The supportive voice in the midst of solitude and melancholy
Volney’s génie des tombeaux et des ruines
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11344724 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gerhard Katschnig (0000-0001-9145-6342, Institut für Kulturanalyse, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 958-973 |
| Publication date | 2021-08-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of European Ideas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01916599.2020.1857033 |
| OpenAlex | W3115007877 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 21 |
The article treats the universal history Ruins, or Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (Les ruines ou Méditations sur les révolutions des empires) of the French cultural philosopher Constantin-François Volney (1757–1820). Using a textual, interdisciplinary study, which focuses upon Volney’s complex cultural and historical philosophical contexts, I demonstrate that his primary concern was a nearly 2500 years coherent Europe of tradition and reception: this Europe did not represent a western corner of a larger Asian landmass but, in the late eighteenth century, rather offered the opportunity for a complex and harmonious unity of European peoples under French circumstances. Volney chose the ruins of the desert town of Palmyra as the starting point of his historical and philosophical reflections. As a cultural philosopher of the late Enlightenment, he looks past the divine workings of the course of history in order to take instead the finite, man-made world as his focal interest. The following pages emphasize these reflections on human history that – in the face of a melancholic mode – highlighted the cultural anthropological characteristics and committed them to the promotion of a self-creating future
Art · Chose · Cultural history · Desert (philosophy · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Humanities · Literature · Meditation · Order (exchange · Political science · Sign (mathematics · Sociology · Solitude · Theology · Anthropology · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |