950s afterMcCarthyism, heconsolidationof the ColdWar
and the Soviet invasion of Hungary.A thirdphase began in the mid-1970s,afterthe events of 1968 broughton the extendedperiodof social unrestwhich
foundone important picenter n the universitiesthemselves and which broke
out againin the morecivilized form of the culturewarsalreadymentioned.Most discussions of historicismdo not engagedirectlywith thepracticeof
history.The second half of the paperwill thereforeask what the theoretical
accountoffered in the first half means for historicalresearchthat startsfrom
past texts, and will include as one of its practicalexamplesa case-studyin the
modem intellectualhistoryofferedin outlinebelow.
This article s developedfromapaperdeliveredat theCambridgeHistoricalSocietyCollo-
quiumon TheUses of CulturalHistory, 13 May 2000, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
am gratefulto Prof. PeterBurke,Dr. Helen Castor,andQuentinSkinner.
489
Copyright003byJournalf theHistory f Ideas, nc.
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490 WarrenBoutcher
LiteraryHistories of Ideas
Afterthe FirstWorldWaran intellectualrevolt tookplace againstthe iso-
lation of aestheticexperiencein the European radition. twas led in England
and Americaby teacherswhowantedto establish hatthegeneralcritical ntel-ligence acquired n English literarystudies could be appliedin extra-literaryfields fromanthropology o social psychology. In England,English literature
as a single disciplinewas to be the liaisonfield of study ; n America t fell to
pre-professional iteraryeducation n general.'The commonprojectwas to use
refinedliteraryexperienceof texts as the base from which to conductvalue-
laden,historically nformedanalysisof thecontemporary roblemsof interwar
Europeanand Americansociety, of westernculture andcivilization.2As con-
solidatedin English intellectual culture between the pre-warand immediate
post-warperiodthis has been dubbedthe momentof Scrutiny, he influential
literaryperiodicalheadedby F. R. Leavis. InAmericanintellectual cultureit
mightwell be dubbedthe momentof PartisanReview,an equally influential
periodicalwhose leadingliterarycritic was Lionel Trilling.3Leavis's at once dissidentandelitist literarycriticism concealed a sociol-
ogy designedto salvagethehumanecultureof anearlierEngland rom amidst
thedecayof masscivilization.4TrillingusedEuropean ulture o critiquewhat
he perceivedto be the superficialityof modernAmericancivilization andlit-
erature.His criticismbecame the Ellis Islandof intellectual ife, theproductof
an immigrantculture desirousof assimilationby means of high cultureto anAmericansociety whose better values were formedby the Europeancanon.5Forboth, then, distinctive histories of society and social change, cultureand
culturalchange were central to the enterpriseof criticism.6Culturein their
handswas a value-ladenEnglishor Europeanway of life thatshapedandwas
shapedby the highestartisticconsciousness.As such, it carrieda new aware-
ness of alienationandrepression n the midstof modernsociety orcivilization.
The aesthetic critical sense of a Leavis or a Trillingwas now a sense of pastandpresentculturalandsocial life. Itcompeted successfullywith claimsto the
1F. R. Leavis, 'Scrutiny':A Retrospect, Scrutiny,20 (1963), 1-24 (9, 11).2 RaymondWilliams,CultureandSociety1780-1950 (Harmondsworth, 9632), 239; Peter
Watson,A TerribleBeauty:A Historyof the People and Ideas thatShapedthe ModernMind
(London,2000),450-53;AdamKuper,Culture:TheAnthropologistsAccountCambridge, 999),23-46.
3 FrancisMulhem, TheMomentof Scrutiny London, 19812);HughWilford,TheNew
York ntellectuals:From Vanguardo Institution Manchester,1995).
4WolfLepenies, BetweenLiterature ndScience: TheRiseofSociology,tr.R. J.Hollingdale
(Cambridge,1988), 175-88.
5MariannaTorgovnick, The Politics of the 'We', South AtlanticQuarterly,91 (1992),
43-63, esp. 50.6 See Mulhern,Moment, 57-78; and see Lionel Trilling, SincerityandAuthenticity Lon-
don, 19742).
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 491
same groundmade by what were seen as crudersociological theories of his-
tory, especially those of Marxistor progressive-liberal nspiration.This was
theonly formof culturalcriticismwidely on offerin literary tudiesin EnglandandAmerica beforethe late 1950s.7
WithinEuropean riticalphilosophya contemporaneous evolt tookplaceagainstthe isolationof speculative deas from the historyof experientiallyand
sociallysituatedhuman hought.Buildingonearlierdevelopments, adical ritics
of European dealism in the interwarperiod plantedone or otherversion of
hermeneuticor materialisthistoricism-Geisteswissenschaften, psychoanaly-
sis, criticaltheory,the sociology of knowledge, HeideggerianDestruktionof
the history of western ontology-at the center of speculative thought.8The
common goal was a historicistcritiqueof decliningwestern,especially Ger-
man, civilization and an agendafor its reconstructionor deconstruction.The
defeat anddestructionof Germany n thewardampened heconditionsfor this
critique.The immediatepost-warperiodsaw some aspectsrecuperatednParis
andsome assimilated n America via the intellectualemigration.9American ntellectualhistory, n themeantime,was moving intheopposite
direction, owardsmethodological dealismandaway from a social historyof
ideas.AmericanNew History'sown conjunctionof intellectualandsocial his-
tory peakedin the 1920s and early 1930s.10 t then came under attack for its
materialismand relativism as the crisis in Europedeepenedduringthe 1930s
and as thepoliticallymoreaggressiveintellectualson theconservativewing of
the American ntelligentsiabegantopressfor anew role inthe conservationofwesternvalues now under hreatattheirpointof origin (Europe).PerryMiller's
and ArthurLovejoy's work lived with the pressurefor an objectivist instru-
mentalismin Americanhistoriographyhatgrew duringwartime andthroughthe early Cold War, houghwithoutfalling into easy compliance. However,Miller and Lovejoy were increasinglyto promote disembodied ideas as the
basic facts of humanhistory,grounding heirwork on mind in text criticism.
Lovejoy's historyof ideas in particular acked the criticaltools to tackle our
opening questionin terms otherthan those of pureideas and theirrecurrence
throughhistory.1Emigre eo Spitzerdemonstratedhe limitsof Lovejoy'stext-
7 RichardOhmann, Englishand theCold War n TheColdWar&the University:Towards
an IntellectualHistoryof the Postwar Years New York,1997), 73-106.
8 See PaulHamilton,Historicism(London, 1996),esp. chs. 3 and4.
9JamesD. Wilkinson,The ntellectualResistance inEurope(Cambridge,Mass., 1981),ch.
I.
10RobertDarnton, Intellectualand CulturalHistory, The Kiss of Lamourette London,
1990), esp. 191-93.
Nicholas Guyatt, 'An instrumentof nationalpolicy': PerryMiller andthe ColdWar,
forthcomingn theJournalofAmericanStudies;RobertoFesta, Tempoe ragione: l SettecentodiArthurO.Lovejoy, La reinvenzione ei lumi:Percorsi toriograficidelnovecento, d.Giuseppe
Ricuperati Florence,2000), esp. 81-82.
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492 WarrenBoutcher
based historicalexplanationof theideas thatshapedHitlerism n thisjournal n
1944.12
Social Histories of Ideas
In a secondphase,betweenthemid-1950s andthe early 1970s, there were
attemptson all sides in the Anglo-Americancontextto breakwith whatwere
now perceived as outmoded or old historicismsin the humanities and social
sciences.13Particularly mportantorour theme was thegrowingbelief thatthe
political and intellectualcutting-edgebetween study of past documents and
contemporary nalysisof cultureandsociety no longer lay with conventional
high literaryanalysisof texts andideas.'4 The perceptionof crisis, of the end
of an era in the humansciences, was widely used in Britainand Americaas
justificationfor claims thata new phaseof neutral mpiricismor objectiv-ist scientism in the analysis of history, language, society, and politics had
begun.This was sometimes combinedonboth sides of theAtlanticwith apres-sureof expectation hat the new knowledgeto be producedby the humanities
andsocial sciences shouldbe instrumentalnsecuring he northatlanticway of
life perceivedto have emergedwith some finalityin the 1950s (Guyatt's ob-
jectivist instrumentalism ). hiswas to be the end of the eraof dominanceof
the old ideologicalhistoricisms,expressed n a catchphrase s the end of ide-
ology. 5
These claims were inturn nterpreted s new forms of ideologicalobfusca-tion by critics across a range of left-liberal and New Left political opinion.PeterLaslettattemptedo revive thetheoreticaland historicalstudyof politicalideas in the face of the forms of positivism he perceivedto be consolidatingthemselves in Britishintellectualculture.16 . P.Thompsonattackeda whole
intellectualgeneration's inertsurrendero the establishedfacts of Natopolisand AlasdairMacIntyrecritiquedconformismin the human sciences in the
1960 volume OutofApathy.17 The presentargument,however,which is con-
12 Geistesgeschichte s. Historyof Ideas asAppliedto Hitlerism, HI, 5 (1944), 191-203,
repr. n Leo Spitzer,RepresentativeEssays, eds. AlbanK. Forcione,HerbertLindenberger, nd
Madeline SutherlandStanford, 1988),207-21.
13See Donald R. Kelley, The Old CulturalHistory, History of the HumanSciences, 9
(1996), 101-26.
14 C. P. Snow, The TwoCultures,ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge, 1993);ErnestGellner,TheCrisisin the Humanitiesand the Mainstream f Philosophy, Crisisin theHumanities,ed.
J. H. Plumb (Harmondsworth,1964), 45-81, esp. 71-81; GrahamHough, Crisis in LiteraryEducation, dem,96-109.
15Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustionof Political Ideas in the Fifties
(1960; Cambridge,Mass., 19884);TheEnd of Ideology Debate, ed. ChaimI. Waxman New
York,1968).16Philosophy,Politics andSociety,ed. PeterLaslett(Oxford, 1956).
17E. P.Thompsonet al., OutofApathy, New Left Books (London,1960),20.
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 493
tinuous with this left-liberalposition, should not be takenas implyingthatbydefinition historicalwork on texts proceedingunder the ethos of the end of
ideology couldnotproveproductive n relationto ouropening question.The
criticallyrevisionist,scholarly,andanti-ideologicalstudyof thehistoryof phi-
losophy introducedby Paul OskarKristellerand consolidatedby his leadingstudent,CharlesSchmitt,proved highly productiveandincorporated tudyof
social and institutional actorsaffectingthe textual traditionof philosophicalideas (it is the subjectof one of the practicalexamplesof researchofferedin
the secondhalf of thispaper). 8 t theotherendof the spectrum heperceivedcrisis in the humanitiesprovidedthe atmosphere or a returnof grandtheory,
especially in FranceandGermany.This, likewise, was to prove very produc-tive for text studies,and took the form of a rangeof new and counter-histori-
cisms drawingon, modifying, deconstructinghehistoricismsof the inter-war
period nvokedabove:TheodoreAdorno'scritical heory,Hans-GeorgGadamerand JiirgenHabermason philosophical hermeneutics,Louis Althusser and
Michel Foucault on the historyof ideology andpower/knowledge,Lacan on
Freudianpsychoanalysis,JacquesDerridaon thehistoryof westernthought.19Inthemeantime,however,the most importantdevelopments rom theper-
spectiveof thepresentarticle followed on fromthe emergenceof the new his-
toriansand social scientists.20These historiansfundamentallycontested and
changedthe idealized histories of past cultureandsociety that had been built
up impressionistically romliterarysources.In their own termsthey were go-
ing againstthegrainof vulgarMarxistand other inear-teleologicalgrandnar-rativesthatimposed single directionson historyand that were potentiallyre-
ducible to ideological interests n the present.A vastly enlargedfield of social
andculturalconcernswas now fed by harder ocial andlogical sciences such
as ethnography,demography,and even analyticphilosophyand was more in
tune with the democratic,left-liberalpolitics of the expandinguniversities.
This new historical and cross-disciplinary rend,as diversely manifestedin
local intellectualconditions,will account for some of what provedto be the
most influentialfields and schools of historical and culturalstudy in this pe-
riod:the new socialhistory nBritainand thecrucialnew interests t opened up
8PhilosophyandHumanism:RenaissanceEssays in Honorof Paul OskarKristeller,ed.
EdwardP.Mahoney (New York,1976);New Perspectiveson RenaissanceThought:Essays in
theHistoryof Science,Education andPhilosophyin Memoryof CharlesB. Schmitt,eds. John
HenryandSarahHutton(London,1990).
19TheodorW.Adomo,CriticalModels:Interventions ndCatchwords,r.HenryW.Pickford
(New York,1998);JacquesLacan,Ecrits:A Selection,tr.Alan Sheridan London,1977), from
the French extpublished n 1966,two yearsafter he foundationof l'Ecole Freudiennede Paris;andsee TheReturnof GrandTheory n the HumanSciences, ed. QuentinSkinner Cambridge,
1985).20JimObelkevich, NewDevelopments nHistory n the 1950sand 1960s, Contemporary
BritishHistory, 14 (2000), 125-42.
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494 WarrenBoutcher
in areas such as the historyof the family,household,and gender;21new con-
tacts betweenthe studyof historyand the new social and culturalanthropolo-
gies in Britain,France,andAmerica;22he arrivalof the second andthen the
thirdgeneration fAnnaleshistorians, o which we mightattachnotonlyFrench
historians romEmmanuelLeRoy Ladurie o ChristianeKlapischbut theearlywork of CarloGinzburg,PeterBurke,andwhat became the Princeton chool of
social historians,with its socio-economic and culturalstrandsof historiogra-
phy (LawrenceStone,Natalie ZemonDavis, and RobertDamton).
Many of these new historiansandanthropologists,however,had received
a relatively traditional rainingin text criticism and the history of ideas and
took some of the resultingskills andconcernswith them.Even some of those
who did not incidentallydiscovered new possibilities and problems for the
interpretation f literaryevidence in the new historicaland social-scientific
contexts.It becameincreasinglyclearthat,as PeterLaslettremarked, conven-tional historicalor literary nference [fromthe evidence of past texts] is not
enough when one is seekingto understand he conventions andassumptionsof past societies and cultures.He made this remark n the course of an argu-ment which juxtaposedthe assumption,based on Shakespeare'sRomeo and
Juliet,thatmarriageatJuliet'sage was normal n theearlymodemperiod,with
separatedata based on parishrecords,which suggestedotherwise.23Laslett's
eventualconclusionwas that iteraryrepresentations f social and culturalcon-
ventions were distortedandthereforeuseless as historicaldata.24
In 1950 CliffordGeertz stumbled out of anundergraduatemajorin En-
glish andphilosophyandlooking for somethingrathermoreconnectedto the
worldas it was, wandered ntoanthropology.Whathe tookwith him from his
liberalartspast was a concernwith theroleof thought n history, and what
he neededwas a practicable rogramof empiricalresearch. 25AmongNatalie
Zemon Davis's experiencesat SmithCollege in the 1940s was a feeling that
herteacherswere not addressingquestionsthatinterestedherabouthow the
social worldrelated o theintellectualworld. Therepressiveanti-Communist
politics of the early 1950s providedthe conditionsin which she beganto use
printedbooks in sophisticatedways as data for a social history of religious
21 AdrianWilson, A CriticalPortraitof Social History, RethinkingSocial History:En-
glish Society 1570-1920 and itsInterpretation, d. AdrianWilson(Manchester,1993),9-58.22 FromKeithThomas, HistoryandAnthropology, Past andPresent,24 (1963), 3-24, to
Gayle Rubin, TheTrafficin Women: Notes on a 'Political Economy' of Sex, Towardsan
Anthropologyof Women, d. RaynaReiter(New York,1975), 157-2 1023PeterLaslett,The WorldWeHaveLost (London, 1965),87.24 PeterLaslett, TheWrongWaythrough he Telescope:A Note on LiteraryEvidencein
Sociology andin HistoricalSociology, TheBritishJournalof Sociology,27 (1976), 319-42.
25 CliffordGeertz,AftertheFact: TwoCountries,FourDecades, OneAnthropologistCam-bridge, 1995), 98, 115. See also JackGoody (TheExpansiveMoment:Anthropologyn Britain
andAfrica, 1918-1970 [Cambridge,1995], 118-43).
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 495
experienceandmoral sentiment n the Reformation.Deprivedof herpassportbecause her husbandChandlerDavis continued o refuse to takeanti-Commu-
nist oaths, she could not visit Frencharchives andwas forcedto work on rare
books in New York.26
TextualStudiesand CulturalStudies
The firsthalf of the thirdphase-to the late 1980s-saw the institutional-
ization of the newly recovered French and Germanhistoricisms and counter-
historicisms such as Anglo-American literarytheory and a range of radical
new approaches o texts andtextuality.These approacheswere conservative,
however,preciselyinsofaras they tightened hat dentificationbetween textual
analysisof discourseandtotal historicalexplanationsof thought,culture,and
society madeby pioneerssuch as Leavis andTrilling.27 xplaining he textbymeans of the applicationof one or another heoreticalconcept, explaining,for
example,the structure f ideology orsubjectivityrevealedby atext,would still
deliver in a privileged way the fundamental deas that have generallydeter-
mined society, culture,and the consciousness of individuals.28High literary
analysisreclaimed he ground t had held untilthe late 1950s. The left politicsof thisreclaim,however,precipitatedheattempted conservative estoration
of culturalvalues andthe culturewars thatbroke out with Allan Bloom's de-
nunciation of the decline in Americanliteraryeducation(The Closing of the
AmericanMind, 1987).29
Thesecondhalf of thethirdphasehas seen the rise to prominenceof intel-
lectual and culturalhistory within the historicalprofession in America and
Europe.If one scanseverybook onhistory n stockin aNew Yorkstore suchas
Labyrinth, nequicklygrasps hecurrent ituationof historicalstudy.The most
powerfully funded and internationally most importanthistorical industry
(America's)has convergedon the idea of culture,on the study of the ideas
shapingandshapedby culture.The bookshelvesconfirmthe thesis of a recent
book concerning he powerof culture nAmerica: he Americancentury, he
twentiethcentury,for example, is now studied-at least historically speak-
ing-more throughtsculture han hroughtspolitics,economy,orsocial struc-
26 JudyCoffinandRobertHarding, NatalieZemonDavis n VisionsofHistory,eds.HenryAbelove, Betsy Blackmar,PeterDimock, andJonathanSchneer(Manchester,1983), esp. 102,
104-7;Natalie ZemonDavis, Holbein'sPicturesofDeath andtheReformation tLyons, Stud-
ies in the Renaissance, 3 (1956), 97-130; Peletier and Beza PartCompany, Studies in the
Renaissance, 11(1964), 188-222.27
Hamilton,Historicism,131.
28 See T.Eagleton,CriticismandIdeology(London,1976);Literature,Politics and Theory:
Papers romtheEssexConference1976-84,eds. FrancisBarker,PeterHulme,Margaretversen,andDianaLoxley (New York,1986).
29 PeterWatson,A TerribleBeauty,721-36;Ohmann, Englishandthe ColdWar, 6-104.
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496 WarrenBoutcher
ture.30nsofaras this relatesto historiciststudy of past texts, the agendahas
been set by the Americannew historicism of StephenGreenblatt,which has
providedthe point of crossover between grandtheoriesof textualityanddis-
course and the new culturalhistory.
Applied Texts
The presentarticlewould proposean optimisticview of the optionsmade
available o studentsof artandsociety or textandculture not ustbyAmeri-
can new historicismbut by the cumulativeenterpriseof all three phases of
twentieth-centuryntellectualhistorysketchedabove. Ingeneralterms,the in-
ternationalization f post-colonialstudies since the late 1980s,the new empha-sis on hybridization,migration,and mobility both in the conduct andin the
contentof the humansciences,has creatednew andcomplexmodelsof cultureand freedup disciplinaryboundariesonce more.31The pointof view assumed
here, however, is primarilya methodologicalone thatsees particular alue in
the studyof a new kind of data.Forthe ongoing theoreticalconstructionsand
deconstructionsof new historicisms should surely acknowledgethe ongoingconstitutionof new kinds of empiricaldata(and vice-versa).32 shall refer to
these data as applied exts and claim thatthey are valuableinsofar as theyreveal intellectual and culturalhistory as a social process. The data results
from bifocalknowledgeof thehistoryanddetail of anartefactand of theactivi-
ties, practices,conventions,andoccasions of a society;the outcomeis a simul-
taneouslysharpenedperceptionboth of aspectsof the artefactand of the dis-
tinctiveexperiencesandinstitutionsof a society.33The goal, in otherwords, is
a formof interdisciplinary ulturalanalysis.The post-warperiodhas seen a cumulativediscoveryof appliedbases on
which to relate cultural artefactsand slices of history.The result is that the
researchercan choose not to startfrom a de-socialized artefact( pure ext ),which is reified as art n some hypotheticalspace separate rom a reified soci-
ety andplaced outside the process of history.This happenspriorto its being
put back in a static and pre-preparedhistoricalcontext, aligned with a pre-determinedhistorical rendorcrackedopenby theapplicationof a theory.The
researcher an,rather, hoose to discover the artefact n anactive orinteractive
setting,as an appliedtext of verifiablehistoricity.
