Lamb Historical Reenactment

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Historical Re-enactment, Extremity, and PassionAuthor(s): Jonathan LambSource: The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 49, No. 3, Reconstructing History: Literature, History,and Anthropology in the Pacific (FALL 2008), pp. 239-250Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41447882 .Accessed: 22/05/2013 23:31

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Historical Re-enactment, Extremity, and Passion

Jonathan LambVanderbilt niversity

In April, 004, conference as held at Vanderbilt niversity n the opic fhistorical e-enactment. t was impelled y two questions, ne general ndoneparticular. hegeneral uestion oncerned he growing opularity f re-enactedhistory s popular entertainment nd popular knowledge.Once aweekend ctivity or nthusiasts orwhatGregDening allsthehallucinationof the past as the present n funny ress), t has migrated o television o be-come hepreferred odeofdocumentary resentation f, or xample, ife n

Greenwich n 1900, ife n a trench uring he First WorldWar, r life s afighter ilot during heBattle f Britain. he particular uestion oncernedthe xperience hared y four f us on the re-enactment f the atter hird fJames Cook's first oyage during he summer f 2001,commissioned yBBC2, nd eventually roadcast n a variety f networks s The hip. t wassixweeks of privation, hich n different egreeswe all found ntense, er-plexing, nd hard o summarize. n this paper, want to outline ome of theprovisional nswerswe found o these uestions, nd to ndicate ow thesemight ontribute o a new departure nhistoriography.

The answer o the general uestion eems t first elativelyimple.Historyseems lwaysto renew tself y reducing hedistance etween he past andthe present. n axiom of Enlightenment istoriography as that he emo-tions of the audience ought to be engaged n any representation f pastevents,which ught herefore o be sufficiently articular nd vivid n orderto fix he ttention f the reader. avid Hume considered t odd that dwardHyde,first arl ofClarendon, houldhurry ver he death f Charles with-out giving single ircumstance f the execution, s if he "felt pain fromsubjects, hich n historian nd a reader f nother ge would regard s themost pathetic nd most nteresting, nd, by consequence, he most agree-able/'1 orhis own part, Humepaused n his History fEngland ogivea de-taileddescription f he death f MaryQueenofScots, scene ovivid ne of

239Theighteenthentury,ol. 9 o. 2008 Texasechniversityress

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240 THEEIGHTEENTHENTURY

his readers was able to form miniature axwork f t, nd toreport,

I hadthe sorrow f seeing the Queen,her two female omesticks . . the execu-tioner, he offin, caffold tc. ll under glasscase, nd compleating mostaffecting cenery/'2 ord Kames was an enthusiast or his proximate ndhighly ympathetic pproach to history. e called it "ideal presence" r"wakingdream," heeffect rocured pon a reader y a historian ho ap-peals to the eye, nd "represent[s] very hing s passing n our sight; ndfrom eaders r hearers, ransform s,as it were, nto pectators .. in a wordevery hing ecomes ramatic s much s possible."3 herewerevariousma-chines uilt n the ighteenth entury esigned oexcite he ensations o thepointwhere his ramatic ransformation ouldtakeplaceandbring hepastinto the presentmoment. hilippeJacques e Loutherbourg's idophusikon(1781)was the most elaborate, nd in one of its most powerful cenes tshowed the wreck f the East ndiaman Halsewell, ith rashing aves andsurvivors linging o a rock.

In the next entury, hese fforts o reduce he distance etween he udi-ence and the past were regarded s hopelessly ejune. Probably ecauseHume had alwayscoolly eenbalancing ognitive nd affective lements nhis negotiation f historical istance,4 ill found n his history o trace f

