Balance" and "Excess" as Gibbon's Explanation of the Decline and Fall
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4496464 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gerald J Gruman (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1960 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 75 |
| Publication date | 1960-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History and Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2504258 |
| OpenAlex | W2325516614 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
Every reader of the Decline and Fall has noticed how haphazardly Edward scattered his explanatory remarks amid cascades of glittering narrative prose. And every student has been dismayed by the apparent contradictions between the causative factors cited in one chapter and those he gave in another. It is not surprising that even such scholarly commentators as Low, Robertson and Morison concluded that did not have any overall pattern of interpretation concerning the causes of the decline and fall.1 They all felt that the great historian had kept close to the surface of events and had avoided any philosophic commitment as to cause and effect. J. B. Black, in his well-known study of eighteenth-century historiography, forcefully expressed this position when he wrote, Gibbon was content to set the puppets in motion; he left it to succeeding writers to penetrate behind the scenes and discover the laws which determined the course of events.2 In a recent monograph, Per Fuglum goes beyond previous writers in the formulation of negativist interpretations of the Decline and Fall.3 Not only does Fuglum agree with others that did not have any consistent explanation of the decline and fall, but he also claims that Gibbon's attitude to history actually precluded any such explanation. According to Fuglum's analysis, was objective, detached and empirical and had axe to grind He concludes that sees no meaning in history.5 hI marked contrast to Fuglum's interpretation of is the essay by Curtis.6 Although Curtis concedes that seems to be strangely muddled as to the exact causes of the decline and fall, he strongly rejects the idea that had no axe to grind. Curtis emphasizes the fact that was
Aesthetics · Art · Balance (ability) · Epistemology · Fall of man · Historiography · Interpretation (philosophy) · Literature · Meaning (existential) · Narrative · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,07 |
| Citation span | 1966 - 2005 (40) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |