Nietzsche and Arendt in Casterbridge: Abstract On the Burden of History

The article raises the question whether postmodern attempts to re-write hlstory does not I despde ds best efforts, fall back into the homogenelfy of metanarrative. Sy doing thls, Nietzsehe's crdique of monumental and antiquanan hls tory IS addresse ~ as weil as Gadamer's dlalogieal model of hlstory wrding and the nse of the museumlor arehive as a modern phenomenon. In adddion, I ask whether metanarrative IS avoIdabIe at a/~ an ~ by referring to Walter Sen/amin and Hannah Arendtls image of the pearl diver, make a plea for a critieal engagement wdh the past. In what is commonly known as the "century of the historicai "- the nineteenth century- on English novelist, like many of his Continental counterparts, turned te his ceuntryls Roman past for inspiration. Casterbridge announced old Rome in every st reet alley and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed the dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than a few feet into about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of some fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found Iying on his side, in on oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell, his knees drawn up to his chest, sometimes with the remains of his spear against his arm; a fibula or brooch of bronze upon his chest or forehead; on urn at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge boys and men who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacIe as they passed by. Imaginative inhabitants who would have feit on unpleasantness at the discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were quite unmoved by these hoary shopes. They had lived sa long ago, their time was sa unlike the present, their hopes and motives were sa widely removed from ours, that between them and the living there seem to stretch a gulf toa wide for even a spirit to pass. 1 Nietzsche would have approved of this refusal to be consumed neither by monumental nor antiquarian history. And that is more than con be said of us. For in our era, history hos been reduced to a metanarrative to which i