flesh nd blood. "Does Hume throw his own mind nto the mind of anAnglo-Saxon,r an Anglo-Norman? ouldnot he ight, f t couldbehad,ofa single ableor pair of shoes madeby an Anglo-Saxon,ellus, directly ndby nference, ore f his whole way of ife . . than Hume . . has contrivedto tellus?"5Ever ince, istorians ave been trying o reconcile ognitive m-partiality ith ffective nterest y writing istories hat espond o the pres-sures f the ives ofordinary eople, not distantly ut mmediately, omesti-catingwhatevermight ave seemed exotic bout history. erhaps hemostastonishing xamples of this are provided by Benedetto roce and R. G.Collingwood, orCroceplaces sympathy and sympathy f peculiarly or-mal sort at the heart f the historiographical nterprise: Do you wish tounderstand he rue history f a Neolithic igurian? . . Try fyou can to be-come a neolithic igurian n your mind Do you wish to understand hetrue history f a blade of grass?Try o become a blade of grass."6As forCollingwood,while carefully voiding he mputation f sympathy n hisconception f re-enactment, eenjoins pon the historian heduty f uch acomplete dentification ith hehistorical bject hat t s indistinguishablefrom ympathy. o write he true history f Thomas Becket s to becomeBecket: For Becket, n so far s he was a thinking ind, eingBecketwas

alsoknowing hat e wasBecket; nd formyself, n the ame showing, o beBecket s to know hat am Becket, hat s,to know hat am my wn presentself e-enacting ecket's hought, yself eing n that ense Becket."7 nd tis to Collingwoodwe owe the name of this ntimate xercise: istorical e-enactment.



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LAMBHISTORICALRE-ENACTMENT,XTREMITY,NDPASSION 241

Sothehistory

fhistory

ooks ike continuous eduction fhistorical is-tance, hedismantling f the obstacles hat ivide us from nowledge f thepast. Thishistory s told of the peoplefor hepeople, nd sometimes eemsindistinguishable rom ublicmemory: hat all of us may recall, iven herightmnemonicogs.Somehistorians ave warned gainst he onsequencesof supposingno obstacles o exist n historical ork. EricHobsbawm,whohas noted heperils f mistaking istory ormemory, elieves hat the de-struction f he past .. is oneof he most eriephenomena f he ate wenti-eth entury."8ngaClendinnen aswritten n essaycritical f historians hoinvite heir eaders nto n identification ith historical igures y meansofwhat she calls "untutored mpathy."9 ntitled The History uestion:WhoOwns the Past?"the ssay s unsettling n ts failure o answer ts own ques-tion, or t s clearly otthe historian, oryet hepublic. t maybe the dead,or the most popular ivingwriter f past events, r myth; ut Clendinnensuspects oliticians re keenest f ll to get heir ands on t.

In the meantime, here as been a spateof re-enacted ocumentary isto-ries hat upply hedemandfor articularity, mmediacy,ntimacy, ain,do-mesticity, nd sympathy y focusing n real peoplewho have volunteered oinhabit econstructed wellings f the past 1900sHouse 1940sHouse Fron-

tier ouseRegency ouseIron-age ort and so on and to endure ll the rig-orsand privations f he riginals. his s only part f heboom ndustry fhistory. ritish istorians uch as SimonSchama,David Starkey, nd NiallFerguson re celebrities, ll bidding or ontrol f the public magination, lleager to tell us what the past was really ikefrom heir oint of view. KenBurns s the ole trustee f he conic moments f he American ast: heCivilWar, heJazzAge, nd the econd WorldWar. n Britain, he ixtieth nniver-sary of the D-Daylandings n 2004was a celebration ot only of the vent,but also of the variety f historicalmodes n whichhistory an be replayed.Therewere alking eads,re-enactments f training nd landing, ramatiza-tions ntercut ith rchival ootage hat esembled emarkably heopeningscenes f Stephen pielberg's aving rivate yanritual tate ageantry t Ar-romanches ith heads of tate ubbing houlderswith ld infantrymen, ndheartwarming ersonal tories, uch as the old soldier from New Zealandwho missed his bus and got a lift ack to Paris n President hirac's en-tourage. t was proof f the versatility f n extremely opular nd powerfulacademic iscipline. hevarieties f ts presentational tyles etoken wide-spread desire o have history made present o the magination f ordinarypeople, aken ut of the hands of an elite, nd democratized. o domesticat-

inghistorical vents n a vivid nd recognizable ay, ringing hem ome it-erally o the house, ike he gentleman hobroughtMaryQueenofScots ntohis parlor this s what re-enactment oes best.

