History as Romantic Art

IN THE conquest of Mexico William IHickling Prescott found the ideal subject not only for the romantic historian but for his own particular talents. Both the conventions to which he was committed and his own artistic limitations-his prose style, his inability to portray complexity of character or to emphasize precise detail-required a grand subject, confined in time, which would allow him to concentrate on broad traits of personal and national character, on spectacular scenes, and on a simple theme. Although these limitations caused literary and interpretative faults in The Conquest of Mexico, it is an impressive work of art, and a large part of its success depends on Prescott's skillful use of romantic conventions. Since these conventional attitudes and techniques pervade the histories of Prescott and his most illustrious contemporaries, one must recognize the conventional context before attempting an aesthetic evaluation of any single history.' Like the other New England historians of his time, Prescott was a man of letters before he began writing history, and he regarded himself primarily as a man of letters. Although scrupulous in his research, he expressed an enthusiastic attitude toward the Past, responding to ruined sites and ruined empires with the same kind of emotional language that Washington Irving and others had used before him. In his volumes on Ferdinand and Isabella, Mexico, and Peru, he stressed the sentimental value of vanquished or vanishing races; of Moors, Indians, and Jews. He compared his histories to romance, to epic poetry, and in his journals and critical essays he placed heavy emphasis on the

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Characterization (materials science) · CONQUEST · Literature · Romance · Style (visual arts) · Archaeology and Natural History · History · Latin American history and culture · Materials Science

• Border studies as an emergent field of scientific inquiry

  Ellwyn R Stoddard•Journal of Borderlands Studies•1986

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