30 ThePowerof Culture:CriticalEssays inAmericanHistory,eds. RichardWightmanFox
and T. J.JacksonLears(Chicago, 1993).31 See After Colonialism:ImperialHistories and Postcolonial Displacements,ed. Gyan
Prakash Princeton,1995).
32 E. P.Thompson,ThePovertyof Theory:Oran Orreryof Errors(London,1995).33 MichaelBaxandall,PaintingandExperience nFifteenth Century taly:A Primerin the
Social History of Pictorial Style(Oxford,1972), 151-53.
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 497
The basicparadigms orthe differencebetweena pureandanappliedtext
emergefromthe studyof thehistoryof thebook,though analogousparadigms
emergein thehistoryof otherarts(especially painting)and sciences. Thepuretext is notconfrontedas a particularmaterialbookthatalreadyhas a social life,
thatis produced,bought,exchanged,and readin particular onditions.It is thetext read andexperiencedas words andideasnow in criticalhyperspace orthe
play spectated n thevirtual heatre).Thehistoryof the book starts romcopiesof editions of textsowned and markedby owners,butthecontrastinglyappliedtext is not the copy of the edition or the material,markedbook itself. The
format n which a text is publishedas anedition is indeedconcrete evidenceof
producers'choices and the annotatedbook is indeed concrete evidence of an
interactionbetween text andreader;butneithercantell you much unless com-
binedwith otherkinds of circumstantial vidence.An appliedtext is rather he
historicallyandculturallyconditionedpatternof habitualperceptionandpur-posive reaction hatcanbe inferred romcopies of books when combinedwith
otherevidence. It is this combinationwhichreveals the social relations,occa-
sions, andconventionsshapingthe producers'patternsof intention n and the
reader'spatternsof interactionwith thebook.34
Thepolitical and intellectualcutting-edge n this kindof studywill often
derive from the fact that the appliedtext looks more contingent,more selec-
tive, more fashioned,and more directedthanthe puretext. The text historian
may as a result seek to readto read the associated sources againsttheirown
grainin order o recoverwhathasbeenoccludedorexcludedin termsof social
experience or political agency.At the same time an appliedtext may reveal
fractures,discontinuities,andincommensurabilitieswithin a traditionheld to
have originatedwith a greatworkor a whole seriesof greatworks and to have
achievedcontinuityby means of its long-standingcritical ortuna. This is dif-
ferentfromtherelativisticdeconstruction f a traditionon speculativegroundsand is closely related to the consequencesof Kuhn'shistoriographyof para-
digms for a conventionalaccount of the history of rationalprogresstowards
the scientific truthabout the naturalworld.
Furthermore, s recentanthropologistsof art and commoditiesinsist, the
questionof whatthe artistwas doing in makingthe artefact using the artistic
capacities and conventionsavailable to consumersin his/her time) need not
necessarilyfeature n avaluableculturalanalysisof art.35Where tdoes feature
and producesdetailedanswers,a gulf may open up between the cultural as-
34 See JohnLocke, TwoTreatisesof Government:A Critical Edition with an Introduction
and ApparatusCriticus,ed. PeterLaslett(Cambridge,1960); and AnthonyGraftonand Lisa
Jardine, 'Studied for Action': How GabrielHarveyRead his Livy, Past and Present, 129
(1990), 30-78.35AlfredGell,ArtandAgency:AnAnthropologicalTheory Oxford, 1998);TheSocialLife
of Things:Commodities n CulturalPerspective,ed. ArjunAppadurai Cambridge,1986).
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 499
torical analysis of institutionalizeddisciplines, individualcareers,and indi-
vidual works might show, it has not always been that simple or thatopen in
practice.SvetlanaAlperswas surprisedby the resultsof a 1985 symposiumon
the question Artor Society: Must We Choose? (to be discussed in detail
below); the general answer,framed from very differentperspectives,was aqualified yes. Some leadingtext historiansseparatework thatgoes in direc-
tions opened up by the new historicismin text studiesfrom work thatgoes in
the directionof culturalhistoryevenwithina singlebook,as we shall see in the
conclusionbelow.41
Practice
Theprecedingdiscussion has been on one level anattempt o makehistori-
cal sense of a problemof direction thatrecursin the course of my own re-search.I refer to the point in the processwhereI sense the force of an obliga-tion to choose either to go back with a treasurehoardfrom explorationsof
widerculturalhistoryto theworld of textuality, o the-for me-safer activityof re-interpreting text,producinga new meaning, rto go on andrisknever
gettingback home o textualityat all. To go on means acceptingthe practi-
cal, ethical,andintellectualresponsibilitiesof a differentkind of pursuit, hose
of a generichistorianof culture as opposedto a culturalhistorianwho teaches
history in a history department),and no longer defining oneself solely as a
specialist in particularkinds of texts and theirinterpretationas, say, a practi-tionerof new historicist culturalpoetics ).This has consequencesformy ac-
tivities as a teacherof texts in Englishin a university.Before considering wo
practicalexamplesfrommy own research,considertwo fromthe work of se-
nior British scholars.
Paradigmsof Art andSociety in British IntellectualCulture:
Michael Baxandalland Lisa Jardine
In the early 1950s Michael Baxandallwas a studentof literarycriticismunder F. R. Leavis.42By the early 1960s he was writinghis earliestarticlesin
arthistoryunder he aegis of E. H. Gombrich.By 1971 he hadmovedthroughartinto culturalhistory: apictorialstyle gives access to the visual skills and
habits, and,through hese,to thedistinctivesocial experience of a culture.43n
a contribution o a Representationssymposium of 1985 at the peak of new
historicism he gave a fascinatingaccount of a failed piece of research.The
41 StephenGreenblatt,Hamlet in Purgatory(Princeton,2001).42 IanMacKillop,F R. Leavis.:A Life in Criticism Harmondsworth, 995), 8-9.