In Northanger bbeyJaneAustenhas her heroine atherine Morland aisethese ssues ust t the imewhenHume'streatment fhistorical istance was



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242 THE EIGHTEENTHENTURY

found o be tooremote. atherine'sialogue

withHenry ilney

nd hissisterElinor n the relativemerits f fiction nd history rings p the problem fpainand the epresentationfpain a problem hat s never ery ar rom heaffective resentation f the past. According o Catherine, istory lwayschronicles ainful vents "warsor pestilences") nd it transfers portion fthat ain to the reader. he imagines istorians labouring nly for he tor-ment f ittle oys nd girls."10 enry ssumes hat n saying o Catherine susing torment s a synonym or nstruction, ut this may not be so. In theGothic ovels he prefers oread,Catherine xpects obe moved o sympathyby "awfulmemorials f some njured nd ill-fated un,"usually djacent oinstruments f torture, r by horrors uchas those hat ie beneath he blackveilof Udolpho.11he has an appetite or verything hat s horrid n fiction,and a disgust or verything hat s painful n history. linorTilney nder-stands hat t s not ny xclusive ommitment ofactuality hatmakes histo-rian's torment nequal to a novelist's n Catherine's yes, for Catherine saware that history s partly iction, ith mbellished cenes hat never ookplaceasthey rerepresented, nd speeches hatwerenever ctually poken sthey rewritten. o, t s asElinor urmises) hat istorians arenothappy ntheir lights f fancy."12f theywere, owever, atherinemight e as happily

tormented y them s she s by Mrs.Radcliffe. or t s while he s immersedin her historical ovels that he experiences arnes's deal presence, or heimages nthem re o complete, hey ave"the ffect otransport he eader sby magic nto hevery lace and time f he mportant ction." While haveUdolpho to read, feel as if nobody could make me miserable. h! Thedreadful lack veil!" riesCatherine.13ere, hen, s the elation etween astviolence nd present greeableness hatHume defended rom larendon'slaconic en. t focuses n a question atherine ill oonbe able to answer, utnot n thewayshethinks: Whatwasit ike o be Mrs.Tilney?" hestory hatunfoldswith her nside s not heone she was trying o tell. he willbecomeMrs.Tilney erself, nd in an unexpected ay experience he dentificationwith figure rom he pastdescribed yCroce nd Collingwood.

Theproper djustment fpain to sympathy eems oprovide he ffectivebasis of re-enactment, nd I want to probe his spectof t further. he En-lightenment urned ften o the question f why we delight n scenes f uf-fering, irst f allby way of commentary n Aristotle's iewof tragedy s apurgative f the passions, nd secondly s an opportunity f nalyzing ym-pathy. Roughly, herewere four divisions nto which ympathy ell n theeighteenth entury, nly wo of whichwere responsive oAristotle's heoryof tragedy. herewas moral ympathy, n instinctive esire o be at onewithothers hat rovides he entimental oundation f ociety nd virtue, ccord-ing to Francis utcheson.14 heatrical ympathy f he ort ecommended yAdam Smith equired degree f elf-control rom he victim n order owinthe audience's ompassion, oruntutored gony s alwaysunattractive nd



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hard o share. Then here was mechanicalympathy,

hichwe cannot voidfeelingwhen confronted y scenesof distress; t found patrons n BernardMandeville,Edmund Burke, nd to some extent aurence Sterne. Then,lastly, herewas what Hume called compleat ympathy" a full ubstitutionof pectator or ictim, n which assions n both ides reach he ame pitch,and the one knows exactlywhat the other s feeling.15 ristotelian ragedycouldeasily o-opt hefirst nd second, ut the hird s purely pontaneous,ungovernable, nd so is the fourth, eing unlimited n extent. Neither sadapted for he modifications f ffect ecessary f he ight f pain s to staywithin heboundary f pleasure.Mandeville xamined hetorments f me-chanical ympathy n a notorious cene of a pig eating child n The able fthe ees whose moral alue was nil,he said,becauseeventhe greatest illainon earth would not be able to behold t unmoved.WilliamGodwindrama-tized he horrors f complete ympathy n CalebWilliams.

