A history of contempt: Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

A vision of history begins with the nature of the author's vision. This essay focuses primarily on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in order to study Edward Gibbon's constant reference to contempt as a form of historical projection. After a glimpse at Gibbon's relation to the history of his own lifetime (Introduction), his way of conceiving the subject of history-writing and the role of the historian is examined in view of the question of authority (Chapter 1). A polemical, even vituperative dimension to his vision of mankind is then discussed, whereby certain groups are bracketed or almost excluded from the human race (Chapter 2). But if the calm passion of contempt is a reaction, it also informs the content of history. The transformations and breakdown of the imperial Roman order can be told as a history whose primary parameter is contempt but which holds out ambiguous possibilities of toleration (Chapter 3). The essay last considers Gibbon's vision of his own modernity as an extension and expression of the same problems, in regards to manners--learning, smiling and social life (Chapter 4), before concluding with brief reflections on his sense of the dignity of human nature.