43 Baxandall,PaintingandExperience,152.
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500 WarrenBoutcher
account can still serve as a lens to scrutinizemuch of the workwhich bridges
texts/ art andsocial/ culturalhistory-whether ornotwithintheexplicit idiom
of new historicism-in the currentclimate.44
In his contributionBaxandallrecalls his unwillingnessto return rom in-
quirieshe hadpursued nthe social andculturalhistoryof Siena,criticalequip-ment in hand,for an interpretation f the paintingwith which he had started,
AmbrogioLorenzetti's GoodGovernment. Moreparticularly, e hadstarted
fromcertainaestheticpeculiaritiesof the painting,partlyderivedfromjuxta-
positions with otherpaintingsof the periodandpartlya matterof the naked
eye. He thendid arespectableamountof reading n Sienese social history n
searchof the social facts thatwould match these peculiarities.In the differ-
ent circumstancesof arthistoryhe was looking for the equivalentof whathas
been describedhereas an appliedtext. Baxandallcaricatures he principalre-
sultingmatch as one between theunifyingfunction of Justice'sdancing girlsin the tidily roundcity in the paintingand contemporarymercantile Siena's
urgentneed for social cohesion in the urbansector of the state. This result,
however,did not satisfy him and the researchwent unpublished.He felt there
to be somethingmeretricious n the way he had used terms to matchpictorial
thing and social thing. Therewas no clear pictorial indicationof whether a
depictedsocial conditionwas fact or aspiration, epresentation r compensa-tion. The terms of relation he was using made a weak half-claim to some
stricter elation-of causalityorsignification ranalogyorparticipation-which
he ultimatelyfelt he could not uphold.He relied too much on prevaricatingwords such as reflect, represent, follow or come out of. Otherwords
such as balance orgedtoo abstractanduninterestinga connection between
thecompositionof thepictureand the desiredsocialrelationbetween townand
country.Baxandall'sconclusion is thattheweaknessof his termsof relationderives
fromthe overbearingexplanatorypressureput one way on the modulationof
society nto culture, where culture s understood svalues,beliefs,means
of expression,and the otherway on the modulationof art into society by
means of the idea of artas institutional. romthepointof view of thisarticle,Baxandall'sarguments not that heserelationscannotbeestablished, hat hese
modulationscannotbe made to work. Thepoint is, first,thatthey need to rest
on a more appliedbasis than the one he was able to posit in this piece of re-
search. Baxandallsubsequentlywent on to work out means of validatingthe
applicationof thisor thatbit of circumstance o the historicalexplanationof
a picture.Whereearlier n his careerhe had started rom worksof artandgonein the directionof a culturalhistoryof distinctivesocial experience, n Pat-
44MichaelBaxandall, Art,Society,and heBouguerPrinciple, Representations, 2(1985),32-43. Thesymposiumwas chairedandeditedby SvetlanaAlpers.
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 501
terns of Intention he was to found an applied art criticism on a method for
explainingpaintingsas the solutions to specificproblems n concretehistorical
situations.45
The second importantpoint to be taken fromBaxandall's contribution o
the Representationssymposium and from Patterns of Intention is thereforethat the terms of relationbetweenpictureandsociety will not work eitheras a
culturalpoetics or as a sociology of culture which aims historically to
explainand contain he total aestheticformof theartefact, o matchthe form of
a pictureor a text and the form of a society. Baxandall here pins down the
methodologicalmoves that can result in the confinementof the energiesof a
text within an all-encompassingweb of meaningor an all-powerfulset of so-
cial institutions.46
This is in effect a valuablecritiqueof the excesses of 1980s new histori-
cism. Baxandalldoes not saythathe is offeringsuchacritiqueanddoes not usetheterm cultural oetics, butStephenGreenblatt ppears n the samesympo-sium with his work on King Lear and exorcism, and the journal is after all
Representations.47here s no question hat hespecific bridgeGreenblattmakes
in his piece betweenEdgar'stheatrical mpostureas poorTom andcontempo-
raryestablishmentexposure of the fraudulent heatricalityof phenomenaof
demonicpossession is anoriginal,valid andenduringone. Thesame could be
said of Louis Montrose'sbridgebetween the situationof Orlandoat thebegin-
ning of As YouLike It and the place of the younger brother n Elizabethan
society, as also of Lisa Jardine'sbridge between Emilia's Why should he
[Othello]callherwhore? andtheconstitution f a verbal ncidentas an event-
a technical defamation-within an earlymoderncommunity.48Theproblem s what onetriesto buildon oraround hebridge,whichway
it is traversedand with whatpurpose.Onehasthreeapplied exts,preciousand
rareglimpses of culturenot as a reifiedthingbut as a socially distinctiveform
of experienceconsistingof aninteractionbetween apiece of artand a groupof
people. Onehas a view from betweenthe literaryhistoryandthesocial historyof the connectionbetween the textualand the social in termsof a sharedcom-
munalexperienceof possession or of the statusof a disenfranchised oungerbrother or of witnessed verbal events as defamation. n Greenblatt'scase,
the movement of the [subsequent] nterpretations the passage from art to
45 Baxandall,Patternsof Intention,118-21.
46 See MoragShiach, 'CulturalStudies' and the Workof PierreBourdieu, French Cul-
turalStudies,4 (1993), 213-23.
47 StephenGreenblatt, Exorcism ntoArt, Representations,12 (1985), 15-23.48 Louis Montrose, 'The Place of a Brother' nAs YouLike It: Social Process and Comic
Form, ShakespeareQuarterly, 2 (1981),28-54;LisaJardine, 'Whyshouldhe call herwhore?'Defamationand Desdemona'sCase, AddressingFrankKermode:Essays in CriticismandIn-
terpretation, d. MargaretTudeau-Clayton nd MartinWamer(London, 1991), 124-53.
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 503
Williamstraditionof new social and culturalhistorybutsympatheticneverthe-
less to new historicism,Jardinewas another rained iterarycritic and intellec-
tual historian nterested n the questionwith which we started.She followed
predecessors ike Michael Baxandalland Natalie ZemonDavis in resistingthe
excesses of the powerfullytextualized andaestheticizedconceptof cultureatwork in the historicismof Greenblatt ndMontrose.Hermovementinsistentlyand repeatedly back-and-forth between particular dramatic moments in
Shakespeare'sOthello and the narrativesof defamation in the church court
records,a movementwhich respectedas far as possible the integrityof each
kindof context,textual-dramatic ndsocial, was the resultof a differentset of
choices aboutthe goals of research.
Jardinewas still lookingfor a match ut notamatchbetween the form of
theplayandthe formof our ulture,betweena representation nd a need.
Rather, theshapeof the tale becomes structurally ignificant,as it matches heshapesof othertales, told in the earlymodem community o other,more occa-
sional,judgmentalends. She was providinga strongparadigmof an appliedtext as a datumthatcan change ideas in both directions(literaryhistoryand
social history).Thejuxtapositionof dramatic ext anddepositionsvia the spe-cific historicalconnection of defamatorynarrativesharpensfor both literarycriticand socialhistorian hesense of shared ultural onventionswhere'lived
experience'was given expressionandacknowledgment. 51Most importantlyt
sharpens he distinctionbetweenprivately circulatingrumorandgossip anda
publicverbal event of defamation n the communalsphereto which an active,
judicial responsecan be made. In this way talkaboutwomen, both on the
partof modem critics of Othello and as a matterof eventswithintheplay,can
be historicizedas a culturallyandhistoricallyvariousphenomenon,which calls
up differentresponses, includingaction, in differentcircumstances.This was
neither culturalpoetics, nor culturalhistory,but something in between, a
moreappliedbrandof intellectualandculturalhistorycentered n text studies
but not confined to issues of textuality.Itwas ultimatelyaboutsomethingthat
women could do.
Applyingthe AnnotatedBook in EarlyModemIntellectualHistory
There follow two briefattempts o situateanswersto the questionposed at
the beginningof this articlein accounts of case-studies in appliedintellectual
history.The firstexample uxtaposesChristopherMarlowe'spoemonthe theme
of Hero andLeander 1598) and a contemporaryEnglishhumanist'sannota-
tions in a printed ext of an epic Spanishversion of the same theme (1543). I
was interested,as othershave been, in peculiarfeaturesof Marlowe'spoem:
51Jardine, 'Why should he call herwhore?', 142.
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504 WarrenBoutcher
Leander's ong, ineptoration, he strangedigressionin the middle,the endingin mediasres.The standardhistoricizingapproachesaddressed hequestionof
what Marlowewas doing with the Greek source, intertextualrelationswith
otherEnglishepyllia, theories aboutthe role and statusof poetry,thepoet and
thepoet's self, literary-theoreticalssues of genderandpower.Itappeared romthe secondaryliterature hat Hero and Leander, a greatpoem which most
teachersof literaturewouldwant a student o read,has remained n therapidly
dwindlingEnglishRenaissance eachingcanonlargelythanks o proponentsof
culturalpoetics.52 n theirhands the preoccupationsof modem gay culture n-
formthe reconstruction f thepoem's historicallyspecific form of homoeroti-
cism.
How could I recover an appliedbasis for assessing the poem's cultural
relationship o its readersand to other literatureof the period? Assuming the
poem to have been composed some time in the 1580s or early 1590s, I castaround or contemporary ieces of evidence for the circulationof the storyof
Hero and Leander n Englandandin particularor the kindof evidence which
providesmaterialfor the social historyof the book andof reading. AlthoughMarlowe mentions only the GreekauthorMusaeus,a differentand insistent
answer cameup from threesources connectedwith Englishhumanistcontem-
porariesof Marlowe,those of Ovid and the Spanishpoet Boscin.53
When I consultedBartholomewYong's annotations n a copy of Boscanandcompared hem withAbrahamFraunce'srhetoricalanalysisof selections
from the volume of Boschn and Garcilaso'sSpanishverse (in his rhetorical
manual) foundmymatch.Bothhumanist eaders oncentratedeavily,amongstallthepoemsinthevolume,onBosctn's Leandroandthe first wo of Garcilaso's
eclogues. Withinthese poems they tended to highlight or markup the ora-
tions andthe narrativepastoraldigressions.Thematch, then,was betweenthe
eye contemporarymale humanist readershad for narrativedigressions and
declamatory et-piecesin the SpanishLeandroand the digressive pastoralhis-
toryandlengthy pseudo-orationMarlowe nserts nhis Hero andLeander.The
contemporary rominenceof theSpanishpoeminEnglish literary ulturemade
historicalsense of thejuxtaposition.I hadmy appliedtext,which amounted otheevidenceconcretely inkingthepoem's formwithhabitsof literaryanalysissharedby a particulargroupof male readersandappliedto a sharedcanon of
classical andvernacularexts. Furthermore, beganto notice thatthe forms of
the two poems had a common structure,a triptychwith a digressive center-
52 See Bruce R. Smith,HomosexualDesire in ShakespearesEngland:A CulturalPoetics
(Chicago,1991), 132-36;GregoryW.Bredbeck,SodomyandInterpretation:Marloweto Milton
(Ithaca,N.Y., 1991), 127-29.
53 See WarrenBoutcher, 'Who taughtthee Rhetoricke o deceive a maid?':ChristopherMarlowe'sHero and Leander,JuanBoscan's Leandro,and RenaissanceVernacularHuman-
ism, ComparativeLiterature,52 (2000), 11-52.
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 505
piece, andthatthere seemed to be closer imitativerelationships hanhad hith-
erto been noticed betweentheEnglishandSpanishdigressions.When I reachedthis point halfway throughthe research,the temptation
was to flee back across the bridge with my data from the social history of
readingandre-interpretMarlowe'spoem using the interpretivekey providedby a new understanding f the digressionat its center.At thevery sametime I
beganto be aware of otherpossibilities.Thehomoerotic tease n Marlowe's
poem might now be grounded n a specific sense of sharedhumanist iterary
preoccupationsand the politics of the new social formsof intimacyor friend-
shipbetween menthey engendered.54This could be placedin a still widerper-
spective: firstly, the Spanishand Europeanculturalcontexts of the Boscin-
Garcilasovolume, one of the most successful books of lyric poetrypublishedin the sixteenthcentury,and second, the importation,ownership,and use of
such books in Englandas a culturalconditionof the Elizabethan iteraryRe-naissance.
It was at thispoint thata draftof thepiece went into ajournalof new and
comparative iteraryhistoricism,ComparativeLiterature.Thereadersspotted
my uncertaintyover direction andthe best of them recommendedunequivo-
cally that themain event should remain thereadingof Marlowe and that
thetitle shouldreflect the fact. 55t is worthnotingthatno equivalent mpera-tive to make the readingof poetry-English or otherwise-the main event in
my research s implied by my employmentas a universityteacher of English
literature.My institution,the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary,
Universityof London,is committedto a very broadandinclusive conceptof
Englishstudies,a conceptI am defendingin this article.
The problemwas that in the meantimeI had become less not more con-
vinced thatthe readingof Marlowe was the mainevent thatMarlowewas the
main culturalevent, and not Boscan. The main cultural events in the storyseemed now to lie in the 1520s and 1530s, in the genesis of Boscan and
Garcilaso's book within the culturalcontext of the triumphant ampaignsof
CharlesV and the Duke of Alba and in the precedentthis set within notjust
English but Europeanculture.My context would not keep still as a fixedframewithinwhich to re-interpretmy textbut hadbegunto displacetextas the
centerof attention,not for the first time. However, the particularapproachI
was takingto this context, the reasonwhy it seemed interesting,would have
been differentif I had not startedfrom an interestin Marlowe's text and its
peculiarities.The appliedtext hadchangedideas in both directions.
54 AlanStewart,CloseReaders:Humanism ndSodomynEarlyModernEngland Princeton,
1997).55
I amimplyingno criticism of ComparativeLiteraturehere.Thejournalcombines a clear
focus with efficiency, professionalism,and editorial lexibility.