Given he nvestment f re-enactment n the ffective ather han he og-nitive lements f history, t s intriguing ofind hat t falls oughly nto hesamedivisions s eighteenth-centuryympathy. isinterested, heatrical, e-chanical, nd unlimited ympathy orrespond o the four hief ivisions fre-enactment hat name here: ageant, heater, ouse, nd realist.

Pageantry ncludes ny ritual epresentation f past actor event, uch sa passionplay or a church mass or a public xecution, hosepurpose s theaffirmation f a senseof community, hether f faith, lace,or nation. Herepain tends obe exemplary, nd sympathy sheartwarming ecause t unitesthe spectators ith the participants n a public testimony f the value ofshared uffering. henHutcheson, urke, nd Adam Ferguson magined hepossibility f a scene of public sympathy, hey hose a large open spacewhere state riminal as about to be executed. ening s alluding opag-eant whenhe talks f history s publicknowledge f the past, not public nthe sense of being nstitutional, ut public n the sense of being culturallyshared."16 woyears go, the Battle f Waterloowas re-enacted n Belgium,and in the Solent, hips one of them made of wood)maneuvered orepre-sent the battle f Trafalgar. ecently n Hexham, n the north f England,therewas a re-enactment f an event hat ookplace243yearsbefore, henPitt heElder mposed onscription n the ocal population nd fifty eoplewere killedwhile resisting t a lot more ivesthan were ost t Peterloo, sthe organizers ointed ut. t was run by the HexhamCommunity artner-ship; presumably, oth the sense of community nd partnership erestrengthened y the xercise.

The theater fhistory s rather more ntimate, nd perhaps losest o whatDening calls performance nd what CatherineMorlandwould call happyflights f fancy. certain mount f extravagance s appropriate n order olift istory bove the evel of iteral act, ut not quite to the height f spiri-tual, national, r communal ageantry. n Smith's heater f sympathy, or



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244 THEEIGHTEENTH ENTURY

example,here s a careful

egotiationetween he needs of an individual

and the nclinations r taste f the public.The art s not to suffer itually npublic, ike he tate riminal, ut ostage ne's suffering nsuch waythat twillbe acceptable o the udience; hen nd only hendoes a reciprocal m-pulse between ctor nd spectator nsure degree f mutual pproval hatkeeps ifting he rt onew heights. hemost uccessful certainly hemostesteemed experiment n this ine of theater s Jeremy eller's The Battle fOrgreave, hich ecreated ne of the mostbitter ncounters etween minersand police during he 1984 miners' trike. eller used former miners ndmembers f military e-enactmentocieties o produce omething hatwasneither ageantry orrealism, ather curiously ender ttempt o frame heagony f he riginal, nd to familiarize hatever ad beenunforeseen r un-intelligiblen t. Shortlisted or he Turner rize n 2000 nd thenmade ntofilm y MikeFiggis, t qualified s a notable xample f what W. G. Sebaldcalls "the repeated nd virtuoso epresentation f suffering." imilarly, n-other rtwork y YinkaShonebare, hortlisted or he Turner rize n 2005along with nother ieceby DellercalledMemory ucketis a masked ball(basedon Verdi's Un ballo n maschera)epresenting he ssassination f Gus-tav II ofSweden.Three imes he murder s repeated, sing xactly he ame

steps nd gestures, nd three imes he victim rises, inally erforming n re-verse he highly rnate equence fhis entry nto he palace.The third ategory f re-enactment call "house" as shorthand or ll re-

enactments onsisting f private articulars iterally nd copiously ssem-bled n a closed pace.Lacking public r theatrical imension, r any claimto virtuoso erformance, ouse re-enactment oncentrates n the awkwardlittle hings hat efine n historical oment. ts nterest or viewing ubliclies in the accumulating rustrations uffered y the re-enactors, ho areoften ound weeping r shouting ith xasperation t their nability o con-trolwhat hey re doing r where hey re.House has a lot n common n thisrespectwith eality V,for he pectator avesdrops pon those ncalculableaccidents hat constitute he nterest f the scene, s there s scarcely nystory. he hip a sort f house, xemplified he onflict etween he ppealofunexpected ccidents nd an intentional arrative. he drama the voyagewas supposed (at least at first) o re-enact was Cook's dilemmawith theGreat arrier eef whether o sail nside nd make discoveries t the risk fhis ship, r to sailoutside, afely nd gnorantly. asically, is obwas to see fAustraliawas oinedby the hip or shoulder othe Great outhern ontinent.The drama f this earch ncapsulated hegreat aradox f Cook's career s

Cook saw it: whether e was tobe damned or emerity henhe osthis shipor damned for imorousness hen he lostAustralia.With globalposition-ing ystem osupplement he unar bservations f he navigators, nd scantinterest hownby any but the historians n the niceties f ighteenth-centurycharts, his rama never ook ff s the ontinuous e-enactment f n earlier



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LAMB HISTORICALRE-ENACTMENT,XTREMITY,NDPASSION 245

voyage.or

historyobecomevivid t all on The

hipthere eeded

lwayso

be some sort of excitement n the present which corresponded urely bychancewith he historical acts nd suddenly uthorized heir mportance.Without hat contingent entimental perture, istory emained nvisible.Nostalgia, ickness, landing t a remote sland, r 9/11; hesewere he nec-essary timuli o sympathy ith hepast. Although heproducer egan thevoyageby emphasizing hatwhathe called extreme istory" adnothing odo with eality V, n fact t had a great eal n commonwith t. n both asesthe nterest s kept up by the crises hatdevelopfrommoment o moment;and these are owing almost xclusively o the artificial estrictions f thehouse the hip, he sland, heroom.Certainly t s no exaggeration ocallthese restrictions xtreme, r the feelings hey rouse ntense. amuel John-son's comment n Clarissa pplies equally well to these xtreme ituations:we would fret urselves o death o find plot, we must nstead espond othe entiment.

Nor does there eem to be any imit o this xtremity. hreeyears go afight ookplacein Channel 's BigBrother ouse when two evicted ontest-ants werereintroduced fter pending weekspying n their ormer ouse-mates.DavidWilson, professor f criminology, esigned s a consultant o

the program, aying e could no longer e associatedwith show that pro-voked interpersonal iolencefor ntertainment."17 ut this high degree oftension s the magnet or he pectator, nd it generates powerful mechani-cal sympathy etween he human object nd the viewer.Here s a viewer'saccount f watching mma, who had a fierce ow with Victor uring hebrawl on the BigBrother et, as she brooded n the aftermath: Emma sshown itting lone,watching screen, ating risps with ravenous,me-chanicalmotion. Poor sod,' I think. hen realize that am sitting lone,watching screen, ating eanuts with ravenous,mechanicalmotion."18think Mandeville s right, owever, opoint ut that here s no moral valuein this kind of sympathy: t is as ungovernable s the sceneprovoking t.Perched n the matchstick f a topgallant ard, racedby my thighs gainstthe yard,my feet n a thread f footrope, ith he eachof a sail beatingmeon the face, felt o bereft f presence f mind hat ll couldpossibly epre-sent was an object, nd not a very graceful ne. A shipmate n a safer evelcomparedme to an ill-parked olkswagen. participant n Channel 's TheTrenchued the ompany or ost-traumatic tress isorder, nsuccessfullysit turned ut;but the uit erves o showthat here s no necessary r fore-or-dained imit oextremity; nd the greater heextremity, hegreater he cu-

riosity hatwillbe shown y the udience.Butwhat s remarkable bout becoming heobject f mechanical ympa-thy s that t s a very assionate xperience. n fact, t conforms ery loselyto the difference etween ction nd passion, hedifference etween oingsomething nd having omething one to oneself, stablished y Spinoza n