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506 WarrenBoutcher
Whatnow seemed crucialwas a recoveryof thespecific form of theshared
culturalexpectations hatwere callingforth,with self-consciousbelatedness,a
national English literature n the 1580s and 1590s. Shapingthis literature
was a perceptionof the powerfulculturalprecedentsalreadyset by authorita-
tive relationshipsbetweenliterary extsproduced n the international ernacu-larsof France,Spain,andtheItalianstates andthehumanists'canon of ancient
classical modelsand also between therecent nterconnecting istories of those
empiresand states and their wars and the canonicalhistoryof the states and
empires of the ancientworld. Paradigmaticof this was the relationshipbe-
tween Boscan's Leandroand Ovid's Heroides, 1520s and 1530s triumphsof
CharlesV and the Duke of Alba, and the triumphsof the Caesarsof ancient
Rome.Thisandotherparadigms reated heexpectationabouttherelationshipbetween contemporaryhumanistreaderssuch as Yong, Fraunce,and Gabriel
Harveyandtheirpatrons'classical andmodemcontinental exts inGreek,Latin,French,Spanish,andItalian.Theirsharedexpectationwas that an Englishhe-
roic literature f translations ndimitationswould insert tselfbelatedlywithin
this establishedcontinentalscene. It formedpartof the ideological contextof
forward rotestantism.Despitethe factthatoppositionto SpanishHabsburg
Europedefinedthe internationalProtestantmovement,the latterreliedheavilyon Spanish imperial precedents n the spheresof culture,politics, and enter-
prise.ThepoliticalexpectationnformedbytheseSpanishprecedentsof the 1520s
and 1530s, that the EnglishProtestant tate and its noble soldiersandgeneralswould assertthemselves in continentalculture,politics, andwarfare,was at its
height nthe 1580sand 1590s. Hencethepositioningof PhillipSidney'sArcadia
between GreekHeliodorus,ItalianSannazaroand SpanishMontemayorand
the culturalsignificanceof the NetherlandscampaignagainstSpainin which
Sidney fought,died, andgaineda European eputation.All this begins to ex-
plainthe set of expectations hatmighthave surrounded n Englishedversion
of Heroand Leander n the 1580s, early 1590s.The invitationon theone hand
is to thinkabouthow theywereexploitedby Marlowe;on the otherhand t was
to move towarda studyof the culturalpolitics of heroicsentiment n sixteenth-
centuryEurope.But the questionatthispoint in theresearchwas: is it appropriater desir-
able to follow thejournal'sdirection n going back to the main event of a re-
readingof Marlowe'spoem as the centraltext in the investigationand as a
central text in the EuropeanRenaissance vernacularliterarycanon (which
Boscin's poem is not)? One incentiveto answeryes came fromprofessionaland pedagogical considerations.How would I convert this research into an
approachwhichwould engage students n a classroomwhen no Englishtrans-
lations are availableof Bosc~in'spoemandwhenitwould be necessaryto teach
a large slice of RenaissanceEuropeanculturalhistory before getting to the
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 507
point for studentswho have enjoyed readingMarlowe's text? On the other
hand,how could my exclusive goal now be to returnwith this material o ex-
plaintheaestheticformtakenby Marlowe'spoemwhen,promptedby thespe-cific detailsof the relationshipbetweenMarlowe's text andthe prioritiesof a
certainkind of contemporary eader,I hadbecome interested n the Europeanculturalconditionsof the attempt o forman Englished ersionof a priorset
of classical-modern extual andhistoricalrelationships?My strong nclination
in otherwords was to pursuethepathsthatopened up in bothdirections,butI
felt myself constrainedby institutionalandpractical actors.ThejournalI had
chosenputcertainobligationson thedirectionof the researchandthearticleas
publishedreflectsmy attemptas it proceededwithin theparametersetby that
obligation.
Applyingthe EditedText in Modem IntellectualHistory
The secondexampleis a piece of researchpublishedhereforthe firsttime
on two books that the greatestRenaissancescholar of the twentiethcentury,Paul OskarKristeller,prepared orpublication n Italyin 1937 and 1938, after
havingbeen exiled fromGermany n 1933-34. One was a philological edition
of texts by Marsilio Ficino thathad not been publishedin the early printededitionsof Ficino'sworks,the other a monographon Ficino's speculativephi-
losophy.56The first duly made it into printunderthe auspices of the Scuola
Normale at Pisa in 1937; the second was supposedto be issued by Sansoniin1938 but was blockedby theanti-semitic egislation brought nby Mussolini's
government hatyear.My principalnterestwas inthe fact that hebetter-known
textual edition had originally been designed as a complementto the mono-
graph,which was publishedduringthe war in English and afterthe war in
Italian. For the monographseemed to have only a very obscureplace in the
post-war prominenceof Kristelleras the founderin the United States of the
criticalhistoriography f Renaissancephilosophy.57ndeed,readin the Italian
text made readyfor publication n 1938, it did not seem like the work of the
assimilatedAmericancitizen of the 1950s and 1960s. It seemed, above all,morepoliticallyandintellectuallycommitted hananythingKristellerwrotein
thepost-warperiodandmorecharacterized y thelanguageof Europeanphilo-
sophicalhistoricism.Fromhis base in ColumbiaUniversity,Kristellergained
widespreadacademicrecognitionfrom the Americanand international om-
56 PaulOskarKristeller,Supplementum icinianum:MarsiliiFicini Florentiniphilosophiplatonici opuscula inedita et dispersa primumcollegit et exfontibusplerumquemanuscriptisediditauspiciisregiaescholae normalissuperiorispisanae Paulus Oscarius Kristeller(2 vols.;
Florence,1937);andIIPensierofilosofico di MarsilioFicino (1953; Florence, 1988).57 JohnMonfasaniis gatheringandeditinga collection of essays that will documentthis
prominence.
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508 WarrenBoutcher
munityof Renaissancescholarsduring hepost-warperiod;but he gainedthis
recognitionnot forhis work on Ficinoandphilosophicalspeculationbut forhis
bibliographicalprojectson manuscript esources,his generaltextbookson the
historyof Renaissance hought,and-above all-for his historicizationof hu-
manism.58The significanceof Kristeller'shistoricistapproach o humanism ay in a
growing perceptionthat some philosophersand Renaissancescholars in the
post-warperiodwere runningthe risk of generalizingparticularmomentsof
humanism'spastas ideological support or intellectualprojects ocatedfirmlyin the republicanor liberaldemocraticpresent.Kristeller'sexcavationof the
historicalcontinuities n the professionalcultivationof a set of transmissible
literary kills throughouthe medieval andrenaissanceperiodsdissociatedhu-
manismperse fromany particular deologicalposition.However,theadoption
of this revisionist emphasisran the opposite risk, in his disciples' hands,of
makingall humaneknowledgethat s embedded n thepassionsandinterestsof
a particularmomenta matterof mere rhetoric, herebyauthenticating nly
pure peculationandemptyingthehistoryof humanismof commitmentand
public ideological significance.The questionsI began to formulatewere these. What had been screened
out in termsof Kristeller'sown commitments n theprocessof his highly suc-
cessful assimilationto Americanacademicculture?Whatin his own andhis
generation'sexperiencemighthave motivated hisparticular istoricizationof
humanism?I startedout by attempting o recover somethingof the pre-war
philosophicalcontext of Kristeller'swork. This was notactuallyverydifficult,
for Kristellerhimself hadmeticulouslylaidout the intellectualcontext needed
to understand is earlywork onFicino.59Hisown leadshelpus insert he Ficino
workwithin the riseof theacademicsub-disciplinewhichfinally gave respect-
abilityto the historiographyof Renaissance,as opposedto classical or medi-
eval ormodem (CartesianandKantian)philosophy.From Kristeller'spointof
view this historiographys continuous fromthe 1880s to the present day and
itself constructs till longercontinuities n thehistoryof westernphilosophical
traditions.One can document the proposed match here very precisely by
demonstratinghe relationshipbetween the idiom and method of Kristeller's
Italianmonographon Ficino and that of thenew inter-wargenerationof ideal-
ist textbooksonthehistoryof philosophy.The textbooks nquestiongavemuch
58 Forexample,andrespectively:IterItalicum.:A FindingListof Uncataloguedor Incom-
pletely CataloguedHumanisticManuscriptsof the Renaissancein Italian and OtherLibraries,
Volume, Italy:AgrigentotoNovara,ed. Paul OskarKristeller Leiden, 1963);TheRenaissance
Philosophy of Man, eds. ErnstCassirer,Paul OskarKristeller,and John Herman RandallJr.
(Chicago, 1948), Paul OskarKristeller, Humanismand Scholasticismin the Italian Renais-sance, Byzantion:InternationalJournalof ByzantineStudies, 17 (1944-45), 346-74.
59 See theprefacesto IIPensierofilosofico.
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TheAnalysis of CultureRevisited 509
more space and dignity thanwas traditionallyallocated to Renaissancephi-
losophyandfurthermorensistedon theconnectionbetween thehistoryof phi-
losophy, the editing of texts, and the actualphilosophicallife of speculationinto which studentswere to be encouragedat the various levels from middle
school to elite university.One could stopthere,with a perfectly respectablepiece of criticalhistory
of philosophy,in the mold that Kristellerhimself helped institute n America.
But what of the culturaldimension of the historyof philosophicaltexts and
teaching,andof the discontinuitieswhich we have seen tendto emergemore
insistently in that dimension? The bridge in this case was the juxtapositionbetweena text fromthe backof Kristeller'sSupplementum, nd a photographof a civic occasionwhichtookplace in the villa of theItalian-JewishpublisherLeo Olschkiin April 1937.60 This finally providedthe appliedtext I had been
looking for. Whatwe see is GiovanniGentile,Kristeller's Italianmentor and
patron, naugurating n exhibition of Renaissancephilosophicalandhumanis-
tic manuscripts n the presenceof importantdignitariesand scholars.At the
end of the speechhe was also to present Kristelleras the authorof thepub-lished SupplementumFicinianum and the soon-to-be publishedmonograph.
Here,once again,we have a glimpse of a particularormof historicalrelation-
ship between a social groupand a set of archivaland relatednew, scholarlytexts.Webegin to apprehend distinctiveculturaldimensionto the exhibition
andproductionof philosophicaland humanist exts from the era of theMedici
in late 1930s FascistItaly.Thepursuitof that dimensiontakesone in different
directions,furtherandfurther rom the taskof an interpretationf Kristeller's
texts within the traditional rameworkof criticalhistoryof philosophy.One is
working towardsa contributionboth to the history of culture and education
under talianFascismandtothehistoryof theintellectual migration.Kristeller's
life is particularlypoignant n this respectas his first and failed emigration, o
Italy, was in many intellectual and social respects more promisingthan his
subsequentandsuccessfulemigration o the United States.
Onthisoccasion,theinvestigations madeintothebackground f thepho-
tograph ook me into the field of the social and institutionalhistoryof educa-
tion.61They revealedhow completelyKristeller'swork on Ficino in Italybe-
tween 1934 and 1939 was articulated,presented,andpublicized throughthe
cultural nstitutionsandmilieux that derived fromGiovanni Gentile's educa-
tionalriformaof 1923.Throughout is life, Kristellerwas wholeheartedly om-
mitted to the educationalpolitics that lay behind this riforma,thoughhe ex-
60 Thephotographspublished n Centrotredicinni:Catalogostoricodella mostra:Firenze
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale 22 aprile-23 maggio 1999, ed. Alessandro Olschki(Florence,
1999), 77.61 See, for example, Fare gli italiani: scuola e cultura nell'lItaliacontemporanea,eds.
SimonettaSoldani and GabrieleTuri(2 vols.; Bologna,c. 1993).
8/12/2019 Pure Texts, Applied Texts, Literary Historicisms, Cultural Histories
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/pure-texts-applied-texts-literary-historicisms-cultural-histories 23/23
510 WarrenBoutcher
pressed his commitmentmore nthe Italian han nthe Americanpublicsphere.62
Historyhadmoved on. Thekind of education n classicalphilology andspecu-lative philosophyhe believed fundamental o western civilization was simplynot a possibility in post-warAmerica;in Italy it remaineda half-reality, f a
constantlyopposedandcompromisedhalf-reality.What we see in the photograph, in short, is the public activation of
Kristeller's combinationof neoplatonismand philology as a civic and peda-
gogical examplewithin a particular ubcultureof Fascist Italy.The situation
gets still more complicatedand particularwhen we considerthatthe photo-
graph tselfhas a culturalhistory.Forin thetotallydifferentconditionsof 1944
it was circulatedby Leo's son Leonardo as the relic of the pre-warculture
which was sustaininghis hopes for the futurein the desperationof the war
years.63Eugenio Garinwould later see it in similarterms, as the bridgebe-
tween the humanecultureof the pre-waryears and the attemptedpost-warreconstruction f thatculture n Italianeducationandsociety.64
Analyzedmoredispassionately,however,it becomesa glimpseof one his-
torical manifestationof thepossible relationsbetweenscholarlytextualwork,
philosophicalthought,andthe educational nstitutionsandpolitical elite of a
particularsociety. The relationsbetween Ficino's thoughtand quattrocentoMedici society would be anothersuch historicalmanifestation,different n its
own particularway. By Septemberof 1938, one of the dignitariespresent,
GiuseppeBottai,was enforcingthe new, anti-semitic egislationin the educa-
tional and culturalsphere.Gentilehimself did not publically opposethe legis-
lation, thoughof coursehe did help Kristellerandothers find routesto other
countriesand otheremployment.The Florentine ivic humanism apturedn
the photograph enters on the assimilationof the services of scholarlyJewish
benemeriti-Leo Olschki in the past and Paul Kristellerin the present--toItaliannationalculture.Such assimilationprovedexpendablewhen it came to
thepoliticalcrunchof a fascistregimeimposingits ideology on people's lives.
A momentof humanistcultureand theideologicalcommitments hatwentwith
it passed into history.
School of EnglishandDrama,QueenMary,Universityof London.
62 ColumbiaUniversity,OralHistoryResearchOffice, PaulOskarKristeller, ranscript f
interviewswith WilliamLiebmann,13March 1981 to 25 February1982,217.
63 Casa EditriceLeo S. Olschki S.r.l.,Viuzzo del Pozzetto 8, 50126 Florence,Miscella-
neousfolder, MaterialeKristeller archive nprocessof being inventoried),LeonardoOlschki
to ElviraOlschki, 19 June1944.64EugenioGarin, AldoOlschki,editore, Olschkiunsecolo di editoria1886-1986 II:La
casa editriceLeo S. Olschki(1946-1986), ed. Stefano De Rosa(Florence,1986), 168-71.