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the Ethics "We act whensomething

akesplace

within s or outside of uswhose dequate ause we are/'19 n the ther and, motion r affectusrisesfrom hose modifications f hebodyby means f which tspowers f ctionare augmented r diminished: Insofar s the mindhas adequate deas, husfar t necessarily cts, nd nsofar s it has nadequate deas, hus ar t s nec-essarily assive/'20 mind operating nder he nfluence f passion s in avain pursuit f an adequate dea. The reason t will never ind t s owing othefact hat he odyhasbeenchanged y thepower f omething eyond t.It may ry o nvent n adequate dea,but uch n explanation illalwaysbea fiction: The essence of passioncannot e explainedmerely hrough uressence .. it must necessarily e defined y the power of some externalcausecomparedwith ur own."21 assion s what happens o us which s notour own: "Weakness onsists n this lone, hatman allows himself o be ledby things which re outside him, nd is determined y them o do thosethings which the common constitution f external hings demands."22CatherineMorland eels he ruth f thesepropositions, s she becomes artof a story he was not telling f herself. ny re-enactor eels t too:all thoseawkward ittle hings n the house are pushing imor her nto passionateexperience ith vents otally nplanned, nd about which no coherent r

adequate dea canbe formed. ence, hefrustration nd the houting. ence,the ager uriosity f he udience: what ouldpossibly appen next?If there s a point o this heerly ortuitous xtremity, t ies n the harper

and sharper pecification fwhat t s like obe someone lse. What want oconsider now are the circumstances f a limitless ympathy Croce as ablade of grass.How might hisbe possible, nd what would ts effects ooklike?Allfour inds f ympathy re the result f sking, What s it ike o bein someone lse's shoes?" One answer uitable oall is, "It s like being npain."Thereason he fourth ind of ympathy s so hard o magine r com-

passis that he

painhas to be linked o a

person,r rather wo

persons.f

Catherine orland s to get n answer o her uestion, Whatwasit ike o beMrs. Tilney?" heremust be two people representing heperson with hatname. imilarly, he nswer o ThomasNagel's tougher uestion n the opicof sympathy, What s it ike to be a bat?" requires hat here e somethingwhich t s like o be a bat, whatever t s that epresents hebat to tself, ndthe human who can identify ith hat representation.23his s how Smithputs t n TheTheory fMoral entiments: Though ympathy svery roperlysaid to arise from n imaginary hange f situation ith heperson hieflyconcerned, et his maginary hange s not upposed ohappen ome n myown person nd character, ut n that f the person with whom sympa-thise."24 hat s to say, t happens to me in the person of the person withwhom sympathize.

Let us go back to Collingwood nd his sympathy orThomas Becket.Whatwas Becket eeling henhe was beinghacked o death on the ltar f



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LAMB HISTORICALRE-ENACTMENT,XTREMITY,NDPASSION 247

Canterburyathedral?

ollingwoods Becket does not

say. Althoughe

adapts xactly mith's tructure f ympathy or is nterrogation f hepast,Collingwood as no interest n feelings. ere s how he positions ispersonalongsideBecket's: For Becket, n so far s he was a thinking ind, eingBecketwas also knowing hathe was Becket; nd for myself, n the sameshowing, o be Becket s to know hat am Becket, hat s, to know hat ammy own present elf e-enacting ecket's hought, yself eing n that enseBecket."25ut as for ny sympathetic easoning f the thoughts e derivesfrom hisnarrowing fhistorical istance, e s unequivocal: We hall neverknowhow the flowers melt n the garden f Epicurus, r how Nietzsche eltthe wind n his hair s he walked on the mountains; e cannot elive he ri-umph of Archimedes r the bitterness f Marius;but the evidence f whatthesemen thought s in our hands; nd in re-creating hese houghts n ourown minds .. we can know . . that he thoughts e createwere theirs."26So, t s all a matter f hought nd cognition: ollingwood's istorical e-en-actment s specifically on-affective.

Here s a very ncient xample f re-enactment here he opposite s thecase.In the eighth ook of The Odyssey, lysses rrives s a stranger n thecourt f Alcinous nd hears Demodocus ing f he Trojanwar.Thesong sso

vivid, so lively orming s you had bin there," hatUlysses sks the bard tocontinue, nd tell of the stratagem hichbrought uin o the town nd itspeople.As he istens o the ale ofhis own deeds,Ulysses xperiences is for-mer victory s an appalling isaster, nd breaks own:

This hedivine xpressor idsogiveBoth ct nd passion hat e made t ive,AndtoUlysses' acts id breath fireSodeadly uickning hat t did nspireOld deathwith ife, nd renderd ife osweetAndpassionate hat ll there elt t fleetWhichmadehimpitie isownecrueltie,Andput nto hat uth opure n eieOfhuman railtie,hat o see a manCouldso revive rom eath,yetnowaycanDefend rom eath, isownequicke owers tmadeFeele here eath's orrors, nd he felt ife ade.In teares isfeeling raine wet: or n thingsThatmovepastutterance, eares pealltheir prings.Nor re there nthePowres hat ll ife earesMore rue nterpreters f ll than eares.27

Here s a double re-enactment: emodocusreciteswhat Homerhas alreadytold, nd Ulysses eliveswhathe has already xperienced. heresult s an en-



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248 THEEIGHTEENTHENTURY

counter ithdeath opassionate

ndoverwhelming

hatAlcinous as toputan end to the performance.

Demodocusgives hose fus interested n re-enactment useful int. Un-limited ympathy s not only pain, t is sympathy or he dead. CatherineMorland mbarks ponher xperiment n sympathy ith hepastby gazingat the portrait f a dead woman. n Wilfrid wen's poem "MentalCases/'whichJon ilkinhas characterized s "sensuous re-enactment" hevictimsare ntroduced s "men whoseminds he Deadhave ravished." omeoDal-laire, heCanadian ommander f he UNpeacekeeping orcenRwanda, e-came a mental ase because his mind would fill gain and again with hesounds and smells f genocidehe witnessed nd could not top, nd he re-calls, I think omepart f me wanted o ointhe egions f the dead."28 hisdesire s strongly ainted n one of the best anecdotal histories f re-enact-ment, onyHorwitz's Confederatesn the Attic. obert ee Hodge,his hero,performs s a corpse.He can do Civil WarBloat t the drop of a hat, flaw-less counterfeit fphotographs f he dead at Antietam nd Gettysburg: Hishands curled, ischeeks uffed ut, his mouth ontorted n a rictus f painand astonishment."29t s his party rick, ut he has learned t whilecloselystudying atthew rady's hotographs f corpses, leaning hekind f doc-

umentary vidence hat willdistinguish ishardcore e-enacting rom hat f"farb" mateurswho neglect uthenticity. istinctive eltbuckles, hewidthand color f the piping n the rousers, he trips f carpet sed as bedrolls,the corrugated inof a canteen trapped o the waist of a dead Confederatesoldier the ccuracy f uch details s crucial o the uccess f re-enactment.Hence, henecessity fmarching ometimes ithout hoes, f limming ntilyou fit nto he very arrow imensions f butternut niform ut o the izeof original niforms. he 1860spatina of the brass buttons s obtained ysoaking hem n urine, nd the texture f the material "a bit of gray lothwith ust the right mount f dye and the xactnumber f threads" is

keptgenuine y neverwashing t.30 here s no imit o the pursuit f his ort f fi-delity, specially f t nvolves iscomfort r pain.Authenticity rovides heevidential ridge nto he past;while old,fatigue, nd misery pen the roadto the tate f ntense apture odge callswargasm, eaking, ushing, eingtapped, Goose-bump ity, nd Nirvana.Whenhe arrives t these tates ffeeling, odge sable to experience imself s a person n a photograph notas a bloated corpse or a generalized nknown warrior, ot as an actualnamed ndividualwith history, ut as an anonymous ctual other ersonwho fought nd probably ied at Manassas, r Shiloh, r Gettysburg midst

a setofhistorical ircumstances hatHodgecanpartly ut very ccurately e-produce.At his best, hat s to say at the xtreme dgeofhis game,Hodge sthe person f hat erson.

If we speak of history hrough ympathy ith the dead, if that s ulti-mately hepoint f the various ypes f sympathy hichre-enactment e-



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ploys,whencedo we derive he

uthorityo

speak?From he dead?I think

not, for hey ake our person nd give us none n return, r nothing ut aname.Or they riveus mad. n any case,we get ccessto them nlyby pas-sion,whenwe are n the grip f n idea whoseadequacywe cannot ossiblydetermine. ny tory hat assion nvites s into s not one of our nventingor telling.Mechanical nd unlimited ympathy, nd the re-enactments heysponsor house and realist are awash in incalculable hances nd unfore-seen contingencies orwhichno one is fully esponsible. uthority erivesthen not from ur representation f the fatalities f history ut from istoryitself, nd its rrangement f theseunpredictable ircumstances. istory u-

thorizes s as its actors o speak on its behalf. resumably e speak mostpersuasively hen there s the east of us left,when we are maximally e-pleted by sympathy, igured s something r someone lse and most com-pletely n service o the gency f whichwe speak.Whenwe are no longerstrictly urselves nd can talk with delegate's onfidence f an inhumanpower, forcewhoseeffects e can onlydescribe, nd whosetendency s itsown business, hen do we achieve the kind of re-enactment f historyCollingwood magined s the basisof realhistoriography. ut our perform-ances under icense of the personifications f Death and Historymake the

past present o us in the east onsolingway, y emphasizing owpoorlywecontrol ts mergencies, owpoorly ur nadequate deas embrace hem, ndhow quickly nd totally hey an silence s. Sebald warns f this tate f af-fairs n his essay, Onthe Literary escription fTotalDestruction." e men-tions he blindness nd confusion f those aught up in History, nd says,"Theautonomy f humankind n the faceof the realor potential estructionthat t has caused s no greater n thehistory f he pecies han he utonomyof he nimal n the cientist's age."31think hebewilderment ehistoriansfelt n The Shipwas the first hiff f this error: e were ts native nform-ants.

NOTES1.DavidHume, ssaysMoral,olitical,nd iterary1742, 752),td. nMark alber

Phillips,Relocatingnwardness:istoricalistancend he ransitionrom nlighten-ment oRomanticistoriography,"MLA8 2003): 36-49,42.

2.Gentlemen'sagazine,ovember789,td. nJayne ewis, //rTheorrow f eeingtheQueen7: ary ueen f cots nd he ritish istory f ensibility/'assionaten-countersn Time f ensibility,ds.Maximillianovak ndAnneMellor,Newark,000),194.

3.Henry ome, ord ames, lementsf riticism,vols.Edinburgh765),:95-96.4.Phillips,41.5.John tuart ill, ReviewfCarlyle'she renchevolution,"ssaysnFrenchis-

tory ndHistorianseds.John .RobsonndJohn .Cairns,Toronto,985),35.6.Benedettoroce td. n R. G.Collingwood,he dea fHistory,d.Jan ander

DussenOxford,994),99. ee alsoCroce, istorys the tory f iberty, rans. ylviaSpriggeIndianapolis,000).



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7.Collingwood,97.8. Eric obsbawm,td. n ngaClendinnen,TheHistory uestion: hoOwns hePast?" uarterlyssay3 2006):5.9.Clendinnen,0.10.Jane usten, orthangerbbeyLondon,000),0.11.Austen,0.12.Austen,0.13.Austen,2.14.Francis utcheson, n nquirynto he riginalf ur deas fBeautyndVirtue

(London,725),25.15.Hume, Treatisef uman ature,d.L.A. elby-Bigge,Oxford,978),88.16. regening, erformancesMelbourne,996),6.

i/. Andrewonnson, ig rotner aator eaitnrnousemates, ne naepenaent,uJune 004,.18.Hermioneyre, The Interview,"hendependent,0June 004,.19.BenedictuseSpinoza,thics16 7), rans. ndrew oylendG.H. R.Parkinson

(London,993),3.20. pinoza,4.21. pinoza,46.22. oinoza. 64.23.Thomas agel, Whats It Like oBe a Bat?," he hilosophicaleview3,no.4

(October974):35-50.24.Adam mith, he heoryfMoral entiments1759],ds.D. D.RaphaelndA. L.

Mcfie,Indianapolis,976),17.25.Collingwood,97.26.Collingwood,96.27.Homer, dyssey,rans. eorge hapman 1616]New ork, 000),.708-23.28. amantha ower,AHero f OurTime," ew ork eviewf ooks,8November

2004,.29.Tony orwitz, onfederatesnthe ttic: ispatchesromheUnfinishedivilWar

(New ork, 998),.30.Horwitz,88.31.W.G.Sebald,On the iterary escriptionfTotal estruction,"ampoanto

(London,005),9-90.

Lamb Historical Reenactment

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